Jump to content

Companies That Find Flights Using Points


Trunkabella
 Share

Recommended Posts

I am hoping that some of you can help with advice for obtaining flights with award points.

 

My first question relates to companies that offer to find flights using award points for a fee.

 

1. Have you used them and were they able to find flights that were satisfactory in terms of flight times, points required and the fees charged?

 

2. Are there companies that you would recommend, or conversely, those that should be avoided?

 

3. If you use their services, will they work with you over a period of time? For example, if you contact them as soon as the flight booking window opens, are you obligated to take whatever they come up with? Or, can you decide that you would like to wait a few months to see if saver seats become available?

 

My second question relates to Chase Sapphire. Both my husband and I have accumulated a number of Ultimate Rewards points. I only have a frequent flyer account with United. Should I open an account with all of the transfer partner airlines so as to be able to jump on award seats, or is that not necessary?

 

Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and advice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am hoping that some of you can help with advice for obtaining flights with award points.

 

My first question relates to companies that offer to find flights using award points for a fee.

 

1. Have you used them and were they able to find flights that were satisfactory in terms of flight times, points required and the fees charged?

 

2. Are there companies that you would recommend, or conversely, those that should be avoided?

 

3. If you use their services, will they work with you over a period of time? For example, if you contact them as soon as the flight booking window opens, are you obligated to take whatever they come up with? Or, can you decide that you would like to wait a few months to see if saver seats become available?

 

My second question relates to Chase Sapphire. Both my husband and I have accumulated a number of Ultimate Rewards points. I only have a frequent flyer account with United. Should I open an account with all of the transfer partner airlines so as to be able to jump on award seats, or is that not necessary?

 

Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and advice.

 

Take a look at www.FlyerTalk.com and their sub-forum on Awards Booking Services.

 

There are discussions of experiences PLUS a list of those who are advertising (by replying on the forum) that they offer this service.

 

We have had terrific experience for premium international flights (which is where the best "value" for points can usually be found).

 

Thus far, we've always been able to get First Class (including from Asia on Cathay - what an experience... we didn't want to get off the plane!)

 

My first serious attempt to get awards tix was with JL (Japan Airlines), where I got two F seats on the first try.

So... I got spoiled.

I had zero luck for the return.

 

I was about that time noticing the FlyerTalk forum about these services, so I contacted one, and we were *VERY* cautious, and worried that these were scams.

 

But most (?) of them seem to state that unless they find you a routing that is acceptable, you don't have to pay anything.

 

Anyway, it worked beautifully, and we couldn't be more satisfied.

 

We've now done this several times.

A few times, we select J (business) class, while we wait hoping that more awards seats will open in F. So far, that has happened each time, but we can't count on that.

 

What types of tickets/destinations are you searching for?

Some are easier to get than others, no surprise.

 

We have no experience with Chase Sapphire.

The two programs we use are AAdvantage Miles and Amex Plat Membership Rewards. We've had the best outcomes using the AAdvantage miles/points on the *partner* airlines, not on AA itself.

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hopefully Gardyloo will find this..as he is the best to answer your questions regarding the point booking service companies.

 

But, it might help those might be able to help you....just what are you trying to accomplish? The service companies might be overkill for some “wished for” tickets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, GC. I will read the FT thread.

 

Buggins, I am planning early for a trip to Australia/NZ in 2020. It will be a land trip. I am asking questions on Cruise Critic because I respect the knowledge of many of the frequent posters on this board. I’ve learned a lot “lurking” on this site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's the current thread on Flyertalk - https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools/1296363-award-booking-services-list-some-reviews.html . Warning, it's currently 43 pages long. If your planned trip isn't until 2020, you've got plenty of time for self-education.

 

I'd probably start by picking one or two of the services and communicating with them regarding their batting averages, and follow their advice on when and with who you should/could open mileage accounts. Obviously you're not going to use Southwest miles for travel to Australia; I'd probably open accounts with at least one member of each of the major alliances (for example BA, United and Korean for Oneworld, Star Alliance and Skyteam respectively.) Generally, if an award seat opens on a flight it will likely be available to partner redemptions, although it's very important to note that some carriers (for example Qantas) open their availability windows a month before everyone else in the alliance.

