Redeeming Miles for Award Travel Can Be Challenging

A piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution over the weekend highlights the challenges travelers face attempting to redeem frequent flyer miles for free flights. Specifically mentioned is Delta Airlines, recently rated 2nd to last out of 22 airlines, for award travel redemptions at the 25,000 mile level. Read more.

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.

Should I Purchase an Air Ticket or Use Frequent Flyer Miles?

By Mike Grasso

"Should I purchase an airline ticket or redeem frequent flyer miles?" How many times I hear this question asked. Unfortunately, there is no single right answer. But let me offer some thoughts:

-If you are booking the trip "last minute" such as within a few weeks of travel: Some airlines may charge up to $100 for redeeming miles last minute.

-If your travel plans might change: Often you are allowed free date/time changes on award travel tickets (but not city or routing changes). Few purchased tickets allow fee-free changes.

-If you are flying to/from smaller regional airports: These fares often, though not always, cost more than through larger cities with more competition. It might make more sense to redeem miles if there is availability.

-If you want to earn banked and/or elite qualifying miles for your flight: Then you should buy your ticket. Typically you don't earn miles on award travel flights.

Then there is the cost factor. This will vary by person. Some people think 25,000 miles (the amount required for a free roundtrip domestic flight) is worth around $300, and will therefore use miles if the cost of a ticket is ~$300 or more. On the other hand, if the family budget is running a little tight this month, maybe redeeming miles makes good sense, regardless the price of the ticket. Again, this is more an individual/situational decision.

Travel Tool for Star Alliance Members Booking Award Travel

By Mike Grasso

If you accrue miles with a Star Alliance carrier such as United or U.S. Airways, you probably have a goal at some point to cash in those miles. Today I'd like to recommend an amazing resource (hat off to the Flyertalk forums) I've used for quite some time enabling a quick and easy search for award seats.

First, a good reminder that you are not limited to redeeming with the airline you bank your miles with. Generally you can redeem with others within the alliance. For example, you have a mountain of miles with United Airlines which can be used on Singapore, Lufthansa, and Continental, to name a few. But how do you know award availability on these partner airlines? Often, your "sponsoring" carrier may have website limitations showing award availability of Star Alliance partners. So here's the workaround (other than just calling the airline):

-Join ANA's Mileage Club (free).

-Visit the award availability page.

-After logging in, select the "Use Star Alliance Members" button

From here, you can search award availability for most Star Alliance members worldwide. This is particularly useful when trying to build a complicated itinerary, or one in which you desire some creative routing's. This tool is good preparation, homework if you will, before contacting the airline directly to book your award ticket. Too often phone reps don't take the time to search all possible options (ie: something as simple as routing from Oakland, if no seats are available from San Francisco).

A word of caution though: Although results showing availability are generally accurate, there may be a few instances when they are not bookable. For an interesting, long discussion on this problem, read this Flyertalk forum on StarNet blocking. In sum, use the ANA award availability page as a tool in your award search, but realize occasionally availability and bookability may be slightly off from each other.

Full URL for award availability tool linked above:

https://aswbe-i.ana.co.jp/p_per/sky_ip_per_en/preAwdSearchLogin.do

Redeem 5,000 Delta Miles for a $50 Gift Card

-See updates below-

The most obvious way of redeeming air miles is to use them for "free" award flights. But, if you can't find award availability, or you just don't have the minimum required for a flight, Delta has a new option: Redeem them for gift cards.

You can select a $50 gift card for every 5,000 miles redeemed. That's a 1:1 ratio, a fairly good value for the consumer. Select from a variety of familiar brands, such as Macy's, Barnes and Noble and Old Navy. Visit marketplace.delta.com for more information and to redeem.

Update- Got a few emails on this; the system was down for "maintenance" Tuesday evening, and it's now back up. Surprise: Seems they also upped the redemption's to 8,000 miles for a $50 gift card. Unsure if the discount was temporary, or if they became overwhelmed with redemption's since the deal was posted on sites such as fatwallet and ebates. This is definitely not as good of an offer as before.

U.S. Senator Calls for Probe of Frequent Flier Programs

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is calling for a federal review of complaints by consumers that they are losing millions of frequent flier miles without notice in confusing agreements.

Schumer wants to establish industry rules for frequent flier programs that are billed as a free benefit to help attract and retail customers. There are few restrictions now on how airlines can manage and redeem the miles. Read more.

Ideas on Redeeming Low Balance Frequent Flyer Accounts

By Mike Grasso

I'm often asked what to do with a few thousand miles stored in a frequent flier account. Since most airlines require 25,000 miles for a free domestic award redemption, it may take quite some time to bump that mileage balance high enough for a free flight. One idea is to redeem miles for a magazine or newspaper subscription, which require as little as 400 miles.

