Prologue: The decision-making and booking process I’m just back from South Asia, where my wife and I had a nice pretty par for the course first class redemption. But there were some high points, and some lessons in award redemption that I hope to be able to share. Some things I’d do again, some things I’d do differently, so it seemed worth writing up a trip report and hopefully it’ll be worth reading and even helpful to a few folks. I started out looking for first class transpacific award seats on Star Alliance, planning for a trip that was a little bit less than two weeks. The plan was a getaway towards the end of the cold winter season, maybe miss the final snow (we lucked out and did!) and to come back as DC…
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Get 10% Cash Back on Your Travel Spend with the Travelocity American Express Card
As a travel junkie and someone who booked not just travel for myself but for all sorts of friends and colleagues, I like the American Epxress Premier Rewards Gold card which earns triple Membership Rewards points on airfare purchases. And I do like my Membership Rewards points, especially for transfers: To Continental, which will hold Star Alliance awards when you don’t have enough miles in your account. Points transfer instantly, as well. This partnership ends September 30. To Aeroplan, because of their favorable award chart (e.g. 80,000 miles for business class from the US to much of Europe, or 120,000 miles for first class from the US to as far South in Asia as Singapore. Points transfer instantly. To British Airways, because of their 100,000 mile business class awards on Cathay Pacific from the US…
Delta Finally Publishes Their Award Chart for Destinations Outside North America – And It’s a Doozy!
Delta has finally published their award charts. Yep, you read that right. Previously how many miles they were supposed to charge you for travel that didn’t begin or end in North America was a secret. They didn’t actually publish an award chart. You had no idea how many points you were supposed to need for an award, and had no way to know if an agent was prciing something correctly or not. After many years of haranguing (by me, though of course by others) they’ve gone ahead and actually published their award pricing. And they’ve taken the opportunity at the same time to bump up the price of several of their awards. TM Travel World points out that they’ve increased the cost of awards from US to North Asia from 60,000 miles in coach to…
Starwood Announces Hotel Award Categories for 2011, and the Changes Aren’t Bad at All…
Yesterday I wrote on Milepoint that Starwood should be coming out with their revised award categories for 2011. The list of changes has been made public and my predictions were all wrong. In the past I’ve given Starwood a hard time over their annual re-categorization of properties. A very hard time, and I think it’s well-deserved. They say their categories are based on the average room rates for a hotel property, but on the hotel categories seem to go up even when room rates stay constant. Starwood introduced category 6 and category 7 and certainly hotels in that category cost more in points even when the rooms themselves don’t cost more. And I’m especially exercised over Starwood charging double points for ‘all suite’ properties at the highest award categories. A hotel earns its room rates…
How to Get the Best Hotel Deals
Points, status, and bonuses are often the most leveraged way to secure the best overall travel experience at the lowest price overall. In other words, best value proposition — combination of best rooms, best benefits like breakfast and internet, for the lowest price considering all that you get. That’s mostly what I write about and how I approach my own travel. But there are times when it’s all about price, not all about the best overall travel experience. So instead of ‘how do you get elite status quickly?’ or ‘how do you leverage that status with points promotions and upgrades?’ this post is about ‘how do you get the best price?’. I’m going to give a shot at look at airfare, hotels, and rental cars separately. Let’s start with hotels. Though since I’m not always…
How to Use Delta Skymiles to Book International Premium Class Awards
Yesterday I wrote a guide to redeeming US Airways Dividend Miles for awards on their Star Alliance partners. Now Troy has written up a similar guide for Delta Skymiles. Delta’s availability on its own flights tends to be much less generous than most other airlines. But they do have some pretty good partners, and those partners often have decent availability. But Delta makes the process more cumbersome than most airlines to find the great partner award availability, and to get it at the ‘low’ award level price. First, because the Delta website is very limited in the partners it has on offer. Second, because for most cases the only way to ‘hold’ an award is on the website, otherwise it’s instant ticketing only, which makes tinkering difficult. Third, because Delta agents aren’t very adept at…
Using US Airways Dividend Miles to Book Star Alliance Awards
You can use your US Airways Dividend Miles for travel on Star Alliance carriers. This is usually the best way to make use of your miles (although consider US Airways’ new business class product, especially during ‘low season’ when the awards are discounted). With the numerous partners in the Star Alliance, most awards are possible. The US Airways website doesn’t help, you have to call to make your booking. But prepare for your call, agents have limited tools at their disposal and aren’t always well-versed in the rules. If you have difficulty, best advice is ‘hang up, call back’ and you can probably get what you need. It’s always best to plan out your award in advance, and I’ll be writing more about how to go about doing this in the near future. There are…
The First Award Redemption I’ve Ever Been Jealous Of — All Nippon’s New First Class “Inspiration of Japan”
I’ve never been jealous of an award that I had booked for someone else, until now. I’ve flown many of the great airline products, tasted what the best carriers have to offer. And I’ll admit it, I do crave trying new and different seats and service and food and experiencing what innovative carriers are doing. Call it blog research if you’d like, but I admit to being a terrible geek for sucj things. We all have our quirks and foibles. It’s highly likely that I redeem more miles than anyone else, I’ve reserved over 80 million miles worth of awards during the past year for folks, and I’ve put together some very nice itineraries on the very best airlines among the more pedestrian ‘family of 4 to Italy this summer’ bookings. And I rarely stop…
40% Bonus on Transfers from American Express to British Airways
I logged into my Membership Rewards account and saw the following offer this morning, when selecting British Airways I get Limited Time Offer 40% Bonus BA Miles! and mousing over reveals: You can get 40% more BA Miles from British Airways just by transferring Membership Rewards® points to your British Airways Executive Club account now through March 31, 2011. It’s restricted to ‘one bonus per cardmember’ so only your first transfer during the promotion period will earn the 40%. Choose your transfer amount wisely! Transferring 72,000 Amex points to British Airways would yield enough miles for roundtrip business class on Cathay Pacific from North America to Asia, grab a free stopover in Hong Kong and travel as far as Bali. That’s a pretty excellent deal. Things to keep in mind about British Airways, though: You…
American AAdvantage Access to British Airways Award Space Across the Atlantic Really is a Game Changer
British Airways began offering full mileage-earning to their Executive Club members, even on discounted fares. That’s huge. No more 25% mileage-earning and never quite reaching an award. A monster step forward for a European program, and one that has Flying Blue scrambling and shaking their heads. Every European discount fare traveler with a choice, not wedded to a non-stop (or not able to access one from their home airport) and not striving for elite status in a competing program really should consider British Airways Executive Club. With bmi’s Diamond Club slated to go away, BA Executive Club became in one fell swoop arguably the best frequent flyer program in Europe. Sure, there are arguments to be made for Miles & More. But their award chart is expensive and has gotten more so. This really was…
