Any tricks on using frequent flyer miles?

[FlyerTalker]

The flights to EZE and back from SCL will be 10,990 miles. I'm not the expert on AA, so I will leave that specific award redemption question to those who are more familiar with AAdvantage.

[kenish]

There is a great message board www.flyertalk.com One area has boards that are specific to each mileage program (AAdvantage, World Perks, Mileage Plus, etc). A lot of the participants are extremely knowledgeable on how to best accumulate or claim mileage.

 

I'm not trying to "take away" from posts here, just pointing out another great resource. It's the airline version of CC.

[auntdot]

There is a great message board www.flyertalk.com One area has boards that are specific to each mileage program (AAdvantage, World Perks, Mileage Plus, etc). A lot of the participants are extremely knowledgeable on how to best accumulate or claim mileage.

 

I'm not trying to "take away" from posts here, just pointing out another great resource. It's the airline version of CC.

 

Thanks for the info! I need all the help I can get!!

 

Dot

[Jade13]

Hello everyone,

 

I have miles with Delta and find it difficult to use them. Seats always seem to be "gone" even the when I call the first day they are available.:(

 

Any tricks on using these miles? Especially international flights.

 

Many Thanks!!

 

Call the first day but have a back-up plan of all other airlines you can use with Delta, as well as being willing to go 1 or 2 days early.

[Chesie]

Thanks everyone for all the great info! I need to be more persistant especially with the airline industry now!

 

Chesie

[nho9504]

Do you mean AA doesn't offer availability on partner airlines online?

I have been able to purchase JFK-LHR tickets using my AA miles via the online redemption site.

 

No, you cannot see partner award availability online. You have to call AAdvantage to find out availability.

 

However, you can use QF or BA sites to check on Oneworld availability - though it is not 100% matched with AA's own availability, it can offer a guide.

 

Sign up QF or BA FF programs, then logged in and check award availability. Both do not need you have miles in account to check award availability.

 

I used QF site to nail down our BCN/MAD/ZRH, on IB, ZRH/JFK/MIA on AA, then MIA/YYZ on AA, YYZ/LHR/BCN on BA, business award availabilities. Called AAdvantage, gave the agent the flight info. Booked the awards in 15 minutes. We already flew the BCN/MIA portion in May. I needed to change the dates on the MIA/BCN portion. Logged on QF site again, found the seats, called AAdvantage Friday morning, got it changed as I wanted. AAdvantage agent laughed and said to me, "You have done your homework!" I said I tried to use up less of their time. A pleasant short conversation, and our new E-tickets arrived in the evening.

[nho9504]

I am trying to plan for our next trip. We are new to AA and haven't figured out the best plan of action yet!

 

First the background... we are booked on AA for our South America cruise in Feb: YYZ-MIA/MIA-EZE and the return SCL (operated by LAN) - MIA/MIA-YYZ. How many AA points would we accumulate for this itinerary?

 

Then - can we use those points for a ONE WAY trip from YVR, preferably, (or alternatively YYZ) to SYD for an upgrade to better seats? We would also consider a stopover in Hawaii for a couple of days and would love to be able to upgrade the seats for the long haul (HNL-SYD).

 

Dot

 

You can easily find out how many miles you would earn, by doing a dummy booking on AA site - the site, like other airlines sites, would tell you how many miles each segment has, and you jsut add them up to get to your total miles for the whole itinerary. You earn AA miles on LAN, but I am not sure if it is on 100% ratio or based on Fare code. (for example, you earn peanuts if you fly QF discount fare, like 25%. You earn 0 AA miles flying BA accross the pond, unless your flight originates from Canada or Mexico. Those are important factors to consider when you fly long haul.)

 

Someone already gave you the Flyertalk link. There is a sticky on AA award rules in AA forum. However, if you have absolutely 0 knowledge on AAdvantage, you will be more confused than ever, trying to read thru the sticky. You do need a basic understanding of the AAdvantage rules, in order to make use of the stuff talked about on the Sticky thread.

