The reason I love points in credit card programs that transfer to frequent flyer miles is flexibility. I don’t know which airline is going to offer the award that I want when I want it. When I can transfer to airlines in all of the different alliances, and to airlines that offer more availability to their own members to partners, I really multiply the chances of getting the saver award I’m looking for. And I make my miles go a lot farther.
What’s more, several foreign frequent flyer programs will give you the same awards that a US airline will — for fewer miles. They partner with the US airline, but have a more favorable award chart.
Jerry R. writes about his experience figuring out exactly that,
My wife and I are travelling from Dublin to New York in July and I wanted a non-stop business class award.
- United only offers the EveryDay award at 110,000 miles
- Delta wanted a crazy 280,000 miles
- [N]othing was available on Aer Lingus.
I remembered you’re writing about Air France partner rewards and lo and behold, Air France was offering two seats on the Delta non-stop at 56,500 miles each.
Before transferring miles in, following your advice, I called to make sure the availability was real and as it was, put the award on hold and transferred miles from Chase… and now I’m set.
Earlier in the year I wrote about how Delta overcharges you for award tickets and how you can often book the same (saver) flights using miles on partners like Air France for less.
I’ve also written about putting awards on hold with Air France KLM Flying Blue as well as with many other programs. I always like to lock in an award whenever possible before transferring points.
It’s not supposed to be possible to move points back to a bank currency after transferring to an airline, although I failed to follow my own advice (The Paranoid Cautious Approach to Transferring Points and Booking Awards”) a week and a half ago on an Aeroplan award. The availability showed online. I decided to move the points online and make the booking rather than calling Aeroplan (and paying their telephone booking fee). However the booking errored out. The Thai Airways segment wasn’t confirming, and they couldn’t help with it on the phone either. But they were happy to move the points back, it just took filling out a form on their end and the process can take 5 business days.
In this case, though, Jerry R. did things exactly right and got a lot more leverage from his miles as a result.
IIRC AF in the past froze FF accounts that transferred pts in to book award, in their zealous “guarding” against fraud.
Is it now AF is far more lenient in handling points transferred in to book a premium cabin award?
Finally does AF expire account after a few years without activity? I had one created several years ago solely used to check partner award availability specifically for AZ due to DL’s non-functioning site. A few months ago when I tried to log in the AF account, it gave me errors.
Thank you for answering the questions, especially the AF freeze accounts on point transferring in to book J seats.
Thank you for reminding me about this tactic. Will add to my playbook.
Good information. Will Flying Blue let you connect on Delta to or from a secondary city with the same award price?
@Gary, can you explain how Air France can offer the same seat on the same flight at a lower mileage cost than DL does? I’m assuming AF has to pay DL for that seat. Does DL charge AF less and be happy with that price than DL would charge a DL customer? Explain the “accounting” between AF and DL and between DL and its customers. Thanks.
Flying Blue fixed their problems with spurious fraud flags some time ago. Obviously, this wasn’t helping their relationships with the banks, and they have found a lucrative business selling points.
Why I think this: I book lots of Flying Blue awards for clients at AwardCat. It’s a common pattern for me to create a brand new Flying Blue account, transfer in the points, and immediately book travel. One thing has caused a call-back with questions: booking travel that didn’t include the account holder, and didn’t have the same last name (in this case, it was an unmarried couple). This is particularly true on short notice. Flying Blue just calls the phone number on file on the Flying Blue account to verify the travel was really intended to be booked, and there have been no issues.
Flying Blue is a uniquely frustrating program in many ways, and customer service can be a challenge. There can, however, be very good values, so it’s always worth a look.
Gary. @Don in ATL poses a great question. Perhaps an article explaining how the airlines reimburse each other for award tickets ??