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Booking award ticket before booking cruise?


Zoey
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I really wanted to take a particular late-fall transatlantic from Rome to Ft. Lauderdale, but due to my maddening procrastination, and after looking at it and pondering for a month or so, the cruise fare almost doubled!

 

 

I know often the price drops following final payment, which in this instance won't be until around the first week of September. I recently read on CC that another person did the same thing but went ahead and booked his frequent flyer ticket, knowing the worst that could happen if the cruise sold out or price didn't drop, would be the $150 airline fee to redeposit the miles to his account. I lost the thread and can't find it so I don't know how it turned out for him, or if he even said how it turned out.

 

 

I'm considering doing the same thing since right now I can get a one-way ticket to Rome for 40,000 miles and don't want it to go way up like the cruise price did.

 

 

Any thoughts?

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Do some simple game theory analysis. What's the upside and the downside to your possible courses of action? What's the likelihood of each scenario? Crunch the numbers to figure out what's the best strategy FOR YOU. Doesn't require a lot of figuring, but it does bring in to play your own risk tolerances, financial elasticity and personal preferences.

 

What might be a great strategy for my value system might be completely wrong for your evaluation.

 

And this is just one example of cost-benefit decision making in everyday life.

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I I recently read on CC that another person did the same thing but went ahead and booked his frequent flyer ticket, knowing the worst that could happen if the cruise sold out or price didn't drop, would be the $150 airline fee to redeposit the miles to his account. I lost the thread and can't find it so I don't know how it turned out for him, or if he even said how it turned out.

 

 

I'm considering doing the same thing since right now I can get a one-way ticket to Rome for 40,000 miles and don't want it to go way up like the cruise price did.

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

You probably want to check what the cancellation penalties are with the loyalty program your in. These tend to be different from airline to airline.

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40,000 miles for a one way economy ticket seems high. Must be on DL.

If you need to cancel, you just pay the redeposit fee. You don’t name your airline, or say if you have any FF status, so can’t comment on the cost.

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You probably want to check what the cancellation penalties are with the loyalty program your in. These tend to be different from airline to airline.

 

Indeed, and within frequent flyer status levels for each airline. Some airlines allow cancellations and miles redeposit at no cost if you're mid/top tier flyer..

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Thanks for the responses. Yes, I can live without the TA if I can't get a decent solo fare. I'll just change my plans and do another itinerary. Delta's cancellation fee of an award ticket, and redepositing the miles, is $150 but must be cancelled at least 72 hours prior to departure. The 40,000 miles to Rome is Delta comfort. Is that too high? I thought it seemed like a decent deal since the last time I paid for a ticket to Rome in 2008, I paid almost a thousand dollars...but it was r/t and not one-way. Thanks again for the tips and thoughts.

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... the last time I paid for a ticket to Rome in 2008, I paid almost a thousand dollars...but it was r/t and not one-way.
Frequent flyer tickets are sometimes a good solution for one-way long-haul travel, because one-way cash tickets can be very expensive compared to round-trip tickets. So you may find that you're getting good value for your miles here.

 

Although OT, another facet of this is that cruise line air travel can also sometimes be a good solution in the same situation, even if one takes the view that normally it would be better to buy the air travel independently.

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You can get a one way US-Europe Saver Award ticket on AA for 22,500 miles. In comparison, 40,000 miles seems high. It’s just how you value the miles. I’d check cruise air for this one.

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I purchased Air with FF miles first on Delta and then booked the cruise a few months later. I watched FF pricing for LAX to AMS for weeks, then the minute the booking window opened I was ready. I got 2 business class tickets for 125,000 miles each. The next day the price went up dramatically. Flights were great and it made for a very affordable 3 week European cruise! That was the only time I used that strategy and it worked for us.

 

Karen

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Why not do some dummy bookings to check how many seats are available on reward points? Either on your day of choice or a for a few days prior. Or even from an alternate European destination that allows you to get to Rome easily. Perhaps Milan. Or, is there reward ticket availablity on partner airlines?

 

If there is, why not wait for a while. Cruise prices go up and down. You may find that your target cruise has a price decrease as sudden as the increase.

 

Alternatively, and this is what we often do, is narrow you selection down to two or three ships on similar dates with a similar itinerary. Or perhaps a TA that commences in Barcelona. When your price hits, book. If you do not yet have air ask for an 8 hour hold. We have had this hold courtesy extended by several cruise lines. Then you have time to lock down your air and finalize the cruise.

 

Don't fret. Do a little research, get some additional data, and them make a decision based upon your risk tolerance. We have done this a few time on Med cruises. It always seemed to work out.

Edited by iancal
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I purchased Air with FF miles first on Delta and then booked the cruise a few months later. I watched FF pricing for LAX to AMS for weeks, then the minute the booking window opened I was ready. I got 2 business class tickets for 125,000 miles each. The next day the price went up dramatically. Flights were great and it made for a very affordable 3 week European cruise! That was the only time I used that strategy and it worked for us.

 

Karen

 

I just got KLM business class LAX to AMS in October for 62,500 miles and the redeposit fee is only 45€ - much cheaper than what Delta charges. Always better to jump on miles when you can and then book the cruise. You can always redeposit the miles for a nominal charge if you dont go.

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We just got our Atlanta to London for 45K miles plus $5 on Delta Comfort, I thought it was a good deal. When you have to fly out of Atlanta, and pretty much have to use Delta, you work with what you have!

