Strategies on Finding "Free" Award Travel

By Mike Grasso

You've spent months, perhaps even years flying around the country and throughout the world. In return, you've earned yourself a mountain of airline miles. Now it's time to redeem them for "free" award travel. It sounds simple, but rarely is. Consumers, now more than ever, complain the airline frequent flyer programs are limiting availability of "free" seats, forcing customers instead to purchase tickets or fly at inconvenient times. But for the motivated traveler, willing to dedicate time, "free" tickets can still be found. Here are some recommendations:

• If your airline has no award availability, ask them if their alliance partners have any. For instance, if your airline is part of the Star Alliance Network and you want to fly from San Francisco to Frankfurt, check availability on United, U.S. Airways, Continental and Lufthansa. You can even mix and match, such as United to New York-JFK, then Lufthansa onward to Frankfurt. A search for this type of routing and mixed carriers is usually not possible online, therefore you must call your airline to help build you an itinerary.

• Book as far in advance as possible. Many airlines allow award bookings up to 330 days before departure date!

• If at first you don't find award availability, keep on checking. People change their mind and cancel travel plans, which may open up an award seat when you least expect it.

• Be realistic. If you are a family of four and want to redeem tickets on the same flight, your chances are pretty slim. Consider booking two family members on one flight, the other two on a different one. Then, call the airline and ask for the last two family members to be waitlisted on the earlier flight; if seats open up, they can be automatically confirmed - and everyone in the family rides together. Oh Joy!

• Consider First or Business class cabins. People are amazed this is within reach to the masses. The key is to look at your airlines tier system for award travel. For instance, on Delta a "medium" level domestic award ticket in economy costs 40,000 miles, while a "low" level domestic award ticket in First Class can be had for just 5,000 miles more. Although the "low" first class awards are more capacity controlled (harder to find), they are out there, even when coach seats are priced at a premium.

Hopefully these tips are useful and you find a good use for those hard-earned miles.

By the way, the "free" in quotations is intentional. We have long done away with a truly free award ticket. At the very least, most airlines pass on a $10 government fee to customers. Some airlines pass all the taxes, fees and fuel surcharges, which can amount to hundreds of dollars. Nonetheless, it is at least a highly discounted way to travel.

Reader Question: Should I Be Concerned About My Flight Being Oversold?

Q: I booked a trip to the East Coast for Spring Break and the phone agent said it was a really fully flight with only middle seats open. Should I be concerned about the flight becoming oversold? –Sarah in Los Gatos

Overbooking flights is a business practice in which a company sells more of a product than what is on hand. In the airline industry, that means selling more seats on a flight than physically available. There are many reasons why airlines do this, but the bottom line is not everyone is able to keep their original reservation thereby freeing up seats. Using historical records of past flights, the airline forecasts roughly how many people they can oversell a flight, knowing that an equivalent number will not show up. In a perfect world, the two balance each other out and flights leave 100% of capacity. Often this doesn't happen and the plane either leaves less than full, or the gate agent asks for volunteers to surrender their seat in exchange for compensation.

If you don’t like the concept of overbooking, try JetBlue or Virgin America, two airlines who reportedly do not oversell their flights. But even the airlines that do oversell, rarely does it involuntarily disrupt regular travelers who are intent on arriving at their destination – without delay. In the rare instance an airline is unable to find volunteers for a flight, only then does the airline involuntarily deny boarding to one or more unlucky folks. This latter scenario automatically gets reported to the federal government, who tracks the frequency airlines involuntarily disrupt travelers confirmed itineraries, to ensure they remain a relatively rare event.

Northwest WorldPerks Program Changes for 2009

In an email to subscribers, Northwest Airlines announced changes to Worldperks, the airlines frequent flyer program. Many of the changes rolling out over the next couple months are as a result of the merger between Northwest and Delta. Here are some of the key changes to the program:

First the good news: Beginning in February, Worldperks members who also have a DeltaSky miles account will be able to transfer base miles between the two accounts. Also, effective immediately, customers flying Delta-operated flights will earn you Northwest elite-qualifying miles.

