American Airlines

July 31, 2014

Award Trip Breakdown: Business Class Cathay Pacific Vancouver to New York (YVR to JFK)

Our Alaskan cruise ended Friday morning at 7am in Vancouver and to maximize our time spent in Vancouver without spending the night, I looked for a redeye flight home back to New York. Cathay Pacific had the perfect flight for us leaving Vancouver at 10:50pm and arriving in New York at 7am. Even better, there were several ways to book this flight with miles and there was availability in either economy or business class. I ended up booking business class with lie-flat beds for Andrea & I for a total of 25,000 British Airways Avios each – an unbeatable deal I’ll explain in more detail below.

A little champagne pre-departure helps you fall asleep right?

A little champagne pre-departure helps you fall asleep right?

Sleeping Andrea (ok pretending to sleep for the photo)

Sleeping Andrea (ok pretending to sleep for the photo)

Cathay Pacific is part of the Oneworld Alliance which includes airlines such as American Airlines, British Airways, and now US Airways. As experienced travel hackers will know, by being in the same alliance you can book a partner member’s flight even if you don’t have miles in that specific program. For example, I have no Cathay Pacific Asia Miles but I have American Airlines, British Airways and US Airways miles and all of them could be used to book this Cathay Pacific flight! However it is important to determine the cost in miles in each program and any other restrictions associated so you can book the flight for the fewest miles possible. Let’s run through my options:

Option 1.  American Airlines AAdvantage Miles – American charges 25,000 miles per person for a one way business class flight from Canada to the lower 48 US states or 12,500 miles for an economy class seat. There is no restrictions on booking just a one way flight.

Option 2 – US Airways Dividend Miles – US Airways charges 50,000 miles per person for a roundtrip business class flight with no option to book just a one way flight. This stinks because I only need a one way flight and I would not be able to book this flight for half the amount of miles due to US Airways rules on award travel. Since I want just a one way flight, this option is out.

Option 3 – British Airways Avios – British Airways has a unique award chart in that the price in miles of the flight depends on the distance of the flight flown. So I needed to figure out how far the distance was between YVR (Vancouver Int’l Airport) and JFK. You can check this at Global Circle Mapper (it returned a distance of 2,449 miles) or to avoid this step, simply use the British Airways Avios Calculator tool on their website to determine the Avios cost in miles. My cost would be 25,000 miles one way and there is no restriction on booking just a one way flight.

British Airways Distance Based Award Chart

British Airways Distance Based Award Chart

My decision came down to using AA miles or BA Avios – both of which I had a healthy balance of – and I decided to use Avios since they are best for direct, shorter flights (based on the unique award chart above). I’d rather save my AA miles for longer trips possibly to Asia or Australia where BA Avios would be a poor use (since these trips generally require connections and that would raise the mileage cost for Avios).

You might be wondering why I decided to pay double the cost in miles to fly business class for a short 4 1/2 hour flight. There a few reasons in which I’ll outline below:

1) It’s a short redeye flight and my goal is to maximize sleep. After a long day in Vancouver, I guessed (correctly) that we would be exhausted and I wanted to hit the ground running the next day (as best I could on ~4 hours of sleep). I don’t have to tell you this but lie-flat seats make a big difference.

2) Cathay Pacific is a world class airline, recently voted #1 airline in the world, with great reviews for service and food. I tried to stay up for the dinner service but was too tired so maybe this wasn’t as important in the end but still went into my decision making process

3) This was an unbeatable value in terms of a redemption of miles. Generally for domestic and Canadian flights it is hard to average more then a cent or two per mile (i.e. $250 flight that cost 25,000 in miles has a redemption of 1 cent per mile). In this case, business class seats were pricing at $2,000 a seat!! That’s a redemption of 8 cents per miles (2,000/25,000) which is phenomenal!

4) I just wanted to do it. As I’ve said before, points & miles allows you to take and have opportunities you would have no chance to experience otherwise. Could I ever pay this for business class flight? Hell no. But with miles it’s easy – it was only an extra 12,500 miles per person which is nothing in the grand scheme of things considering signing up for a credit could get you 50,000 to 100,000 miles in one shot!

The Final Tally: 25,000 British Airways Avios (transferred from my American Express Memebership Point balance) + $71 in taxes. Not too shabby for a $2,000 flight!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with some additional pictures of the seat (sorry for the poor quality but its the best I got for this trip).