 

Do yourself a favor, go to AA site, check under AAdvantage tab, pull up the award charts of various kinds and especially read the fine prints on the upgrade awards. Not all fares are upgradable, esp for the domestic portion. Needless to say, cheap, discounted fare codes are not upgradable. The upgrade award table would tell you how many miles AND cash copayment are required for each zone, and what fare codes are eligible.

 

Once you have a basic understanding of AAdvantage program, then go read the Flyertalk sticky - you will then know much more about what can and what cannot, regarding your upgrade wishes, plus a lot more on how to effectively accumulate / redeem miles.

[nho9504]

I just booked RT flights from Cincinnati to Rome, Italy in October on Delta using FF miles to tie in with a Med cruise. I was quite surprised that I was able to get seats at super saver rates. The taxes were high - $114 pp, but to buy the tickets would have bee $1,100 pp. We're flying in a day early just in case there are some problems with canceled flights as we get closer to our sailing date. I'll buy insurance as well.

 

$114 tax is not high at all. On our AA business award tickets BCN/MAD/ZRH, ZRH/JFK/MIA in May (we already flew that part), then MIA/YYZ, YYZ/LHR/BCN in Oct, the tax was $149xx, plus $30 telephone ticketing fee as they were partner awards that cannot be done online. To purchase it, would be $9800 pp. (90K miles each).

 

Also AA partner award allows date change even after travel started, versus UA partner award cannot be changed once travel started.

[fbgd]

$114 tax is not high at all

 

No kidding! Those who say $114 is high haven't had stopovers in the UK recently.

 

At Xmas the taxes (+ fuel surcharge thievery) portion of my ticket which had stopovers both ways at LHR/LGW was over $400.

[TRacanoUK]

I paid almost $600 in taxes ($300 or so for each ticket) for two business rewards from LHR to MRU . . . I would have loved to pay $114 in taxes.

 

That being said, I think two JFK to PPT reward tickets in business were only $50 in taxes each . . . gotta love the UK departure tax!

[SelectSys]

... find them very useless as I am always looking for 4 seats. I've tried looking a year out and on partner but no luck for the planned vacations...

 

One strategy that we have used to get 4 seats for family travel is to split up and go on different flights to our final destination. This can work pretty well with well aligned arrival times if you are going to a major destination.

 

A possibility is to use your miles for 1 or 2 seats and buy the others. Your overall price is reduced and you would be using some miles ...

 

This also helps if one of the passengers is trying to qualify for FF status on an airline.

[rich40245]

I gave up on f-f miles. Too many restrictions. Now I only use my Cap One card and have no black outs, time restrictions or airline choices. They just credit the ticket amount back to my charge card after I purchase the tickets. So easy.

The thing I don't like about bank travel rewards card is most have a maxium ticket value the miles can be redeemed for. Capital One has a $600 limit per ticket.

 

I still use AmEx Delta SkyMiles. Yes, there are some restrictions, but I can use the miles for Business Class international, something I can't do elsewhere.

 

Rich

[Kanab2000]

I gave up on f-f miles. Too many restrictions. Now I only use my Cap One card and have no black outs, time restrictions or airline choices. They just credit the ticket amount back to my charge card after I purchase the tickets. So easy.

 

Got the shock of my life on my credit card points. A ticket to Miami from Las Vegas was previously 30,000 points. Yesterday (July 5th), the amount of

points needed for that same flight had been raised to over 70,000 for a single ticket. So much for using credit card points. Lowest round trip flights ifor December that I could find were $387 so I paid out of pocket in order to get to Miami for flights to Buenos Aires for a cruise. I think our traveling days are going to be seriously curtailed from this point on........so much for traveling in retirement.:(:mad:

[greatam]

 

Then - can we use those points for a ONE WAY trip from YVR, preferably, (or alternatively YYZ) to SYD for an upgrade to better seats? We would also consider a stopover in Hawaii for a couple of days and would love to be able to upgrade the seats for the long haul (HNL-SYD).

 

Hope someone can help lead us through the maze!!