 

The other thing I'd be looking at is what the mileage requirements (saver v. "any time") would be with some of the candidate airlines, and keep tabs on your Chase balance(s.) Having seats become available when you're just a little short of the needed points can be frustrating; by the time you've bought the extra points the seats have vanished.

 

One last thing, if you're thinking about traveling in premium cabins to Australia/NZ during the southern summer, or really anytime, be aware that transpacific business class redemptions are just about the toughest award tickets to get that there are. Be sure to have a Plan B and maybe Plans C and D in your pocket.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, GC. I will read the FT thread.

 

Buggins, I am planning early for a trip to Australia/NZ in 2020. It will be a land trip. I am asking questions on Cruise Critic because I respect the knowledge of many of the frequent posters on this board. I’ve learned a lot “lurking” on this site.

 

Premium cabin or economy? It might make a difference for those that can answer. Knowing it is land, also will help...but are you locked into dates? Are you willing (ie have the time) to stop off somewhere else on the way there or back and pay some flights on the other side of the world if you are short on miles? Do you have any hotel miles that can be combined for flight points?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Premium cabin or economy? It might make a difference for those that can answer. Knowing it is land, also will help...but are you locked into dates? Are you willing (ie have the time) to stop off somewhere else on the way there or back and pay some flights on the other side of the world if you are short on miles? Do you have any hotel miles that can be combined for flight points?

 

We've been able to be pretty flexible with the actual travel dates, and that helps a LOT.

Also, we were willing to use more than one airline, not matter what the destination, and likewise, flexible in the route (where to change planes, etc.).

 

But yes, if you could let us know what class of service you are thinking about, we could perhaps make some other suggestions.

 

Do you have other awards plans that you are getting points in?

We've found it very helpful to have accumulated lots of points in two different programs. Although there is some overlap, for the most part, each program gives us access to quite different airlines.

And you'd need those points in advance for the best chance at getting preferred seats.

Although there *can be* last minute availability, we'd hate to be fretting as travel time approached, and not yet have *something* in hand.

 

If you need to accumulate a lot of points between now and 2020 (it's not that far away, actually, especially if early in 2020), then you might want to focus as much spending as possible on one program, to get enough points, etc.

 

We are thinking about a trip to New Zealand (probably a stop in Australia, if we are already all that way!) in a year or two (or three).

We hear it's beautiful.

 

Do get started with the airline planning.

We've found (Gardyloo and FlyerTalker are far more expert than we are, here) that the best chance to get seats is when the seating first opens up (approx 1 year in advance, but it is NOT exact, and varies) or very close to the flight date (e.g., 2 weeks before).

So our strategy has been to get "something" that will get us where we need to be (and then home, although the return home can usually be a bit more flexible), and then keep watch for something "better", be it F instead of J, or a better route, or shorter connection, or just a preferred airline, etc.

Once we've got "something", then we can relax about it, of course.

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
I am hoping that some of you can help with advice for obtaining flights with award points.

 

My first question relates to companies that offer to find flights using award points for a fee.

 

1. Have you used them and were they able to find flights that were satisfactory in terms of flight times, points required and the fees charged?

 

2. Are there companies that you would recommend, or conversely, those that should be avoided?

 

3. If you use their services, will they work with you over a period of time? For example, if you contact them as soon as the flight booking window opens, are you obligated to take whatever they come up with? Or, can you decide that you would like to wait a few months to see if saver seats become available?

 

My second question relates to Chase Sapphire. Both my husband and I have accumulated a number of Ultimate Rewards points. I only have a frequent flyer account with United. Should I open an account with all of the transfer partner airlines so as to be able to jump on award seats, or is that not necessary?

 

Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and advice.

 

I have a lot of experience using Chase Sapphire points for flights. If you don't have to book for several months, see if you can do this: British Airways has a good deal going with Chase for their BA credit card. I just booked yesterday using the points. My husband and I both got cards, and with regular expenses and paying off our booked cruises early, we managed to get 137,500 points in 3 months. You have to get the "spending" done quickly, because after you reach a bonus points level they make you wait until the next billing cycle to get the points. We applied for the cards in April, and I booked yesterday with our household account (merged points). You can transfer Sapphire points free to your British Airways Executive account, which I did last year when a friend and I did a Med cruise.