Here are some examples:


Magazine subscriptions
-12 issues of Conde Nast Traveler for 600 miles AAdvantage miles
-12 issues of Wired for 400 SkyMiles
-50 issues of Business Week for 1600 AAdvantage miles

Newspaper subscriptions (mileage may vary by market)
-8 weeks of the San Francisco Chronicle (7X weekly) for 1534 SkyMiles, 1840 AAdvantage miles or 2300 MileagePlus miles.
-39 weeks of the Wall Street Journal (6X weekly) for 2626 AAdvantage miles or 3282 MileagePlus miles.

Many airlines also allow you to redeem miles for dining certificates and airport lounge access. You can even donate small sums of miles to charity. To take advantage of these and other offers visit your airline's frequent flyer page to view all redemption opportunities.

American Airlines Now Offering One-Way Award Redemptions

Beginning today, American Airlines customers will be able to redeem one-way award travel for half the miles of a round-trip. Currently, all other major U.S carriers permit one-way award travel, either by booking a one-way trip or simply not utilizing the return segment, but the airlines still charged customers as if it were a round-trip. Now, for example, a one-way flight from San Francisco to Boston is available for as little as 12,500 miles. 

Here are some benefits: 

-It's great for people who don't have a mountain of miles in their AAdvantage account, but have enough to cover mileage for one direction.

-You can opt to use miles for the direction in which airfare is high, then purchase a separate one-way ticket for the less expensive direction. 

-You can redeem miles to fly into one city, and redeem miles to return from a different city. 

(Example: San Jose-Dallas and Austin-San Jose). 

-You can mix and match classes of service and book multi-segments on a particular trip. 

Here is one drawback:

-There are fees associated with some award travel, which essentially could double if you book two separate one-way tickets. Those fees include close-in processing fees (booking award travel within 21 days of departure), and re-deposit fees should you decide to cancel your trip. 

Options For Low Balance Frequent Flier Accounts

Perhaps you flew an airline once and never plan to again, or maybe you just don't fly that often. Those pesky frequent flier miles sitting around with only a few thousand miles may actually be worth something. Though you are probably far short of a free trip, many airlines allow you to redeem miles for other products and services, such as car rentals, magazines and gift cards. Visit your airlines frequent flier homepage to discover redemption opportunities other than flights.

Remember, most airlines require a transaction (earn or redeem miles) to your frequent flier account within a 18-24 month period, otherwise you risk loosing the account completely.

Starwood Preferred Guest Introduces SPG Flights

Starwood Hotels and Resorts and its award winning hotel loyalty program Starwood Preferred Guest launched yet another enhancement to an already generous program.

Since 1999, SPG members have been able to redeem Starpoints with a no blackout date policy, and not subjected to a policy that limits the number of rooms set aside for redemption. Now, you can use Starpoints for flights, with any carrier, and still no blackout dates. Therefore, you can utilize Starpoints for both your airline reservation and hotel stay. And best of all, in most cases you can still collect frequent flier miles with the airline.

Examples of Starpoints to airline ticket conversion:
10,000 Starpoints allows up to a $150 airline ticket
15,000 Starpoints allows up to a $215 airline ticket
20,000 Starpoints allows up to a $280 airline ticket
25,000 Starpoints allows up to a $345 airline ticket
(there are several higher tiers available as well)

Starwood continues to offer a points-to-miles deal which allows members to convert 20,000 Starpoints to 25,000 frequent flier miles with many airlines (Starwood chips in the extra 5,000). But with capacity controls in place, the airlines have tightened up the number of seats released for award redemption, and simply having enough miles to redeem doesn't guarantee a "free" seat will be offered by the airline. Plus, unlike this new Star Flights program, you don't earn miles when you redeem airline miles.

Therefore, using this new SPG Flights program with Starwood Hotels and Resorts receives 2 thumbs up from inFLIGHTout. This is truly one of the best loyalty programs in the travel industry.



How do you earn some quick Starpoints? The Starwood Preferred Guest card from American Express earns you 10,000 Starpoints after your first purchase, with an option to earn an additional 15,000 points for spending $15,000 during the first six months. Plus you earn 1 point for each dollar purchased on the card.

Custom Luggage Tags for 1000 WorldPerks Miles

Wondering what to do with a small number of Northwest WorldPerks miles in your account? If you aren't planning on earning enough for free award travel, or you just want to use up your remaining miles, consider a pair of customized luggage tags for only 1000 miles. Simply visit http://www.nwatagyourbag.com/ choose one of several stock photos or upload your own, then enter up to 4 lines of text on your tags. Shipping & handling are included.
Thanks to N301dp at flyertalk for posting this deal.

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