And the not so good: On January 15, The airline will introduce a third mileage award level and synchronised award mileage requirements with Delta. The added level sits between the PerkSaver and PerkPass. For a standard domestic award redemption, for example, award requirements will be displayed as 12,500, 20,000 and 30,000 for one-way travel, based on a round-trip award ticket purchase. Availability will range from highly limited-capacity controlled up to unlimited availability on all flights - depending on the award tier you choose. In summary, the more points you want to spend, the more flight choices made available to you. Many industry experts feel the addition of the third tier will nearly wipe out award availability at the lowest award tiers.

The simply bad news: Northwest jumps on board with other airlines by instituting a close-in ticketing fee for award travel. Starting January 15th, the airline will charge between $75 and $150 if you decide to book any award travel within 21-days of departure date. Airlines claim award availability tends to open up near the departure date as airlines realize they cannot fill the plane with revenue passengers. Accessing this "last minute" (21-days or less) inventory will now cost you. 

These changes are in addition to previously announced 9-29% hikes in the miles required to fly certain routes that start January 15th. 

Reader Question: How Full Will The Flight Be?

Question: "...My flight is next week and I want to know whether the flight will be full, or if I might get an empty middle seat. How can I tell?"

Answer: Thanks for the email. Actually your question has two parts. Let's first tackle the empty middle seat question. Based on your writing, I'm assuming you are flying a plane that includes a configuration of 3 seats in a row, and you are hoping for an empty middle one. Aren't we all! =) It's impossible to determine whether you will have an empty middle seat because seat changes can occur at any time, including at the gate. Not until the boarding door closes can you be certain to score an empty seat next to you.

If you are curious about how full the flight is overall, which can sometimes give you an educated guess whether middle seats will be occupied, there are a couple ideas:

First, check the airline seatmaps. Many airlines allow you to pull up your reservation on their website, then modify your seat assignment. Here you can get a general idea of how full the plane might be.

Some cautions though. Some people have confirmed reservations but no seats assigned yet. The airline may block certain seats because they are carrying extra cargo and don't want to fill every seat with passengers (weight restrictions). The airline may also block seats for security reasons, for high-status passengers, or for airport check-in only. All that taken into consideration, it may be tough for an accurate appraisal of how full the flight will be simply by looking at the seatmaps.

Second, check the class availability of your flight. This will give you an idea of how many tickets the airline is still selling (and their respective fare class). Many cheap seats still available could be a sign the flight is not full. Reversely, if you see the flight is nearly sold out, then expect a cramped flight (or perhaps lots of cargo).

In summary, using both the strategies above could help in determining the flight load, but factoring in variables such as last minute flight cancellations, displaced passengers/crew and stand-by customers, a simple guess might be just as accurate.

Air Canada Dropping Sacramento to Vancouver Route

According to the Sacramento Bee, Air Canada will be dropping twice-daily flights between Sacramento and Vancouver effective October 25th. Citing record high fuel prices and a mild recession, the airline will slash overall U.S-Canada capacity by 13%. In addition to the Sacramento loss, the airline will cut seasonal flights between San Francisco and Montreal this fall.

Playing Markets That Trade Miles

(New York Times)
ANY traveler who has tried to redeem frequent flier miles for an award seat, only to be thwarted by blackout dates or limited availability, knows that attractive alternatives are hard to come by. You could spend miles for magazine subscriptions, donate them to charity or, in a few cases, purchase merchandise in an exchange that often doesn’t quite add up (17,000 miles for a coffee maker?). Click here to read the rest of the article

How Changes In The Airline Industry May Affect You

By Mike Grasso

The past few months have been turbulent ones for the airline industry. Put simply, the airlines are shrinking. We already lost Aloha, ATA, and SkyBus - among others. Remaining airlines are finding ways to "trim the fat" and find reasonable ways to limit costs/increase revenue while being hammered with record high oil prices. These changes will affect most passengers in some form.

