Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
Apr 12th 2013, 5:16 pm
#301
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
So, just as a follow up to this... United have changed their planes on the IAH-LHR route to old 767's. This sucks big time. I've been IAH-LHR LHR-IAH, IAH-LHR in the past two weeks and still in London at present and it's made the trip considerably less comfortable. In business there's notably less space and far fewer film options, food has also declined in quality. In economy plus, there's no on-demand anymore (back to old tiny screens with looping video). I don't know where United are putting all of the more modern Continental planes but it doesn't appear to be on any of the routes I fly (the planes with DirectTV installed seem to have all but disappeared on internal routes).
This puts me in a real conundrum and I'd appreciate your thoughts Tonrob...
I've stuck with Continental/United as it's relatively easy to collect their FF miles and they're one of the easier/cheaper ones to use. IAH is also a hub for United and so there's a decent amount of flight choice and I can fly United internally within the States to get where I need to go.
Is there a better option in terms of other FF plans? Bearing in mind that I would want direct flights back to the UK? It's a real shame as I always liked Continental but it's just gone so far downhill since the takeover (I mean merger - no wait, I don't!
)
This puts me in a real conundrum and I'd appreciate your thoughts Tonrob...
I've stuck with Continental/United as it's relatively easy to collect their FF miles and they're one of the easier/cheaper ones to use. IAH is also a hub for United and so there's a decent amount of flight choice and I can fly United internally within the States to get where I need to go.
Is there a better option in terms of other FF plans? Bearing in mind that I would want direct flights back to the UK? It's a real shame as I always liked Continental but it's just gone so far downhill since the takeover (I mean merger - no wait, I don't!
)I'd get on the United forum on Flyertalk and find out if that aircraft switch is temporary or permanent.
United's FF programme is a good one even if their service and aircraft are shit. I use UA miles regularly to book on other Star Alliance carriers (usually Lufthansa). UA allow one-way awards and also don't levy fuel surcharges on award redemptions (at least with any carrier I've booked on). I haven't set foot on a UA plane for 12 years, but their miles are easy to come by as they're a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
I've seen pics of heir newest business class seat though and I'd give it a whirl if I had to. But if your only choice is their crappy 767s then I'd be tempted with BA. If you go the BA route then you can collect miles in any One World programme, but your main choices would be BA and AA I guess.
Apr 16th 2013, 7:29 am
#302
Rootbeeraholic
Joined: Aug 2009
Location: Houston, Tx
Posts: 2,280
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
Are your choices only UA and BA?
I'd get on the United forum on Flyertalk and find out if that aircraft switch is temporary or permanent.
United's FF programme is a good one even if their service and aircraft are shit. I use UA miles regularly to book on other Star Alliance carriers (usually Lufthansa). UA allow one-way awards and also don't levy fuel surcharges on award redemptions (at least with any carrier I've booked on). I haven't set foot on a UA plane for 12 years, but their miles are easy to come by as they're a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
I've seen pics of heir newest business class seat though and I'd give it a whirl if I had to. But if your only choice is their crappy 767s then I'd be tempted with BA. If you go the BA route then you can collect miles in any One World programme, but your main choices would be BA and AA I guess.
I'd get on the United forum on Flyertalk and find out if that aircraft switch is temporary or permanent.
United's FF programme is a good one even if their service and aircraft are shit. I use UA miles regularly to book on other Star Alliance carriers (usually Lufthansa). UA allow one-way awards and also don't levy fuel surcharges on award redemptions (at least with any carrier I've booked on). I haven't set foot on a UA plane for 12 years, but their miles are easy to come by as they're a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
I've seen pics of heir newest business class seat though and I'd give it a whirl if I had to. But if your only choice is their crappy 767s then I'd be tempted with BA. If you go the BA route then you can collect miles in any One World programme, but your main choices would be BA and AA I guess.