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We just got our Atlanta to London for 45K miles plus $5 on Delta Comfort, I thought it was a good deal. When you have to fly out of Atlanta, and pretty much have to use Delta, you work with what you have!

 

FWIW, BA and Virgin Atlantic also fly that route non-stop. The latter are close partners with Delta.

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When you have to fly out of Atlanta, and pretty much have to use Delta, you work with what you have!

 

There are many many other options for flying out of ATL. But if you mean:

 

1) I want to fly non-stop, or

2) I want to use SkyPesos

 

Then you are much more limited.

 

In re #1, as fbgd mentioned, there are three airlines flying ATL-LHR non-stop. And many more with a single connection.

 

In re #2 - even here, you don't have to use DL, as there are many other SkyTeam options for using SkyPesos across the Atlantic, including AirFrance, KLM, Alitalia, Virgin Atlantic, AeroMexico and even Aeroflot.

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We just got our Atlanta to London for 45K miles plus $5 on Delta Comfort, I thought it was a good deal. When you have to fly out of Atlanta, and pretty much have to use Delta, you work with what you have!

 

When I say "have to use Delta", I did somewhat misspeak, I should have more accurately said that we pretty much have to use Delta or a codeshare partner - on a trip to France in 2017 we flew Air France and much preferred that to "true" Delta.

Also, when I say "have to use Delta", we don't actually live in Atlanta, and at our home airport, our choices are quite limited outside of Delta (maybe 5 other carriers, no low cost except very recently, like yesterday, service to Orlando only) those 5 carriers have maybe a total of 10 flights per day, vs Delta has 6 flights per day by itself. Because of that, we have chosen for many years to have a Sky Miles card, and accumulated lots of miles.

 

Yes, we could have flown around the world (12 hours and a stop in Dallas?!) to get to London and saved 5000 miles, but I didn't see any offer for 20K miles on any of Delta or Delta partners, and for 5000 miles a person, I will take the direct flight, thank you.

 

 

I will say this though, if I was starting out today to get a particular credit card to accumulate FF miles, I would highly consider Capital One because miles apply to any carrier, especially if I lived in or close to a large market with good airline competition. In our situation 40-45K miles for a trip to London in Premium Economy or what ever they call it, is a win.

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Also, when I say "have to use Delta", we don't actually live in Atlanta, and at our home airport, our choices are quite limited outside of Delta (maybe 5 other carriers, no low cost except very recently, like yesterday, service to Orlando only) those 5 carriers have maybe a total of 10 flights per day, vs Delta has 6 flights per day by itself.
If you mean Mobile airport, then looking at next week I see the following:-

  • 7 a day to Atlanta on Delta (5 on Sat and Sun);
  • 3 a day to Charlotte on American Airlines;
  • 3 a day to Dallas/Fort Worth on American Airlines;
  • 1 a day to Chicago O'Hare on United;
  • 5 a day to Houston Intercontinental on United (4 on Tue and Sun).

I thought I should be specific about having checked next week as it's possible that the holiday on 28 May may affect frequencies around then.

 

So AA (42) and UA (40) actually have almost as many frequencies from MOB as DL does (45), and there is one day of the week when DL has fewer flights than either of the other two.

 

It may be that DL still provides the most practical options for the kind of travel that you do, but it doesn't sound fair to say that your non-DL choices are "quite limited".

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I will say this though, if I was starting out today to get a particular credit card to accumulate FF miles, I would highly consider Capital One because miles apply to any carrier, especially if I lived in or close to a large market with good airline competition. In our situation 40-45K miles for a trip to London in Premium Economy or what ever they call it, is a win.

 

ASSUMPTION ALERT!!!

 

What Capital One calls "miles" is a FAR cry from the "miles" that you accrue into an airline FF account.

 

With a CapOne card, you get their own proprietary "miles". These are not transferable into FF miles, but are rather just "points" that can be applied to travel spending. But here's the rub.

 

They hype "double miles" and that is true. You get 2 CapOne "miles" for every dollar of spend. However, you don't redeem them like an airline mile. What they are used for is to offset purchases you make with the card. If you choose to offset a non-travel purchase, you only get the value of $0.005 per point. So your effective rebate is 1% per dollar of spend. If you choose to offset a travel purchase, each "point" has a value of $0.01, so the effective rebate is 2% per dollar of spend.

 

You will always get that value. But that means that there is no leverage to take advantage of award values that are worth more than 2% of spend.

 

To get 45,000 DL miles, you would spend $45,000. That same spend would get you 90,000 CapOne "miles". Now, the CapOne value for those miles is a fixed $900. Would that DL ticket cost you more or less than $900?? If the answer is less, you would do better with CapOne, since you would only use the amount of miles needed to offset the purchase price. If the answer is more, DL miles are better, since you are getting more value than the 2% per dollar of spend.

 

And additional factor is that the CapOne "miles" are not limited to one airline, nor for when there is award inventory. It's just a fixed rebate award, and your flight cost in "miles" is a direct function of the cost of the ticket. Whether that is worth giving up leveraged awards is something only you can decide.

 

So....it's not as clear-cut as one might think. CapOne highlights the "any airline, any flight" aspect....but you can get that same 2% back on some cash rebate cards and not have to use it for travel. And you can't use a 100,000 FF miles award to get a ticket that costs (for example) $4000 (thus with an effective rebate of 4%). And FWIW, my highest return on a FF ticket was a 100,000 mile redemption for a ticket that would retail for $10,950 (an effective rebate of almost 11%).

 

 

Caveat Emptor.

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