Catahy1 Cathay2 Cathay5

 

July 2, 2014

Point & Center: $50 Off Hotels, Southwest Flies International & More…

Point & Center is a new feature here where I share some of the big news and offers in the points and miles world that necessitate their own blog post. Think of it as a 60 second summary of some of the highlights in the points and miles world today.

1) Expedia is offering $50 off a hotel booking over $200 if you book via their mobile app. Via Million Mile Secrets, click on their special 4th of July coupon link here and enter your cellphone number to get a unique coupon code. Book your reservation via their mobile app (download it first if necessary) and enter the coupon code Expedia texted you to take $50 off if you book by July 7th and stay before December 31st.

2) As of yesterday, Southwest Airlines now flies international to several destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico. Based on your travel needs, I think this could drastically increase the value of Southwest points for some of you. Legacy carriers like American, United and Delta all charge 35,000 miles roundtrip but I’ve found many itineraries on Southwest to be pricing significantly cheaper. Here is an example from Long Island, NY to Aruba in September pricing out at only 24,220 points!  Before you book your next Caribbean or Mexico getaway, remember now to always give Southwest a check as well for the best deal (both in dollars or points).

Only 24,200 points roundtrip!

Only 24,200 points roundtrip!

3) As highlighted in Points & Miles 101, Starwood SPG points are quite valuable as they can transfer to airlines at a ratio of 1 SPG point to 1.25 airline miles if you transfer in increments of 20,000 points. Well American Airlines has announced a promotion where you will receive a 20% bonus on the miles transferred from Starwood to American Airlines. So if you follow my advice and transfer in increments of 20,000 points, you will end up with 30,000 American Airlines miles instead of the standard 25,000 miles. I wouldn’t make any speculative transfers but if you need miles to book an AA award, this is a nice little bonus to save you some valuable SPG points.
UPDATE: This works for US airways as well!

4) Frontier is giving away 20 $100 gift cards and $1,000 off Frontier flights to one winner for celebrating their birthday by liking them on Facebook. I don’t heavily promote contests like these but it literally took 8 seconds to enter it, so why not? The link to enter the contest can be found here – Frontier Birthday Bash.

I hope you enjoyed the inaugural edition of Point & Center – feel free to let me know your thoughts on this and I can make this a more regular post!

June 5, 2014

Award Trip Breakdown: Long Weekend in Paris for $181!!

For Christmas this past year, I gave Andrea a lock for Christmas. Yup, that exact one below.  Instead of being cliché and giving the plane tickets as the gift, I gave her the lock and led her through hints to what the lock was for – the Pont des Artes, the famous bridge in Paris. This was the very beginning of a romantic long weekend in Paris and here is how I did it for almost nothing.

Andrea's Christmas Gift

Andrea’s Christmas Gift

Flights: Departure – JFK-London-Paris, economy class on American/British Airways. Return – Non-stop Paris-JFK flight on American Airlines.
Retail Cost: $1,000-$1,500 per person.
My Cost: 36,000 American miles + $181 in taxes per person.

American Airlines usually charges 30,000 miles each way for an economy class ticket to Europe. However, during the off-peak season, as defined by American Airlines to be October 15th to May 15th (that’s over half the year!), a one way flight to Europe is only 20,000 miles. For a nice fall trip or spring weekend in Europe, that is a bargain! You will notice my taxes were quite high at $181 and that is because I could not find award space on AA’s direct JFK to Paris flight, thus requiring me to make a connection on British Airways, who charges high taxes on all flights (both award and cash). If I could have eliminated that flight, the total taxes would have been~  $95 per person.

However, I said my net mileage cost was 36,000 miles, not 40,000. How? One of the benefits of the Citi American AAdvantage Platinum Select card is a 10% rebate on miles redeemed each year with American Airlines if you pay the taxes and any fees with this credit card when making the award reservation. So when I redeemed 40,000 miles for my award flight, a few days later I saw 4,000 miles added back to my account to make my net mileage cost  36,000 per ticket.