Reuters has reported that more than 50 towns and small across the United States will reportedly loose airline service alltogether by 2009. Existing service to major cities, including right here in the Bay Area will be trimmed where necessary. Having a plane 80% full was the industry gold standard, now the bar has been raised. The airlines can no longer sustain flying planes 20% empty with the current cost of crude oil at all time highs. This means you can plan on flying fuller plans in the future. On average, that empty middle seat will now be filled with a warm body.

A method the airlines will use to ensure fuller flights is to limit the number of daily flights to particular cities. For example, City A to City B may have previously operated 6 daily flights, that may be cut down to 5. It may seem insignificant, but if the demand is the same, you can bet those 5 flights will operate near capacity, not to mention cost you more.

Fewer flights mean that during irregular operations, such as weather or mechanical cancellations, finding another flight to standby on will become more difficult. On the other hand, fewer flights may help already congested airports, such as Chicago's O'Hare, and get flights off the ground sooner.

You can also expect that your airline ticket price includes a seat and few other amenities.
American Airlines for example announced plans to charge $15 to check in your first bag. They also announced a $5 fee to book award travel on their website. U.S Air and United are now charging $150+ to make changes on non-refundable tickets. The cost of alcohol and food on some airlines is also climbing. Expect other fees in the future, and adjustments to existing ones.

Finally, frequent flyer miles. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I am an advocate for using your miles. The airlines will continue to find methods to devalue your frequent flyer account, or resort to options limiting the number of new miles you can accrue, such as a recent policy change by United & U.S Air eliminating the 500 mile minimum rule on short-haul flights.

Although it may not sound it, I am an ally of the airlines. They are under extreme pressure to change a business model that is simply not working in this high-price-of-fuel environment. They are making adjustments the best they can, and ultimately some of these decisions will impact all of us during future travels.

Continental Shrinks; Cutting Jobs, Reducing Capacity

Following in the footsteps of American, Delta and United, Continental airlines today announced they will cut domestic capacity a full 16% and cut 3,000 jobs. “The airline industry is in a crisis,” two company executives said in a message to employees. “Its business model doesn’t work with the current price of fuel and the existing level of capacity in the marketplace. We need to make changes in response.” The airline will also reportedly retire 67 Boeing aircraft as part of the downsizing.
More from the New York Times.

Purchasing Miles From the Airline - The Pros & Cons

By Mike Grasso

Purchasing airline miles directly from the airline is often a terrible method of accruing miles, both economically and practically. Some exceptions are noted later. First, the airlines usually price these miles at a premium, valued far higher than earning miles by most other means (flying, car rentals, credit cards, etc.)
For example, United Airlines will sell you 10,000 miles for $303 dollars. That $300 bucks could easily fly you to New York City for the weekend, and you'd earn 10,000 miles in the process. Therefore, there is no direct value added when buying miles from the airline.

Second, redeeming miles into a capacity controlled frequent flier program means the airline will limit your redemption opportunities on days, flights or routes it chooses. If it's a popular route, high-season, or holiday, you will have a tough time finding availability. They would rather sell expensive tickets than fill the plane up with people redeeming miles. And guess what? You are not the only person trying to redeem miles on a flight. Many people are competing for what is often limited overall availability. Thus, buying premium-priced miles for use on low-value flights with the added uncertainly seats will even be offered by the airline, isn't very practical.

But, buying airline miles can be situationally helpful. If you are 1000 miles short of 50,000 - enough for a free economy ticket to Europe, you may want to fork up the $50-$60 cost. In this case, call the airline first - check for award redemption availability before buying miles.

Another example is maybe you are 5,000 miles short of 90,000 - enough to fly Business Class on Singapore Airlines to Asia. The true value of that business class ticket is probably $6,000 or more. Paying $150 to cover your miles shortfall does seem tempting. Again, check for availability of award seats.

Lastly, as if they airline doesn't already have a strong-hold on these frequent flier programs already; buying miles is not a real-time exchange. United Airlines says it can take up to 48 hours to post to your account, American Airlines up to 72 hours. So while you are waiting for those purchased miles to post to your account, award availability may vanish from under your eyes. If you are in a situation like this, call the airline first, explain your scenario. They may do a courtesy hold if you provide them with your confirmation number of your miles purchase.