:D

 

Dot

 

You will have to buy miles or get an AA mileage credit card to get enough miles to upgrade. AND upgrades on AA now require co-pay as well as miles.

 

Average RT international trip-$600 co-pay PLUS 50,000 AA miles to upgrade from economy to business class.

 

One way-1/2 the co pay and 1/2 the miles.

 

There are NO upgrades to SYD EXCEPT on AA7358 (codeshare with Qantas). AA doesn't fly direct to SYD from anyplace. And availability on the codeshare is VERY limited.

 

It is 125,000 miles for a business class RT to get to SYD, whether you stop in HNL or not.

 

A OneWorld award uses less miles (90,000) BUT you must use TWO OneWorld airlines (not counting AA), which means you will have to fly to South America before or after you fly to Honolulu.

 

All in all, if the only AA miles you have currently or will have are the 10,000 or so from your SA trip, you will have to get a couple of AA affiliated credit cards (usually a 20,000 mile signing bonus). Use them for EVERYTHING-cable, electric, property taxes, groceries, EVERYTHING. Heck, I have a guy here in Phoenix at one of the check casher places that allows me to use my AA credit card for money order purchases. He charges me 3% for the credit card fee, but I get ALMOST an equal amount in miles to when I purchase the MO to pay my mortgages.

[nho9504]

Got the shock of my life on my credit card points. A ticket to Miami from Las Vegas was previously 30,000 points. Yesterday (July 5th), the amount of

points needed for that same flight had been raised to over 70,000 for a single ticket. So much for using credit card points. Lowest round trip flights ifor December that I could find were $387 so I paid out of pocket in order to get to Miami for flights to Buenos Aires for a cruise. I think our traveling days are going to be seriously curtailed from this point on........so much for traveling in retirement.:(:mad:

 

What kind of credit card points you attempt to use?

 

If you dont have Citi ThankYou Point earning cards, you may want to look into that.

 

There are 2 different types of redemption under the TYP program.

 

One is called Variable points redemption, the other is called Fixed points redemption.

 

The Variable points redemption values 1 point to 0.01 value, and you can pay tax and fee with points - very straightward and simple, no cap of how much value your ticket might cost. All you need is to have enough points to do the redemption.

 

The Fixed points redemption has a cap value on tickets - a domestic ticket (incl Alaska and Canada, but excludes Hawaii, just like the airlines own definition), has a cap value of $400 but requires only 20,000 points. The tax and fee are extra, pay by CC or pay by points in an increment of $50 costs 5,000 pts like the Variable point redemption valuation. Only certain Citi accounts, cards are eligible for such redemption. But an Expedia Thankyou Network account also qualifies, as of now. (about the biggest loophole in the Fixed point redemption eligibility - as other eligible accounts have much higher requirements in terms of assets, etc).

 

Before the airfares skyrocketing, the Fixed point redemption is a good choice for folks whose domestic tickets generally fall into $350+. Now of course the much higher airfares have essentially made the redemption harder, but still a better value than the 1 pt = 0.01 Variable point redemption value.

 

There are several Citi cards that earn TYPs at 5% ratio on the Everyday purchases (gas, grocerystores, drugstores), the other purchases at 1% ratio. Also some cards offer 10,000 to 15,000 to 25,000 TYP sign up bonuses.

 

This is a worthwhile avenue to earn useful points for airline tickets (other redemptions include retailer Gift Cards at 10,000 pts to $100) ONLY IF you can pay in full every statement on your purchases, as the APRs on reward cards are VERY HIGH. I am sure most who charge everything to their reward cards are paying their monthly statements in full. I just want to bring this up to give those who maintain balances on their CCs a fair warning.

[vivian02]

Mek,

The only reason I got the lower taxes going to Rome was the fact that I cashed in my Skymiles back in December. I was looking at flights into LHR at the time and the taxes were $198 per person. Flexibility is a "big factor" these days. My return flight from Rome had the second leg rescheduled out of Atlanta giving me only 40 minutes to connect going home, so much for the 3 hour buffer I had orginally. Since it was impossible to make this connections Delta was willing to put me on the first flight out the following morning with confirmed reservations. Sure I had to book a hotel for the night in Atlanta but we're still on vacation. Not only that its cheaper staying in Atlanta than Rome by a long shot. I love Rome but not at $300 a night.