 

Yes, sign up for all the airline partners so you can transfer the points quickly. For BA it's instantaneous.

 

I've never used a service, just my Sapphire points and the airline I prefer.

 

I booked my husband and I yesterday with award flights FCO-London Heathrow, then Heathrow - LAX, paid for exit row seats on the short flight, and business class seats to LAX, and the total cost was $765 each.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We head to Tahiti in business with AA miles for 6th time this week. My thoughts:

 

British Airways usually has great award availability but their fuel surcharge is so high that your free seats cost a pretty penny. I would try and avoid them. They also have very poor history of available award availability to Australia. Get a free trial subscription to http://www.expertflyer.com. You can play around and see how you can find available award seats. If your points are in something like Chase the major downside is that the transfer to a frequent flyer program can take anywhere from 1 day to 10 days. If you see available award seats they could be gone by the time your transfer takes place.

 

Expert Flyer has a neat feature whereby you can put in a flight you want and when award seats become available you get an automatic email notification. This is fine for a specific date and flight number but if you have lots of flexibility with many flight options it really does not work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We head to Tahiti in business with AA miles for 6th time this week. My thoughts:

 

British Airways usually has great award availability but their fuel surcharge is so high that your free seats cost a pretty penny. I would try and avoid them. They also have very poor history of available award availability to Australia. Get a free trial subscription to www.expertflyer.com. You can play around and see how you can find available award seats. If your points are in something like Chase the major downside is that the transfer to a frequent flyer program can take anywhere from 1 day to 10 days. If you see available award seats they could be gone by the time your transfer takes place.

 

I have had different experiences with Chase Sapphire and British Airways. I have transferred points to both Southwest and British Airways several times, and the points are in my account in the time it takes me to log out of Chase and log into the airline web site.

 

Also, I've found that BA requires fewer points for it's transatlantic flights into the US. American Airlines requires many more the last time I checked in 2016. I booked award flights in 2017 and recently for 2019, both times for Business Class. I find $700 - $750 per person for Business Class to be an amazing bargain. I priced our flights home from FCO next year at the regular price, and the airfare totaled almost $21,000!!! We are paying $1,531, and that includes seat fees, which I could avoid if I wanted to play seat roulette at check-in.

 

What I particularly like about Sapphire points is they can be converted to a credit on the card. Taking that into account, our net cost between booking and flying in 2019 is about $1,100 total for the two of us, taking into account the statement credits I'll be getting every month until then.

 

By the way, I was notified that a settlement has been reached for a class action lawsuit with British Airways and their overcharging fuel surcharges. Seems they stretched the concept of "you CAN charge them", interpreting it to "we WILL charge them", even when they weren't called for. I opted for cash, but if I wanted to wait to book my 2019 flights I could have had another 12,5000 Avios points credited to my account.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I was very happy with the booking service I used. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I was pretty stuck with dates (I had wiggle room of a few days plus/minus each way, but that was it.) and what class of service you want to fly and what airline. I was looking to fly in suites on both Cathay Pacific and Singapore Air long distances, which would have been an absolute nightmare for me to do myself. I got what I wanted with the dates I wanted for a reasonable fee, and I was very happy. I would do it again if I had a similar situation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was very happy with the booking service I used. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I was pretty stuck with dates (I had wiggle room of a few days plus/minus each way, but that was it.) and what class of service you want to fly and what airline. I was looking to fly in suites on both Cathay Pacific and Singapore Air long distances, which would have been an absolute nightmare for me to do myself. I got what I wanted with the dates I wanted for a reasonable fee, and I was very happy. I would do it again if I had a similar situation.

 

Which airline did you end up being able to get?

F or J?

 

We've have the true luxury of Cathay Pacific F for a 15+ hour flight, and we really did not want to get off the plane :)

 

But we are really eager to try Singapore Suites, especially those newly designed ones. (Yeah, good luck to us getting those...)

