Comments

1. Gary, could you please review Garuda Indonesia’s brand new first class for us?

2. I’d love to know a good way/method to find routes from anywhere to anywhere. Say I want to redeem miles on *A and don’t really care where I fly from/to. If I want to get to Europe I can get from home to my US gateway, likewise from my Euro gateway to my destination but hunting and pecking to find the right gateways is a hassle!

3. Hi Gary,

   Thanks for the open forum, again. It generates a lot of great questions.

   The holidays are around the corner (Halloween in a month and a half), which means packed planes and sometimes higher prices. here are some related questions:

   1) What are some of your tips for booking travel, best/worst times to travel, and how to maximize benefits during travel in the next three to four months?

   2) Is it too late to buy tickets? What is the best cash/point combinations for individuals and families?

   3) What is the current relationship between business flyers and leisure travelers (how to they view each other), and how is this impacted by the holidays? Do you have any recommendations for each side to minimize impact on the other?

   I know Delta’s new $199 offer to buy perks equal to Silver Medallion and AA’s version that was released earlier may cause strain on the boarding system. Also, I wonder if there are enough credit card holders to impact the elite travelers.

   4) What do you do during the holidays to maximize you miles and point accumulation?

   While international First Class/Business Class is the best use of points, in the future I would enjoy seeing a bit more coverage on using points for domestic first class. I don’t have any international travel, but have considered first class domestic on occasion as a treat. If airline status is low/non-existent, what are the best ways to get into First Class with the lowest cost (money, points, etc)?

   Thanks again for everything, Gary!

4. Gary,

   It’s hard to tell what kind of travel you put up, clearly you travel quite a bit, and sometimes book things further out. I’d be curious how far out you typically book, and if that is based on redemption availability, fare finds (e.g. the QR PNH-SGN), or other factors. It would be interesting to learn more about your thought process, as you do share much of it in other areas of your writing.

5. I would love to learn what each airline has policy-wise about regarding free stopovers and hidden cities.

   Similar to credit cards by banks, instead policies by airline/program.

   And of course the best way to maximize each policy.

   Thank you for the amazing work that you do!

6. What services do you offer for a fee?

7. Are there any situations when a flight that one booked with award points earn actually earns points?

   For example when a late flight results in a misconnection and rebooking by the airline onto another flight?

8. So, I am one of those poor schlubs with hundreds of thousands of miles and points, and in some cases over a million in some programs — and I never spend them and sit there watching them devalue. (It’s not really that bad: I just spent (probably overspent) a substantial chunk of AA to front-cabin round-trip my wife and I to Central America for a long week, but that was a rare event.) (Honestly, I used to rack up the AA miles like a maniac — but I didn’t even really care about the miles except as they went toward current and lifetime elite status.)

   Something I think isn’t well covered in the existing blogosphere/FlyerTalk wisdom on spending miles: it’s fairly difficult for us to take more than an extra long weekend. Four area Explorer awards; RTWs — these might be out there for us someday, but right now it’s jam to the airport on a Wednesday or Thursday evening and catch something; back on Sunday or Monday evening. Do that, and add time zone whiplash if you go east or west, and it becomes… less fun.

   Sometimes it feels as though the only people who are successful at the redemption end of the game are semi-retired, or writers, or other work-anywhere types; how can the short-duration mile spender best redeem their mileage without feeling like one of those folks everyone makes fun of for spending 280,000 SPGs for a coach round trip to Seattle?

9. (1) JAL! I read so much about CX in your and Lucky’s blog… But I barely read anything about OneWorld’s other Asia partners: JAL & Malaysia. Malaysia is new, so that’s just a matter of time, but I would love to learn about JAL’s award availability, routes where they have much availability, routes where they have a good product (vs. angled biz seats for long haul). In other words, more JAL please!

   (2) Korean Air miles booking process! I know Korean miles are a good option for those of us with Ultimate Rewards points seeking transpacific F. However, I just know that the availability is great but the booking process is a pain in the butt. What I don’t know is how bad is it, and is the pain worth it?

   (3) More hotel program comparisons… HHilton deserves to be dumped! You love Hyatt but I prefer SPG (but still love Hyatt too). Club Carlson is underrated due to few aspirational properties especially in USA. I don’t know what I’m asking for regarding hotels, but perhaps a comparison of each program’s strengths & weaknesses?

10. I can not keep straight how long it takes for transfers of points from AMEX and SPG to post to their airline partners. A simple chart would be very helpful.

11. My biggest issue is figuring out how to accrue the relatively large number of points and miles I need for family-of-four travel with an upper-middle-class lifestyle that doesn’t involve a lot of mileage-earning travel.

    One or more articles laying out plans to earn say 250K, 500K, and 1M miles per year using credit card bonuses, credit card spend, other promotions, and limited traveling would be very helpful.

12. Two selfish questions that I am interested in and haven’t been able to answer are:

    -How to get to India with points in a quality First Class?

    -Are there any good uses of the BA companion award ticket from the East Coast of the US?

