I’ve written in the past that the frequent flyer program you should use depends on where you want to go. While I have opinions about ‘which program is best’ no single program is best for every destination. There are certainly some off the beaten path programs that are best for some travelers in some situations. But most of the time when people come to me looking for help booking their award tickets, they already have their miles saved up and want to make the most of those miles. Since I often say that the best strategy is to earn miles, use them up quickly rather than saving them for a far-off distant future, and then earn some more I think it’s a great idea to find the best uses of your miles now, travel, and…
ASIA
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Making the Most of Skypesos: Aeroflot Award Space is богатый (Plentiful)
Despite my many beefs with the Delta Skymiles program, I do my best to identify ways that those miles can be used as productively as possible. Some Skymiles Award Challenges You can’t use Skymiles for one-way awards without paying the roundtrip price (but if you must fly one-way at the ‘high’ level on Delta aircraft, don’t just book a one-way — book a one-way high, and return at the low level for whatever date that is available, it will bring down the price of your one way to the average of high and low, rather than the roundtrip high price). And you can’t use Skymiles for international first class awards. But with their airline partners especially, if you know where to look, you can get good international business class availability to get most anywhere. Great…
Delta Brings Back Air France Business Class Awards and Eliminates Some Fuel Surcharges
Quietly and against all conventional wisdom Delta has been making some positive changes to their frequent flyer program and to their website used to search for award space. Back in May they added searching for Virgin Australia award space to their website. Virgin Australia offers better award availability than anyone else between the US and Australia (without connecting in Asia), and exceptionally so on their Los Angeles – Brisbane flight. It’s a good business class seat, too, often available in prime holiday season as well. Delta also stopped billing fuel surcharges on these awards. Do not rely on Delta’s award calendar to find the space, search it day by day for the dates you are interested in. About a week ago Delta began allowing Korean Air awards to be searched at Delta.com. That’s huge because…
Are Delta, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines the Most Likely to Switch to a Revenue-Based Program? And What About Our Current Mileage Balances?
Yesterday I wrote about revenue-based programs and how I think it’s likely that Delta will change it’s frequent flyer program to align both earning miles and the cost of redemption with the price of airline tickets — and how I think that revenue-based programs are bad for both travelers and for the frequent flyer programs themselves. Joe Brancatelli also expects to see a revenue-based program next year — on one or more of Delta, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines. I had written about the speculation of US Airways in addition to that of Delta in the past. I hadn’t seen it written about Alaska Airlines previously, although now that I’ve seen that speculation it resonates as at least plausible (more so than if the speculation were about, say, American AAdvantage for sure). I’d have put…
Free One-Way Awards on American Using Stopovers, Just How Many Miles are You Allowed to Fly?
Back in January I wrote a post explaining that if you were booking an award where you arrived home from an international flight without any additional connections once you landed in the U.S., that you could book yourself a free one-way award ticket for later. In general I didn’t think this required a ton of explanation for most frequent flyer programs, some have very generous routing rules like United where you can have a ‘stopover’ (visit one city for awhile enroute to your final destination) and an ‘open jaw’ (fly into one city, then out of another) on an international award. So if you have a simple roundtrip to Paris, why end your trip when you make it back home? Call that your stopover, and grab a free flight to somewhere else at the end…
Where the First Class Award Seats are Using United and US Airways Miles
I love international first class. Living on the East Coast, for trips to Europe, business class is ‘good enough’ but often the mileage premium when redeeming an award ticket isn’t very much between business and first class. Miles provide me with an opportunity to travel in a manner that I could never otherwise afford to pay for, and they’ve allowed the travel itself to become part of the experience and not just a ‘way to get there’. I’ve certainly become spoiled over the years since I started redeeming for international first class awards, such that on longer trips I really don’t want to fly ‘just’ business class. I’ve accumulated enough miles, know about about the partner airlines, that most of the time when I’m flying more than 10 hours I do not need to. Sure,…
Korean Air Awards Now Bookable at Delta.com
Delta has added Korean Air award space to its website. This is huge because Korean Air has outstanding award availability in business class, and because previously there was no way to search Korean Air business inventory online. Korean Air’s website doesn’t even let you search unless you have enough miles in your account for the award. Expertflyer has displayed it on some intra-Asia routes only. So someone with Delta miles had to call Delta to hunt and peck for space — dealing with agents who might not be willing to make more than three searches in a call, agents who don’t know where Seoul is let alone cities beyond Korean’s hub, and agents who don’t know that Korean is even a partner let alone how to search for their award space. Here’s Korean Air business…
United’s Award Routing Rules Make No Sense — And Why That’s a Good Thing
Yesterday MileValue wrote about United’s award routing rules — for instance, the rules that determine what flights you can take when booking an award, how many miles you are allowed to travel between cities, and which partners you can combine on a ticket. What he discovers, in essence, is that ever since United and Continental integrated their computer systems on March 3, the Continental rules and procedures applied. And that the Continental rules and procedures make no sense, something which has been the case at least since Continental joined Star Alliance. United’s rules had been quite clear. Before they began cozying up with Continental, you were permitted a stopover (visiting a city on the way to or back from your destination) or an open jaw (flying into one city and back from a different city,…
It’s Official: Qatar to Join Oneworld
Here’s the press release. So I guess when Qatar’s CEO emphatically denied that they were joining oneworld less than 10 days ago — “No, we will not. It’s all rumors” — that he was just lying. The airline will be integrated into the alliance over the next 12 to 18 months. Great news for the value of American Airlines miles, Qatar offers great business class award availability (and has first class cabins on a limited number of Europe – Doha routes) and an outstanding business class product. Sadly within American’s program the Middle East — an amazing connection point for much of the world — is of limited usefulness. You can connect in Doha if you want to head to India and surrounding countries, or to the Middle East itself. But you’re not able to…
Monday’s Big oneworld Announcement and the Future of the Alliance
A couple of days ago I received an email from the Weber Shadwick PR folks about oneworld’s announcement on Monday in New York. The briefing will be at 2pm with oneworld’s Chairman, Willie Walsh of British Airways and Iberia, and oneworld’s CEO. On Monday we’ll find out what the oneworld announcement really is, there has been tons of reporting and denials amidst claims of leaked documents. The smart money has been on Qatar, either joining oneworld outright or creating some sort of alliance with part of oneworld rather than full integration (the recent Qantas-Emirates alliance, and termination of partnership with Qantas and other oneworld carriers on Australia – Europe routes, makes it tough for Qantas to also partner with Qatar). Although it’s conceivable that it’s something more mundane, full integration for Malaysia Airlines or formal…