That is one time when getting F instead of J would really make a difference to us, just once to try it... but we are obviously not the only ones who feel that way.

 

We had flown to Asia outbound on JL and back on CX. Great experiences and nice comparison. We loved both, but CX was "better", which is not meant to lessen the JL experience at all.

 

Very glad that you got awards seats/beds that you wanted.

We agree that the modest fees are more than worth it.

 

Enjoy!

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I flew from JFK to Hong Kong RT on Cathay in Suites, Hong Kong to Singapore RT in business class, and Singapore to Auckland RT on Singapore Air in Suites. Not sure if I can mention the company name, but it is the award booking company run by Award Wallet. I believe the cost was $175. I stayed 4 nights in Singapore, 3 nights in Auckland before my 22 night cruise that returned there, had a stop ever night in Singapore, and then had 2 nights in Hong Kong. I would have liked to add a 3rd, but that put me arriving the night before Christmas Eve. Both Cathay and Singapore have awesome suites, although I feel Cathay has better food. Cathay has a more open suite, and you can completely shut yourself off from the world in Singapore. I probably won't be able to do it again, it cost a ton of points, but I don't regret it at all!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never used an award booking service before, but I've given it serious thought. I like to do it myself. But I enjoy it. And I'm usually planning pretty straightforward itineraries without stopovers. But I have to book for 4, which adds complexity.

 

For planning home run type award trips -- and Australia in the summer for more than 1 passenger is definitely in this category -- here are the things you'd need to be a master of in order to have a decent chance of scoring tickets: (1) When do routes open on the various programs in which I have miles or to which I can transfer miles. (2) What programs allow one way and which require round trip. (3) What are the routing rules of various programs (for Australia primarily this means understanding that AA will not let you transit through Asia). (4) What are the plusses and minuses of booking X flight with Y partner's miles.

 

If that sounds daunting, this is really the value that an award booking service adds. The good ones know the answer to all these questions. They also know about routes that are a bit less known. And which programs allow award holds.

 

So, just to give a sense of the inter-relationship of all of these, I recently booked a trip to Australia for a family of four over the holidays which is really really hard to do. I started checking a year out. For star alliance, I knew that Aeroplan's search engine usually opens up 356 days in advance around midnight Toronto time -- though sometimes they load inventory the next day or the day after. So, using this knowledge, and clicking exactly 356 days in advance, I found a flight on an outbound that would work from YVR to SYD on Air Canada in business class. Great, so now what? I had four different currencies, or the ability to transfer to four different programs, that I could use to book these flights. United, Aeroplan, Lifemiles, and ANA.

 

So, which do I use? Well, of these, ANA is the one that can be leveraged to the best advantage to save miles because it uses a distance based chart. But, it doesn't allow one ways. So, to use ANA, I would have to wait until the dates for my return opened up. I'm worried these flights might be gone in seconds, not days, so no way. Scratch that. Of the three remaining programs, United doesn't let you book this far out -- I would have to wait another 20 days to try to book an Air Canada flight using United. So, scratch that. That leaves Aeroplan and Lifemiles. Both could see the availability and both are bookable that far in advance, so either would work. But if the two, Lifemiles is preferable, because Aeroplan charges excessive surcharges on Air Canada flights that Aeroplan does not -- for four passengers this was a $1500 difference. But then there was one last piece of information I needed -- I did not have enough Lifemiles in my account to book. I had to transfer some citi points. (Lifemiles actually lets you purchase more miles at a very good rate when booking, so long as you have about 60 percent of the miles needed and I was short, so I needed to transfer.) So, that left the question of how long would it take for me to transfer citi points to lifemiles. At the time, there were not many data points. Some suggested that it was 24 hours. (Now it's known that it's pretty much instantaneous, but I could only work on the information available at the time.) Was I willing to wait 24 hours and potentially lose this unicorn -- 4 business class tickets to Sydney from the West Coast of the USA before the holidays without transiting Asia -- which would leave me with a bunch of miles in lifemiles that I now wish I hadn't transferred from Citi in the first place? Or would it be be better to book immediately using Aeroplan and pay the $1500?