I obtained these miles via signing up for various American Airlines credits card. I’ve had 3 different cards (and my wife has had 3 as well) that offered anywhere between 50,000 to 100,000 miles as a signup bonus. Currently there is a 50,000 mile offer for the Citi American AAdvantage Platinum Select mentioned above but the better offer is a 100,000 mile signup bonus for the Citi Executive World Elite Mastercard. That’s enough for two tickets to Europe and you would still have 20,000 miles leftover towards your next trip!

Lodging: Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome.
Retail Cost: $800-$1,000 per night.
My Cost: 2 Free nights from Hyatt Credit Card + 22,000 Hyatt Points per night (for last 2 nights).

For this romantic weekend in Paris, I wanted to stay in one of the top  hotels in the city and I settled on the Park Hyatt which right near the Palace Vendome. However, with rates usually hovering around 600-900 EUROS per night,  a stay here was only possible on points. The Hyatt Visa by Chase offers 2 free nights at ANY Hyatt in the world as its signup bonus so I planned my application for the card to coincide with this trip.

With a signup bonus like this, it makes sense to maximize the redemption at high end luxury hotels (if that’s your thing). My thinking is simple – at these high end properties around the world, there is no chance in hell I could ever afford to pay cash for them. Sure I might get enough points for them but when the bonus is simply two free nights anywhere, I want to stay at a place I can’t normally otherwise. For the additional two nights, I transferred some of the points from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account which were achieved with my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. This redemption highlights the flexibility of transferable bank reward points I discussed last week. 

In the end, my long weekend in Paris cost me $181 out of pocket per person for flights and hotels. And the icing on the cake was Andrea loved seeing the bridge and adding our lock to it.

Lock 2

I think a long weekend at a top end hotel in Paris for under $200 is something we all could afford. Want help in making it happen? My consulting services and award booking services will do the work for you.

Stay tuned for more award trip breakdowns!

 

May 13, 2014

Some Tips from Our Trip to Paris

Bonjour from Paris! We’ve had great trip so far in Paris (that unfortunately ends today) and while I had a free moment, I wanted to share some tips I learned on this trip flying on American Airlines and staying at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome.

20140513-124142.jpg

– For those traveling on the AirTrain to JFK and going to American Airlines (terminal 8), get off at Terminal 1 and switch to the inter-terminal AirTrain instead of riding the AirTrain all the way around to Terminal 8. You will easily save 10+ minutes.

– Interesting note on TSA Precheck. My wife changed her last name after our marriage and we even went to the Global Entry office to update her name there too. However, when checking in for our flight, I had TSA Precheck but she did NOT. I tried to sneak her past the TSA Precheck line with no avail but the agent said I could use the priority lane (usually reserved for elite or first class passengers). So we approached the priority line, I told the agent manning the line I had precheck and she didn’t and we were sent over here, all she replied was “That Sucks” but still let us through!. I was surprised this worked and honestly not sure the reason behind it but I’ll take it.

– If you fly AA internationally, try to take one of their new Boeing 777-300 planes. Even in coach, I fit fine (not always the case at 6’3”, 210lb) and it had a great entertainment system. Service was good too. For 20k miles one way to Europe, its unbeatable.

– First impression of Paris was not good. I almost got scammed by following what I thought was a taxi driver to his car as he told me all other cabs were “pre-booked”. I then realized this was a scam and promptly just ducked into the nearest actual taxi. Then checking into the hotel was fine but the concierge forgot to obtain a museum pass for us (after replying to emails before we left they would have it for us at checkin) and then tried to tell us we shouldn’t get one and it wasn’t a problem. I did not appreciate the concierge’s defensive attitude but it worked out in the end.

– After 4 days here, I can say I actually really like Paris and I look forward to returning. There is a ton to do and it is a great city to walk around in. Food is excellent as well.

– I will touch more upon this in a future post but I don’t think I would recommend the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome at 30,000 Hyatt points a night. Don’t get me wrong its a great hotel but with so many other options in this city, I don’t think its worth the high cost in points. The service (outside the concierge is great) but the rooms are small, the breakfast overpriced at 50 EUR and the place had a stuffy kind of feeling (that happens when people actually pay the 700-800 EUR nightly rate).

– Lastly, highly recommend taking a cooking class while you’re here if your into that sort of thing. We did a French desserts class and it was a blast! I swear my Creme Burlee was better then the restaurant’s where I had it the night before.