Another note. Delta tacked on the extra fee for Skymile users. That fee kicks in on August 15th. Since we leave on August 13th I won't have to pay the fee going but I bet I pay the extra $100 flying back. It just make one wonder whats next. Could it be the use of Skymiles could be coming to an end in the near future? I still have to give the advice to those who still have Skymiles to keep looking. Don't give up. Tim

[nho9504]

It is 125,000 miles for a business class RT to get to SYD, whether you stop in HNL or not.

 

A OneWorld award uses less miles (90,000) BUT you must use TWO OneWorld airlines (not counting AA), which means you will have to fly to South America before or after you fly to Honolulu.

.

 

Effective Sept 1, OneWorld award will calculate miles usage on ACTUAL flying miles instead of beeline from departure point to destination. Therefore, every segment miles would go into calculation. On top of that, over land AND open jaw segments also count. This is a MAJOR devaluation of OneWorld award - but not a surprising one when I read about the blatant abuse of such award redemption. i.e. there are braggings about flying 49K miles but only redeemed 25K level OneWorld awards, so on so forth. A perfect example of certain aggressive FFlyers work the system to the max, then brag about it, thus cause the airline to pay attention, thus eventually plug the loophole.

[mek]

quote=vivian02 Mek,

 

Another note. Delta tacked on the extra fee for Skymile users. That fee kicks in on August 15th. Since we leave on August 13th I won't have to pay the fee going but I bet I pay the extra $100 flying back. It just make one wonder whats next. Could it be the use of Skymiles could be coming to an end in the near future? I still have to give the advice to those who still have Skymiles to keep looking. Don't give up. Tim

 

 

Tim - It's my understanding that any charges are for new tickets, not existing. Why do you think Delta will charge you after the fact?

[hillslife]

We have been pretty lucky over the years using our Delta FF mileage. We have done 2 trips to Europe for 3 business class; have a business class booked on July 19th to Venice - cruise - Rome home and just booked one way Heathrow to LAX for next May after our cruise.

 

You do have to be VERY persistent, be flexible, check the web site or call weekly, and you will eventually get your flights. Won't be the most direct, shortest, etc but we always get there and the price is minimal compared to the price of tickets purchased now.

 

I do have to say that the last trip (LHR -LAX) I just booked in June cost me the most for fees/taxes that I have ever paid for a FF ticket - so, yes, the tides are changing for FF tickets, but I still think we are ahead in the game.

 

Good luck -:)

[mek]

Same here - our cruise in October will be our 9th trip to Europe and we have only purchased tickets three times. We've also gone to Hawaii twice on FF miles and used miles for a few trips in the US. Generally, we save the points for the big trips. Going forward, things may change but for now it works for us.

[critterchick]

I've been trying to use my AA miles for a trip to Rome next year. No luck with business class unless I go with the 180k miles unrestricted ticket. So for now I'm holding seats from LAX to Heathrow on AA, transferring to BA for the flight to Rome. Then we come back through Chicago, which makes me nervous because the ORD-LAX leg is currently on an MD-80, which is being phased out of the fleet. I'll keep checking for the next few days until that hold expires, but I'm not hopeful that we can find a free ticket for 90k miles.

[fbgd]

Then we come back through Chicago, which makes me nervous because the ORD-LAX leg is currently on an MD-80, which is being phased out of the fleet

 

Don't be nervous. AA have over 300 of the aircraft and whilst some are quite elderly they don't have plans to immediately remove all of the aircraft. Their route network would be gutted if it were to happen.

[Globaliser]

Then we come back through Chicago, which makes me nervous because the ORD-LAX leg is currently on an MD-80, which is being phased out of the fleet.