 

The answer doesn't matter, right? The point is that this is the stuff you need to know to be able to make this kind of booking. A good award service knows theses answers. They know how to build in stopovers. They know how to put awards on hold. And they know it for Capetown, Vienna, Sydney, and Dubai, not just one of them. My particular details don't really matter. It's just a long winded story designed to point out the kind of stuff that these guys -- the good ones -- know like the back of their hands.

 

All that said, if all you're looking for is a comfortable way to Australia and you're not all that concerned with making sure you get the most premium product or a perfect routing, take a look at Korean Air. The calendar opens early, availability is usually pretty good, and you can book one ways. They have peak dates and non-peak dates. If your travel falls on peak dates then forget it. But if not, you can put awards on hold and then transfer your miles knowing that you'll be ok. It's about 195,000 round trip from several good USA gateways for business, and a little more for first. Transit in ICN is pretty easy. No muss, no fuss, and you don't need to pay anyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never used an award booking service before, but I've given it serious thought. I like to do it myself. But I enjoy it. And I'm usually planning pretty straightforward itineraries without stopovers. But I have to book for 4, which adds complexity.

 

For planning home run type award trips -- and Australia in the summer for more than 1 passenger is definitely in this category -- here are the things you'd need to be a master of in order to have a decent chance of scoring tickets: (1) When do routes open on the various programs in which I have miles or to which I can transfer miles. (2) What programs allow one way and which require round trip. (3) What are the routing rules of various programs (for Australia primarily this means understanding that AA will not let you transit through Asia). (4) What are the plusses and minuses of booking X flight with Y partner's miles.

 

If that sounds daunting, this is really the value that an award booking service adds. The good ones know the answer to all these questions. They also know about routes that are a bit less known. And which programs allow award holds.

 

So, just to give a sense of the inter-relationship of all of these, I recently booked a trip to Australia for a family of four over the holidays which is really really hard to do. I started checking a year out. For star alliance, I knew that Aeroplan's search engine usually opens up 356 days in advance around midnight Toronto time -- though sometimes they load inventory the next day or the day after. So, using this knowledge, and clicking exactly 356 days in advance, I found a flight on an outbound that would work from YVR to SYD on Air Canada in business class. Great, so now what? I had four different currencies, or the ability to transfer to four different programs, that I could use to book these flights. United, Aeroplan, Lifemiles, and ANA.

 

So, which do I use? Well, of these, ANA is the one that can be leveraged to the best advantage to save miles because it uses a distance based chart. But, it doesn't allow one ways. So, to use ANA, I would have to wait until the dates for my return opened up. I'm worried these flights might be gone in seconds, not days, so no way. Scratch that. Of the three remaining programs, United doesn't let you book this far out -- I would have to wait another 20 days to try to book an Air Canada flight using United. So, scratch that. That leaves Aeroplan and Lifemiles. Both could see the availability and both are bookable that far in advance, so either would work. But if the two, Lifemiles is preferable, because Aeroplan charges excessive surcharges on Air Canada flights that Aeroplan does not -- for four passengers this was a $1500 difference. But then there was one last piece of information I needed -- I did not have enough Lifemiles in my account to book. I had to transfer some citi points. (Lifemiles actually lets you purchase more miles at a very good rate when booking, so long as you have about 60 percent of the miles needed and I was short, so I needed to transfer.) So, that left the question of how long would it take for me to transfer citi points to lifemiles. At the time, there were not many data points. Some suggested that it was 24 hours. (Now it's known that it's pretty much instantaneous, but I could only work on the information available at the time.) Was I willing to wait 24 hours and potentially lose this unicorn -- 4 business class tickets to Sydney from the West Coast of the USA before the holidays without transiting Asia -- which would leave me with a bunch of miles in lifemiles that I now wish I hadn't transferred from Citi in the first place? Or would it be be better to book immediately using Aeroplan and pay the $1500?

