New Oceania Air Program

[jonthomas]

It's as clear as mud.

[ORV]

1 hour ago, TonicTraveler said:

It means the moment the cruises are released for sale.

Yes, that's what I said, I assume you were simply agreeing with me. 

[TonicTraveler]

1 hour ago, Vallesan said:

With the new system?

Yes, with the new air program beginning July 1.  Oceania will be able to quote air for all future cruises.  This does not mean they will have itineraries but they will have pricing.

[Vineyard View]

On 6/13/2024 at 4:04 PM, FlyerTalker said:

 

Be very careful.  Most of those "consolidators" are actually reselling FF award tickets, in violation of FF program rules.  If discovered, those tickets will become instantly worthless, with the airline cancelling the ticket.  Business class load factors are close to 100% on major routes, so there's no reason for airlines to use consolidators to move that inventory.  There are some legitimate consolidators who tend to specialize in economy class tickets to various ethnic markets.  SoCal to Vietnam is one such case.  But you won't find those out in the open market - they sell through specialized ethnic channels.

 

Caveat Emptor.  Big time.

 

 

Interesting. Not challenging you at all. I know a number of people who use consolidators. They often use them for preferred pricing. I  believe that is due to ease of using an Independent agent to work with various airlines. I am aware that it can involve using FF miles traded in at times. It has worked well for them many, many times over many years. I was not aware that was not legit. 
We personally use our miles and I work directly with the airlines for international travel in BC. It’s worked for decades, but it is getting so incredibly difficult to make that happen post Covid. 
So….I have considered using a consolidator to assist me if I find it difficult for next year to travel. 
Rule of thumb has always been 330 days prior to your return date to use miles.  Flights, like hotel pricing, is generally not available prior to that. 
It makes me wonder if there are legit consolidators vs those not so much. 

[FlyerTalker]

10 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

I was not aware that was not legit. 

 

As an example, from the DL Skymiles T&C:

 

Any miles transferred through this agreement may not be conveyed to persons engaged in the sale, direct or indirect, of flight miles or arranging for the sale of such miles. Any improper usage of miles pursuant to this Agreement and the Transfer Miles Program, or any other misuse of miles, shall be grounds for immediate confiscation and forfeit of such miles, and may be grounds for the forfeiture of all miles in the Member's account and the Member's ejection from the SkyMiles Program.

 

Meaning that any ticket bought with those miles may be immediately cancelled.  And the buyer is out of luck.

 

10 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

Rule of thumb has always been 330 days prior to your return date to use miles.  Flights, like hotel pricing, is generally not available prior to that.

 

That's the earliest they are available.  However, dynamic allocation of award inventory means that the old idea of grabbing the seats as soon as they come out is pretty much out the window.  Award seats now are frequently dribbled out through the year, as yield management determines when seats can be sold for revenue.

 

 

[Vineyard View]

2 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

As an example, from the DL Skymiles T&C:

 

Any miles transferred through this agreement may not be conveyed to persons engaged in the sale, direct or indirect, of flight miles or arranging for the sale of such miles. Any improper usage of miles pursuant to this Agreement and the Transfer Miles Program, or any other misuse of miles, shall be grounds for immediate confiscation and forfeit of such miles, and may be grounds for the forfeiture of all miles in the Member's account and the Member's ejection from the SkyMiles Program.

 

Meaning that any ticket bought with those miles may be immediately cancelled.  And the buyer is out of luck.

 

 

That's the earliest they are available.  However, dynamic allocation of award inventory means that the old idea of grabbing the seats as soon as they come out is pretty much out the window.  Award seats now are frequently dribbled out through the year, as yield management determines when seats can be sold for revenue.

 

 

Thank you for this further information. I appreciate this. But….it still remains 330 days prior before miles can be used- - correct? 

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, Vineyard View said:

Thank you for this further information. I appreciate this. But….it still remains 330 days prior before miles can be used- - correct? 

 

When schedules open for the airline, whose program you plan to use, that is when any seats may be booked, be it revenue or award.

 

However, the caveats are:  not all airlines use 330 - some a bit more, some less.  Secondly, just because the schedule is open does not mean that the airline has loaded any inventory into the FF award inventory buckets.  So a flight may have revenue seats, but not award.  This is becoming more and more evident as more programs integrate dynamic (there's that word) inventory management into their FF awards.