13. How to minimize time on short vacations doing stupid things.

    Best way to not spend too much time parking your car at the airport, taking shuttle to airport, taking shuttle from airport to rental counter, rent a car and go to hotel, check in. Half a day is gone doing just that. If you are on a 3 day trip..thats a lot of time wasted.

    How can you still take a Sat flight and enjoy the trip with all the crazy waking up in the morning?

    Tip on improving effiency when most Americans are taking shorter vacations and dont want to use valuable working weekdays

14. I’d like to have a better understanding of the best flight redemption options for both Amex MR and Chase UR points to various regions. Seems to get complicated based on alliance and non-alliance partners, award charts vs partner award charts, and fuel surcharge policies. I realize it is probably too complex to summarize succinctly, but would be great to have any sort of limited base understanding from which to start when planning how to use stashes of points in these programs.

15. I’ve been collecting points for about a year and a half, and what I’ve found myself wondering a lot about lately is when can I re-sign up for a credit card and be eligible for the bonus once again. I completely understand that this is on a case by case basis depending on the credit card, and even that publishing tips on how to churn certain cards very well may encourage those banks to discontinue certain offers, but I’m really surprised by the absolute lack of coverage on the subject in mileage journalism. The best alternative I’ve found is to scour Flyer Talk on an individual basis, but it’s a crap-shoot. There has to be a set of guidelines or tips on how to more easily find out dates to reapply that can be put out on blogs. Is this a taboo subject?

16. How much does each different credit card for which you receive affiliate commission for pay you per approved application?

17. Nice thought! Would love to see some ideas on mileage running (finding good fares, maximizing miles on routes, etc.) on AA. Thanks again!

18. I think a great post would cover the various sweet spots on various award charts, e.g. Avios for bos-dub, miles and more for UA F redemptions, A3 for North America-Isreal (which they consider Europe), interesting things to do with ANA distance awards, etc.

19. Explicit walk through on how you go about looking for some of the more commonly requested redemptions ie two or four tickets to Europe . Where do you think to look first,how would you suggest people check for availability, is their an alliance or carrier that you start with, same with some of the more requested Asian awards.

20. I’d like to know more about selecting the right planes on the various routes. It seems like every time I find good reward space to Europe or Asia I get a second rate seat in business or first. For example I booked an ANA ORD-HND flight and picked the late day flight with the angled business seats. If I had picked the morning flight it would be the lay flat. The aircraft seemed the same at the time.

21. I’m very curious to hear about the best ‘value’ redemptions for various hotel chains. The aspirational are easy to find information about, but I’d to hear about, say, the best Starwood Category 3/4/5’s.

    Also, articles geared towards folks who are not quite mileage rookies, but aren’t experts either. I would consider myself in that camp, I have successfully earned and churned miles, understand the basic premises, but don’t quite fully understand how to execute the booking of an international trip on United with a stopover. I understand that it is available to do, within the rules, and a huge opportunity, but do not understand the physical act of booking it. I’ve read many mediocre articles on this topic, but not many good ones.

    Also, to echo others, value sweet spots for the most common points currencies.

22. More Hotel and airline reviews with great pictures. Sometimes, bring back some previously posted years ago or so. That’s what I like.

    Thanks.

    ED

23. Gary, I’d like to get your take on using published vs. opaque (Priceline) rates on hotels. Assume no greater discounts to published rates better than AAA to exclude gaming of corp rate codes.

24. I’d like to hear about:
    – Packing tips and tricks that you use
    – Your thoughts about traveling alone vs. traveling with others

25. GAry, I’d like to know if there’s a web site that offers advice on how to save taxes on awards. For example, I notice that whenever I route through Germany, it costs around $60, and since I often fly with my family, that’s $60 X 4. Perhaps there are routing tricks that could save us a bundle on taxes, especially in Europe?

26. Great idea. I have two big questions that I would love to see addressed:

    (1) How can I use Amex points to fly Lufthansa? (Specifically, from the US to Africa via Frankfurt.)

    (2) Any secrets to getting decent value using Delta points to fly Air France?

    Thanks – love your blog.

27. I am bidding for tickets to World Cup 2014 in Brazil next June / July, and I cannot figure out what airline and hotels that have reasonable and uninflated rewards possibilities !! Help out a huge soccer fan….

28. Thanks for asking, Gary! I would like:

    – Tips on hotels with accommodations suitable for Grandma, daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandkids (boy- 11 & girl- 15) that can be booked with points.
    – Tips for a single person who is retired on how to obtain enough hotel points for 7-14 day annual vacations.
    – Most valuable hotel reward programs based on: ease of ability to amass points without paying cash for stays (including churnability of credit cards), number of points required for stays, availability of hotel rooms in the USA and perks offered by hotels (ie, free breakfast and other amenities)…not interested in luxury hotels; just clean, comfortable and in good repair.

29. Favorite tools: I haven’t used KVS in years nor do I use ExpertFlyer or the like. Tell me which tools are most useful, and for which pieces of the puzzle.