I will give United fair credit for something though, I travelled back to Houston last weekend to pick up my family as I needed to extend my business trip in London. My son was sick after we'd boarded and we decided we would rather get off than have a sick child on a 10hr flight. United were lovely about it and rebooked multiple flights (on different days) with no cost and no hassle.
Apr 16th 2013, 6:23 pm
#303
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
50K AMEX Business Gold limited time sign-up offer
Apr 20th 2013, 6:51 pm
#304
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Mendocino, California
Posts: 954
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
Tonrob. Do you know what the best programme would be to unload our Amex Platinum points ? We have about 110,000 and plan on cancelling the cards soon.
We have BritRail passes for 2 weeks in Jun/July so a hotel programme would be nice but I am not really familiar with the partners Amex offers, except Best Western and that doesn't look like such a good deal. Same with Starwood.
Cheers.
We have BritRail passes for 2 weeks in Jun/July so a hotel programme would be nice but I am not really familiar with the partners Amex offers, except Best Western and that doesn't look like such a good deal. Same with Starwood.
Cheers.
Apr 21st 2013, 12:17 am
#305
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
Tonrob. Do you know what the best programme would be to unload our Amex Platinum points ? We have about 110,000 and plan on cancelling the cards soon.
We have BritRail passes for 2 weeks in Jun/July so a hotel programme would be nice but I am not really familiar with the partners Amex offers, except Best Western and that doesn't look like such a good deal. Same with Starwood.
Cheers.
We have BritRail passes for 2 weeks in Jun/July so a hotel programme would be nice but I am not really familiar with the partners Amex offers, except Best Western and that doesn't look like such a good deal. Same with Starwood.
Cheers.
There's a 50k Business Gold offer on now so I'd recommend getting one of those just before canceling your Platinum. That way you get an extra 50K and keep your points alive longer so can wait for a good airline transfer offer.
Apr 21st 2013, 12:54 am
#306
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Free one-way flights when making award redemptions
The gist here is taking advantage of certain airlines' rules regarding stopovers to add free additional one-way trips to award redemptions.
Example: I want to make an award reservation Boston-London and back. Instead of doing this I book a one-way Boston-London and then a one-way London-San Francisco (for example) via Boston with a very long layover there (up to a year). Costs the same, but now I have an additional ticket from Boston-San Francisco.
All kinds of fun can be had with this. Mr Pickles has done a short post today with links to further information: http://first2board.com/themrpickles/...47102672420442
Example: I want to make an award reservation Boston-London and back. Instead of doing this I book a one-way Boston-London and then a one-way London-San Francisco (for example) via Boston with a very long layover there (up to a year). Costs the same, but now I have an additional ticket from Boston-San Francisco.
All kinds of fun can be had with this. Mr Pickles has done a short post today with links to further information: http://first2board.com/themrpickles/...47102672420442
Apr 22nd 2013, 5:45 pm
#307
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Mendocino, California
Posts: 954
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
MR transfers to hotel programmes are terrible value - better to use 'pay with points' but you often still end up getting less than 1c per point in value so not great.
There's a 50k Business Gold offer on now so I'd recommend getting one of those just before canceling your Platinum. That way you get an extra 50K and keep your points alive longer so can wait for a good airline transfer offer.
There's a 50k Business Gold offer on now so I'd recommend getting one of those just before canceling your Platinum. That way you get an extra 50K and keep your points alive longer so can wait for a good airline transfer offer.
Thanks.
Apr 23rd 2013, 12:08 am
#308
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
35% bonus AMEX to BA
Mommy Points (Woof woof!) talks about the new 35% transfer bonus from AMEX Membership Rewards to BA Avios.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/mommyp...out-flying-ba/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/mommyp...out-flying-ba/
Apr 24th 2013, 1:47 pm
#309
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Apr 26th 2013, 10:12 am
#310
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Cheapy Arizona holiday booked!
I recently booked a family holiday for October and realized I neglected to post about it here. We love the Southwest, and this trip sees us based in and around Phoenix for 10 days.