 

 

[ronrick1943]

For ourselves, once we think we can book we start looking - once we find what we want we book.  We keep checking after, if something comes up better (and it has), we book and cancel the old one we were holding.  Works for us as we've been doing this for years.

[edgee]

This move really moves Oceania closer to the "cruise air" model used by most of the rest of the industry. "We will sell you a cruise and we also offer air to go along with it. Contact our air department to find out the price"

[FlyerTalker]

20 minutes ago, edgee said:

This move really moves Oceania closer to the "cruise air" model used by most of the rest of the industry. "We will sell you a cruise and we also offer air to go along with it. Contact our air department to find out the price"

 

And moving further from the luxury segment of Regent and Silversea.

 

 

[Tranquility Base]

2 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Secondly, just because the schedule is open does not mean that the airline has loaded any inventory into the FF award inventory buckets.  So a flight may have revenue seats, but not award. 

One airline (non US),  maybe there are others, have a system where one of their FF points equals one dollar.

Therefore, if a flight is showing for sale for $1,500 cash it is also payable with 1,500 points.

 I like that system as it does not differentiate between when you can book a seat, only how you choose to pay. 

[ORV]

58 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

One airline (non US),  maybe there are others, have a system where one of their FF points equals one dollar.

Therefore, if a flight is showing for sale for $1,500 cash it is also payable with 1,500 points.

 I like that system as it does not differentiate between when you can book a seat, only how you choose to pay. 

That'd be a heck of deal for US airlines. I'm on an  AA economy flight round trip to BOS that cost me around $560, closest I can come to the same itinerary would be 46,000 miles. Bit of a difference in the comparison there. 

Edited June 15 by ORV

[clo]

1 hour ago, ORV said:

That'd be a heck of deal for US airlines. I'm on an  AA economy flight round trip to BOS that cost me around $560, closest I can come to the same itinerary would be 46,000 miles. Bit of a difference in the comparison there. 

Holey moley yes!!! I currently have - due to canceling a trip - almost a half million UA points! Could I go to the moon?!?!?

[osandomir]

2 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

One airline (non US),  maybe there are others, have a system where one of their FF points equals one dollar.

Therefore, if a flight is showing for sale for $1,500 cash it is also payable with 1,500 points.

 I like that system as it does not differentiate between when you can book a seat, only how you choose to pay. 

I’m curious what airline equals 1 point to 1 dollar? The FF points that we use worth 2 cents on an average. Sometimes more but we need to work very hard to get that.

[Tranquility Base]

50 minutes ago, osandomir said:

I’m curious what airline equals 1 point to 1 dollar? The FF points that we use worth 2 cents on an average. Sometimes more but we need to work very hard to get that.

Air New Zealand.

Obviously one's FF balance is not in the 10s or 100s of thousands.

It takes a different  amount of spend required to gain a far smaller number of points.

Each single point has more purchasing power than your system, but they are harder to get.

 

Similar principle but amounts and numbers differ.

One big advantage.....if the seat is available to purchase for cash,  and you have the points, that seat is for sale using points.

It also allows part points part cash for the purchase if required.

Edited June 16 by Tranquility Base

[osandomir]

25 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

Air New Zealand.

Obviously one's FF balance is not in the 10s or 100s of thousands.

It takes a different  amount of spend required to gain a far smaller number of points.

Each single point has more purchasing power than your system, but they are harder to get.

 

Similar principle but amounts and numbers differ.

One big advantage.....if the seat is available to purchase for cash,  and you have the points, that seat is for sale using points.

It also allows part points part cash for the purchase if required.

Thank you. I wasn’t familiar with the details of the Air New Zealand loyalty program. It looks similar how our credit card travel portal works except our points worth 50% more when booking through the CC portal. At the end it all depends on the way how you acquire those points and miles.

[ORV]

1 hour ago, Tranquility Base said:

Air New Zealand.

Obviously one's FF balance is not in the 10s or 100s of thousands.

It takes a different  amount of spend required to gain a far smaller number of points.

Each single point has more purchasing power than your system, but they are harder to get.

 

Similar principle but amounts and numbers differ.

One big advantage.....if the seat is available to purchase for cash,  and you have the points, that seat is for sale using points.

It also allows part points part cash for the purchase if required.

Just curious, where are you from and how many dollars do you need to spend to earn one point for Air New Zealand?

[Vineyard View]

3 hours ago, clo said:

Holey moley yes!!! I currently have - due to canceling a trip - almost a half million UA points! Could I go to the moon?!?!?