30. 1) Global entry- How does this affect the dual citizen?

31. How about booking multiple award tickets on the same itinerary with miles in different partner airline accounts? Like if you have enough united miles for one ticket only, and enough membership rewards points to transfer to a star alliance partner. Is there a trick to making such a booking work?

32. The links within your “Advice: Credit Cards” seem to be broken (at least for me) and I’d like to know your advice (updated if necessary) on “When Do You Cancel Credit Cards You’ve Gotten Just for the Signup Bonus”

33. Would love to know how to get alerted immediately for short-lived mistake fares from flyertalk, like the recent United mistake.

34. I vote for your perspective as the best value in airline miles redemptions (which routes/carriers)

35. Maybe you should stop writing so often about LH and SQ or start flying J or Y in order for us to discover new things/products but, more interesting, you should start flying new airlines and use new F class lounges…

36. Good idea

    Our request :

    Compare & contrast the various Award Booking Services
    To include name, years in business, costs, # of bookers employed by each service & invite readers comments on performance in each of several performance categories.

    We have used Lucky, Scott G and one other. So please include those 3 + yours + Daraius+ others known to you personally.

    We think this would be helpful – we do read Flyer Talk.

    Thanks

37. I enjoy reading your posts and learning more about maximizing value on airlines.

    I just became MVP on Alaska and am hoping next year to return to Uganda on a charity trip. I have no idea if it’s possible to use a combination of money/miles to travel there and even if stop overs in Europe are ever allowed on a ticket. Upgrading to business for at least one leg each way would be fabulous. The expanded coach option was a bit better, but 27 hours in the air left me rummy for days!

    Thank you for all of your posts Gary. They are all very informative.

    Cheri

38. I would love more info on how often you can churn cards. I have a very limited income as my husband has gone back to school, so racking up miles by buying flights is out for us.

    I would also love more info on resources to use to find award seats.

    And some kind of chart to show the best programs to get you to different places in the world. I know thats probably unrealistic but it would be fabulous!

39. Gary, I would like to know how you value Southwest points if I was to redeem them for travel on other airlines. I’m also curious about how it’s even possible. You can redeem the points on non-Southwest airlines; Southwest isn’t part of one of the alliances; and you can seemingly fly anywhere in the world. So how is Southwest valuing the points and what is it doing on the back end – buying flights with points on another airline? My impression from a handful of times that I searched is that the value of each point varies widely depending on what destination I’m searching for. Thanks.

40. Yes, would love more info/reviews of award booking services!!! Please.

41. Ditto for #15 Adam’s post. Realizing that personal credit scores, other factors, and the changing nature of offerings from issuers themselves prevent a one-time, all-inclusive guide, it would be helpful to have a general table, e.g.,

    Alaska Airlines – Bank of America – Churnable – < 90 days
    British Airways – Chase – Non-churnable

42. So if I have the Costco amex and I’m not working towards a spend-am I better off using the Costco Amex and getting the cash back instead of earning points?

43. 2 requests.

    1. If you’ve had any experience, could you do a writeup on itineraries which are legal but can’t be booked online? The example I’ve heard is that on domestic tickets you can sometimes catch the first flight after you arrive even if that’s over 4 hours.

    2. I’m personally interested in flying more than destinations and so I’d be interested in a redemption metric of points per flying minute to figure out how to maximize along that dimension. I doubt it’s a common desire, but if I don’t ask you’re not going to do it, right?

44. Hi, I would appreciate a post on the best reward redemption opportunities for both US Air and AA. I was lucky enough to book both the Hong Kong/Bali and Chile/Easter Island trips prior to BA changing their award chart.
    Thanks!

45. I’m a former business traveler and now retired. I would be interested in an occasional column devoted to how people who no longer fly for business can take advantage of free travel opportunities. I do credit card churns to replace some of the miles I used to earn as a UA 1k but are there other tips and techniques for those of who do less revenue travel?

46. The comments so far have echoed what I’m interested in, primarily how to maximize the points I’m earning. I want to make the best use of my miles and worry that I may end up spending more than I need to simply because I’m new to the miles/points game.

    I also have another small request. I only see month and day on your blog entries. Can you please add the year? When I do a search and it pulls up an entry I’m not sure how old the information is. Thanks!

47. I find plenty of great ways to spend my OW and *A miles, but my 500K+ Delta Skypesos have been stranded for years because I never find award availability anywhere interesting. I would love to find premium international seat(s) almost anywhere and burn them all. How does an expert do it?

48. Gary – I got a letter about opening a Citibank checking account for 30,000 AAdvantage miles. Would love to see you write about the benefits or if it’s worth it to open one of these accounts for miles.

49. @Peter I’ve written about these offers, the 30k offers have a bunch of requirements to hit which is cool but do expect to get a 1099 reported to the iRS if you go for that one, personally I’d stick with a lesser offer

50. An article on fare classes of different airlines and their corresponding award chart values (e.g. saver awards, etc…). Also maybe tips for setting up alerting systems like expert flyer to show you when those seats open up.