 

The answer doesn't matter, right? The point is that this is the stuff you need to know to be able to make this kind of booking. A good award service knows theses answers. They know how to build in stopovers. They know how to put awards on hold. And they know it for Capetown, Vienna, Sydney, and Dubai, not just one of them. My particular details don't really matter. It's just a long winded story designed to point out the kind of stuff that these guys -- the good ones -- know like the back of their hands.

 

All that said, if all you're looking for is a comfortable way to Australia and you're not all that concerned with making sure you get the most premium product or a perfect routing, take a look at Korean Air. The calendar opens early, availability is usually pretty good, and you can book one ways. They have peak dates and non-peak dates. If your travel falls on peak dates then forget it. But if not, you can put awards on hold and then transfer your miles knowing that you'll be ok. It's about 195,000 round trip from several good USA gateways for business, and a little more for first. Transit in ICN is pretty easy. No muss, no fuss, and you don't need to pay anyone.

 

My goodness... I've gotten slightly familiar with this stuff, but you just made my eyes glaze over big time :eek:

 

Although I've been able to book overseas F on JL from USA East Coast to Tokyo, mostly, we've been relying upon one of the services.

 

Aside from being able to be flexible on the travel dates (almost always, at least a day or two), for exactly some of the reasons you stated, we are also willing to make changes. Yes, it can mean a slight re-booking fee, etc., but if one is considering the value (not just financial, but comfort/convenience) of top quality international long-haul travel... and NOT needing to pay the regular cash fares... those occasional extra fees are well worth it.

(Things like taxes are refundable, so those aren't "lost".)

 

We now also have our agent just use our accounts and "grab those seats" when they appear.

He pretty much knows exactly what we are hoping for, so those are definitely "authorized".

For something that is "maybe", he'll still contact us, and those aren't the hot seats that are likely to vanish quickly.

 

So, for example, to get Lufthansa F, we don't have the status (or whatever membership it is) that allows F booking earlier than 2 weeks prior to flight. We obviously can't wait 'til then to "try to get tickets" (!!), so we held a "next best". Sure enough, 2 weeks out, 2 F seats opened, and we had them. We re-banked the other program's points.

 

For a trip back to the USA from Hong Kong, we wanted 2 CX F seats (and they only have 6 per flight).

So we found a flight with 1F and 1J, and figured... at least we'd be on the same plane and neither would be waiting alone in a lounge for ages, etc.

We gave our agent a few dates that we'd accept for 2 F on the same flight.

Sure enough, approximately 2 weeks out, a second F seat opened on our original flight choice.

Good thing he was authorized to make the transactions, because we were out of reach spending a few days at a Buddhist Monastery in Japan at the time.

 

Yes, we did not miss the juxtaposition of sleeping on mats and eating vegetarian at a Buddhist Monastery, while Cathay Pacific F suites were being obtained for us...

:o

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a really good service. Many will advise about putting in a placeholder in J and then trying to grab LH F when it opens. Some will even give you advice about which program to use for the placeholder reservation in terms of cost to redeposit or flexibility with expiration. But to have one that does all that and books it for you directly out of your account is a pretty great service.

 

I book awards similarly to how you do. I'll book something when it first opens in order to have it and then I'll keep looking and redeposit the miles if I find better. Usually the cost of the redeposit is worth the peace of mind.

 

But there can be hidden costs. Like if you transfer Amex to Aeroplan to make an award booking and you later want to book something else and redeposit the Aeorplan miles, you pay the mileage redeposit fee and you can't get your points back to Amex. They are stuck in Aeroplan -- a program that is going to devalue and actually change significantly in a few years. Etc.

 

Again, the point isn't to make anyone's eyes glaze over. It's just more a thing about how a good award service really can help you think through these things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a really good service. Many will advise about putting in a placeholder in J and then trying to grab LH F when it opens. Some will even give you advice about which program to use for the placeholder reservation in terms of cost to redeposit or flexibility with expiration. But to have one that does all that and books it for you directly out of your account is a pretty great service.

 

I book awards similarly to how you do. I'll book something when it first opens in order to have it and then I'll keep looking and redeposit the miles if I find better. Usually the cost of the redeposit is worth the peace of mind.