Nope. Last year RT Venice cost us over 400k miles for the same itinerary the year prior was 150k miles. I am not specifically speaking to UA, but the ability to use miles through Amex and Visa for multiple airlines. Friends this year had to spend similar for UA miles - BC is the comparison. 

[Vineyard View]

3 hours ago, osandomir said:

I’m curious what airline equals 1 point to 1 dollar? The FF points that we use worth 2 cents on an average. Sometimes more but we need to work very hard to get that.

1:1 points to dollars used to work well with multiple airlines. I can still transfer 1:1 points with several, but it is all about how many points the airlines charge you now. 

Edited June 16 by Vineyard View

[FlyerTalker]

6 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

One airline (non US),  maybe there are others, have a system where one of their FF points equals one dollar.

Therefore, if a flight is showing for sale for $1,500 cash it is also payable with 1,500 points.

 I like that system as it does not differentiate between when you can book a seat, only how you choose to pay. 

 

NZ is the only carrier that has FF points at anywhere close to that value.  And you won't find that anywhere else.

 

In the USA, Southwest has a system where points are only for use to offset cash purchases.  There is a almost-fixed value for each point, so effectively this is a straight rebate play, with returns usable only on WN.  And it's a pretty lousy return, given that you can get 2 cents back on cash rewards cards, while the WN value is around 1.35 cents per point.

 

In addition, you can use Amex, Chase, Citi and CapitalOne points in the same way through their travel portals.

 

The two big negatives are that you get a lousy "exchange rate" for your points - less than a straight rebate card would earn you.  And even more, you lose on the opportunity to leverage points for an outsized return.  If you can get a $4000 ticket for 100k points, that's an effective return of 4%, far better than the straight points=dollar cards or the rebate cards. I regularly get exchange rates of over 3 cents per mile.  My all-time best was an $11,000 ticket that I snagged for 100k points - effectively having an exchange rate of 11 cents per point.

 

Personally, I don't want to give up most of my value in points, just for convenience in booking.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

15 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

1:1 points to dollars used to work well with multiple airlines. I can still transfer 1:1 points with several, but it is all about how many points the airlines charge you now. 

 

Here's the current "secret":  Many of the best deals for FF redemptions now are on AirFrance/KLM.  They have actively reduced award costs to boost engagement with their programs and the airlines using Flying Blue as the FF.  Base level for TATL business class starts at 50k one-way, with increased inventory.

 

 

[Tranquility Base]

1 hour ago, ORV said:

Just curious, where are you from and how many dollars do you need to spend to earn one point for Air New Zealand?

NZ.

In USD terms about USD 58.

The three other airlines I regularly use for oversea travel use a similar systems as the US airlines.

I do not, however, book long haul flights based on loyalty schemes...I book based on service, schedule, reputation and cost.

[FlyerTalker]

For comparison, you can transfer Marriott points into about 20 airlines at a ratio of 3 Marriott points for one airline mile.   By contrast, the transfer ratio in NZ points is 200 to one.  Yes, NZ points are more valuable, but also more expensive to obtain.  Roughly 67 times more expensive.  Which pretty much lines up with a valuation of $1 per NZ point and 1.5 cents per other airline point.  And about 1/2 cent per Marriott point.

 

[osandomir]

25 minutes ago, Vineyard View said:

1:1 points to dollars used to work well with multiple airlines. I can still transfer 1:1 points with several, but it is all about how many points the airlines charge you now. 

Yes, you can definitely transfer your points and miles at a rate 1:1 between many credit cards, hotels and airlines. But it’s nowhere in US the cost of one point is $1 so you can use one point against one dollar of the cost of your air ticket or hotel room. And this is how per Tranquility Base it works with Air New Zealand loyalty program.

[osandomir]

20 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Here's the current "secret":  Many of the best deals for FF redemptions now are on AirFrance/KLM.  They have actively reduced award costs to boost engagement with their programs and the airlines using Flying Blue as the FF.  Base level for TATL business class starts at 50k one-way, with increased inventory.

 

 

I don’t think it’s much of a secret to many of FF points users. There are also some other loyalty programs that require less amount of miles for the comparable flights. The only consideration is if you need to cancel a redeposit fee will apply in most of the cases and your points will stay within the airline you choose to transfer your points to. So one needs to have a reasonable confidence that their miles will be useful for the future flights with the particular airline. In any case that greatly reduce the flexibility of the points.