In addition to what fbgd says, the airline isn't simply going to cut out all the routes or flights which are currently operated by MD-80s. As the aircraft are retired or withdrawn, the schedules will simply get adjusted to provide the intended levels of service on each route. There may be flight consolidations and equipment changes, but there will still be flights between ORD and LAX! And as long as there are still flights, you'll still be able to get home.

[nho9504]

I've been trying to use my AA miles for a trip to Rome next year. No luck with business class unless I go with the 180k miles unrestricted ticket. So for now I'm holding seats from LAX to Heathrow on AA, transferring to BA for the flight to Rome. Then we come back through Chicago, which makes me nervous because the ORD-LAX leg is currently on an MD-80, which is being phased out of the fleet. I'll keep checking for the next few days until that hold expires, but I'm not hopeful that we can find a free ticket for 90k miles.

 

ORD-LAX would never be cut out from the route map. If no more MadDog serving that route, you would get a 737 or 757. That would be the least of my worry.

 

If I were you, I would fly either UP to YVR, or down to MEX, and take BA to LHR, then onto FCO, on both outbound and inbound. In fact you could fly to YYZ and take BA from there. BA ClubWorld has Flatbed seats (180 degree FLAT) VS AA's Lieflat seats (165 or 170 degree, forgot - it is unimpressed when we flew that in May.) The AA seats are good for daytime flights, but not nearly as good for nighttime flights which you do want to have a 100% Flatbed seat to sleep on.

 

The only way to use AA miles for BA flight accross the pond, is to originate your Transatlantic flight from Canada, or from Mexico City. Hence the obvious airports of YVR and YYZ - both can easily fly to using either AS to YVR, or AA to YYZ - and is part of your 90K award.

 

One way to check partner airlines award seat availability, is to use either QF site or BA site. Both let you check OneWorld award availability without having any miles in the account. Go sign yourself up on both FF programs (now BA is opened to anyone who wants to sign up, no more restriction like in the past). Check the award availability that way. This is HOW I found us 90K awards for our tickets booked this Jan for travel in May and again in Sept.

 

You can also make a stopover at both North America AND international gateway city, incl in the 90K award.

 

Naturally, in order to fly the partners, you have to make your booking thru the AAdvantage agent, and pay the phone booking fee.

[critterchick]

ORD-LAX would never be cut out from the route map. If no more MadDog serving that route, you would get a 737 or 757. That would be the least of my worry.

 

If I were you, I would fly either UP to YVR, or down to MEX, and take BA to LHR, then onto FCO, on both outbound and inbound. In fact you could fly to YYZ and take BA from there. BA ClubWorld has Flatbed seats (180 degree FLAT) VS AA's Lieflat seats (165 or 170 degree, forgot - it is unimpressed when we flew that in May.) The AA seats are good for daytime flights, but not nearly as good for nighttime flights which you do want to have a 100% Flatbed seat to sleep on.

 

The only way to use AA miles for BA flight accross the pond, is to originate your Transatlantic flight from Canada, or from Mexico City. Hence the obvious airports of YVR and YYZ - both can easily fly to using either AS to YVR, or AA to YYZ - and is part of your 90K award.

 

One way to check partner airlines award seat availability, is to use either QF site or BA site. Both let you check OneWorld award availability without having any miles in the account. Go sign yourself up on both FF programs (now BA is opened to anyone who wants to sign up, no more restriction like in the past). Check the award availability that way. This is HOW I found us 90K awards for our tickets booked this Jan for travel in May and again in Sept.

 

You can also make a stopover at both North America AND international gateway city, incl in the 90K award.

 

Naturally, in order to fly the partners, you have to make your booking thru the AAdvantage agent, and pay the phone booking fee.

 

I'm not so much worried about LAX-ORD not being an itinerary, just the havoc that the change might wreak. And I loathe the MD-80, so I would be happy to change to one of the other aircraft.

 

Thank you so much for that suggestion on routing through YVR or Mexico. I really am not fond of layovers, so adding one may not work, but it's certainly a great idea. Is QF Qantas? I'm assuming you don't mean to try flying in that direction, do you?:o ;)