 

But there can be hidden costs. Like if you transfer Amex to Aeroplan to make an award booking and you later want to book something else and redeposit the Aeorplan miles, you pay the mileage redeposit fee and you can't get your points back to Amex. They are stuck in Aeroplan -- a program that is going to devalue and actually change significantly in a few years. Etc.

 

Again, the point isn't to make anyone's eyes glaze over. It's just more a thing about how a good award service really can help you think through these things.

 

Sorry - I meant the "eyes glazing over" mostly as how complicated it really can be, and hence why we use a service.

 

Also, yes, the fact that Amex points can't be re-banked can be a problem.

Fortunately, we've tended to use AAdvantage points much more, but never *on* AA, always on their partners.

 

We are waiting to see what Aeroplan will do in 2020. Just received an email yesterday about how there will be a number of 'partners', so we'll see who they are, and what the arrangements are.

So far, all they mentioned were total points needed for RT on what is probably economy class tickets, so that's of no help to us, as we simply can't fly ultra-long-haul in economy. And using points for domestic isn't a good use, or hasn't been.

(Yeah, it could be different temporarily if points will evaporate otherwise. Or buy tix for family members rather than let them disappear. Uh, the points, not the family members :eek:)

 

We've just gotten spoiled, but this also means that our aging bodies can still travel to some exotic places, which it terrific, be it for land trips, to/from cruises, or combo trips.

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are waiting to see what Aeroplan will do in 2020. Just received an email yesterday about how there will be a number of 'partners', so we'll see who they are, and what the arrangements are.

So far, all they mentioned were total points needed for RT on what is probably economy class tickets, so that's of no help to us, as we simply can't fly ultra-long-haul in economy. And using points for domestic isn't a good use, or hasn't been.

(Yeah, it could be different temporarily if points will evaporate otherwise. Or buy tix for family members rather than let them disappear. Uh, the points, not the family members :eek:)

 

For some more info, here's a post featuring an interview with the CEO of Aeroplan that goes beyond the announcement:

 

LINK HERE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

News today is Air Canada is now offering to buy Aeroplan, which seems like a fairly likely result.

 

Just got the email, which included this paragraph:

 

"Straight to the point: we heard from many customers who were excited about our plans, and would prefer to transfer their Aeroplan Miles to the new Air Canada loyalty program. This is what this proposed deal allows us to do – if successful, all Aeroplan Miles would transfer into the new Air Canada loyalty program in 2020"

 

Should be interesting to see what develops.

I wonder what they were planning to do when it was to start from scratch.

 

GC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just got the email, which included this paragraph:

 

"Straight to the point: we heard from many customers who were excited about our plans, and would prefer to transfer their Aeroplan Miles to the new Air Canada loyalty program. This is what this proposed deal allows us to do – if successful, all Aeroplan Miles would transfer into the new Air Canada loyalty program in 2020"

 

Should be interesting to see what develops.

I wonder what they were planning to do when it was to start from scratch.

 

GC

 

Air Canada has been using the Latitude brand name to refer to its top tier flyers and has been running that independently of aeroplan. My guess is the new program will be called Latitude

 

Aeroplan has a problem that they sell miles to Air Canada as well as others and then buy flights from Air Canada to give away as rewards. The cash that they have internally is not sufficient to cover everyone cashing in all the points that they have on the books.

 

The one major asset they have is all the data on who buys which flights, when, what fare class they buy into. Perhaps they even know how much they paid. If I were WestJet I would love to have all that data. If I were Air Canada I would be horrified seeing that data go to a competitor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cash that they have internally is not sufficient to cover everyone cashing in all the points that they have on the books.

 

The one major asset they have is all the data on who buys which flights, when, what fare class they buy into. Perhaps they even know how much they paid. If I were WestJet I would love to have all that data. If I were Air Canada I would be horrified seeing that data go to a competitor.

This is common throughout the industry. Frequent flyer plans' income and expense numbers are among the airlines' most closely-held secrets, usually because they're such cash cows. If I recall correctly, Air Canada sold off Aeroplan when the airline was facing bankruptcy, and at the time the value of Aeroplan was greater than the rest of AC combined.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...