The three of us are flying Delta first class from Hartford to Phoenix. Delta has three levels of award pricing (low/medium/high) and effectively charges more miles to fly than other airlines by strangling award availability in the low category. Accordingly I could not find anything below the medium-level pricing which was 80,000 miles per person. I don't mind too much as I find Delta miles the easiest and cheapest to acquire at the moment thanks to the SunTrust Delta debit card - so the flights cost 240,000 miles and $30 in total.
We are splitting our accommodation across two different resorts so that we can (a) enjoy a change of scenery mid-way through our holiday and (b) balance out the cost across 2 different award programmes. 5 nights in a one-bedroom villa at the Hilton Squaw Peak cost 120,000 HHonors Points. These Hilton points came courtesy of the AMEX Hilton card, leveraged by a 6x category bonus on pharmacy spend - a benefit that is sadly going away within the next few days.
The next 5 nights are in a one-bedroom suite at the Westin Kierland Villas in Scottsdale. I was lucky enough to grab this at 12,000 points per night before a recent Starwood hotel shuffle that saw them increase to 20,000. My Starpoints came courtesy of the AMEX Starwood card - which Mrs tonrob and I both hold (me the personal version and her the business).
Total direct out of pocket costs so far are $30 for the trip, and I still need to book car rental. I have Hertz points that could cover this - but for some reason I always want to hold on to them thinking I could get better value in the future somehow. This is probably the third trip where I'm considering holding off using them, and I think I need to give myself a bit of a talking to...
The three of us are flying Delta first class from Hartford to Phoenix. Delta has three levels of award pricing (low/medium/high) and effectively charges more miles to fly than other airlines by strangling award availability in the low category. Accordingly I could not find anything below the medium-level pricing which was 80,000 miles per person. I don't mind too much as I find Delta miles the easiest and cheapest to acquire at the moment thanks to the SunTrust Delta debit card - so the flights cost 240,000 miles and $30 in total.
We are splitting our accommodation across two different resorts so that we can (a) enjoy a change of scenery mid-way through our holiday and (b) balance out the cost across 2 different award programmes. 5 nights in a one-bedroom villa at the Hilton Squaw Peak cost 120,000 HHonors Points. These Hilton points came courtesy of the AMEX Hilton card, leveraged by a 6x category bonus on pharmacy spend - a benefit that is sadly going away within the next few days.
The next 5 nights are in a one-bedroom suite at the Westin Kierland Villas in Scottsdale. I was lucky enough to grab this at 12,000 points per night before a recent Starwood hotel shuffle that saw them increase to 20,000. My Starpoints came courtesy of the AMEX Starwood card - which Mrs tonrob and I both hold (me the personal version and her the business).
Total direct out of pocket costs so far are $30 for the trip, and I still need to book car rental. I have Hertz points that could cover this - but for some reason I always want to hold on to them thinking I could get better value in the future somehow. This is probably the third trip where I'm considering holding off using them, and I think I need to give myself a bit of a talking to...
Apr 26th 2013, 10:17 am
#311
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
BA bonus for travel before end of May (US-based members)
E-mail from BA the other day:
No sooner had I received this, I realized I required to travel to Europe on a business trip 2 weeks from now. Unfortunately my employer only pays for World Traveler Plus for this length of trip, and while these bonus Avios in theory would cover the (miles) cost of an upgrade to Club World, at present there is no availability showing. This changes by the hour, however - so I will keep looking. In the meantime the thought of the bonus sweetens the pill a little.... 
Time is running out to claim your share of the 75 million bonus Avios we've set aside in our Happiness Fund. The good news is that it's not too late.
Simply register, then book a qualifying, round-trip, transatlantic flight in any cabin* and fly as an Executive Club Member between now and May 31, 2013, for 20,000 bonus Avios on every round-trip. And when you book and fly five round-trips, you can claim an extra 100,000. In other words, there are 200,000 bonus Avios with your name on them!
That's enough to put towards reward travel, upgrades, even hotel stays and car rentals.¹
But act fast before time runs out. First register for bonus Avios, then book your travel, and claim your share of happy.
Simply register, then book a qualifying, round-trip, transatlantic flight in any cabin* and fly as an Executive Club Member between now and May 31, 2013, for 20,000 bonus Avios on every round-trip. And when you book and fly five round-trips, you can claim an extra 100,000. In other words, there are 200,000 bonus Avios with your name on them!
That's enough to put towards reward travel, upgrades, even hotel stays and car rentals.¹
But act fast before time runs out. First register for bonus Avios, then book your travel, and claim your share of happy.
May 1st 2013, 10:48 am
#312
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Free miles at Staples
There are two modest offers at Staples this week, of the kind that come up regularly enough for me to keep a look-out.
Both are detailed in this Frequent Miler post (scroll down slightly to get to them). Both involve the purchase of gift cards, and run until this Saturday.
1. (In-store only). Buy $150+ in Mastercard GCs and get an easy rebate of $15. (Staples Easy Rebates are submitted electronically and very reliable indeed in my experience). The rebate here more than covers the cost of the GC activation fee, so you earn miles for purchasing using your points-earning credit card and, in addition to having your costs covered, make a very small profit.
2. Is a coupon to get $10 off a $100 or more purchase online. Seems to work for GCs, so see #1.
What makes these worthwhile?
As always, look for credit cards that give a category bonus in certain types of stores. Mrs tonrob and I each hold Chase INK Bold/Plus business cards that give 5x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at office supply stores. For #2 above you can even navigate to staples.com via the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal to earn 2 extra points per $. This means that if you use these deals to buy, say, $200 GCs then you earn 1,000 free miles in deal #1 and 1,400 free miles for deal #2, plus a couple of dollars extra for your trouble.
These deals are one per household...
Both are detailed in this Frequent Miler post (scroll down slightly to get to them). Both involve the purchase of gift cards, and run until this Saturday.
1. (In-store only). Buy $150+ in Mastercard GCs and get an easy rebate of $15. (Staples Easy Rebates are submitted electronically and very reliable indeed in my experience). The rebate here more than covers the cost of the GC activation fee, so you earn miles for purchasing using your points-earning credit card and, in addition to having your costs covered, make a very small profit.
2. Is a coupon to get $10 off a $100 or more purchase online. Seems to work for GCs, so see #1.
What makes these worthwhile?
As always, look for credit cards that give a category bonus in certain types of stores. Mrs tonrob and I each hold Chase INK Bold/Plus business cards that give 5x Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at office supply stores. For #2 above you can even navigate to staples.com via the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal to earn 2 extra points per $. This means that if you use these deals to buy, say, $200 GCs then you earn 1,000 free miles in deal #1 and 1,400 free miles for deal #2, plus a couple of dollars extra for your trouble.
These deals are one per household...
May 8th 2013, 10:01 pm
#313
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Mendocino, California
Posts: 954
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
This is a nice deal....
" Won’t Last! 75,000 Points (~$750+ in Travel) With The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card "
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/0...ard-wont-last/
" Won’t Last! 75,000 Points (~$750+ in Travel) With The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card "
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/0...ard-wont-last/
May 9th 2013, 6:48 am
#314
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Re: Traveling cheaply and well using miles and points
This is a nice deal....
" Won’t Last! 75,000 Points (~$750+ in Travel) With The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card "
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/0...ard-wont-last/
" Won’t Last! 75,000 Points (~$750+ in Travel) With The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card "
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/0...ard-wont-last/
I'll take comfort in the fact that historically variations of this one have cropped up at least a few times each year.
May 13th 2013, 5:20 am
#315
Septic Sprout
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 7,993
Preventing your airline miles from expiring
View From The Wing with another concisely-written article on preventing your airline miles from expiring:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...from-expiring/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...from-expiring/