Travel Hacking

July 16, 2014

Good To Know: How to Take Advantage of a Schedule Change on your Flight

If you are like most people, you probably book your flights 3+ months out for any type of big trip or vacation. If you are using miles, you might even book earlier, as in my experience the more time I give myself to find a flight using miles, the more likely I’m able to get the flights I want for free. However, the downside (or upside to some) of booking early is there is a greater chance of a schedule change for your flight.

In some cases, the schedule change might actually benefit you. If you’re in no rush to get to your destination, an extra hour to sleep in and avoid that 6am flight sounds lovely. Unfortunately, I’ve had more bad schedules changes than good ones but here are two key takeaways to remember when dealing with a schedule change, especially ones not in your favor.

board

1) The Ability to Switch to a Better Flight 

When you purchase a flight, your overall objective might be to secure the cheapest flight so you agree to take a flight that maybe gets in later in the day after dinnertime even though you’d really prefer to get there mid-afternoon so you can enjoy a little time on the beach. Sp you booked the cheaper flight that gets in later about 5 months ago but guess what – you just got an email from the airline that now you will arrive about an hour later. It’s time to make this schedule change go from a negative to a positive by asking the airline to schedule you on the best flight for you to your destination.

I actually had this exact issue happen to me for our flight to Alaska last month. We were initially booked on a 12pm flight (using miles) on United leaving JFK that connected in San Francisco to a flight to Anchorage that would get us in around 7pm.  I got a notification that the San Francisco to Anchorage leg changed to two hours later, now causing a 3.5 hour layover and an arrival in Anchorage after 9pm. We were meeting friends for dinner so this was not going to work.

I wanted to get to Anchorage even earlier and I saw a flight from LGA that connected  in Chicago that would get us in to Anchorage at 1:22pm but there was no award availability. Some people would stop here and not bother calling but I’m here to tell you it didn’t matter there was no award availability. I simply called United and explained the new flight times from San Francisco to Anchorage didn’t work for us as I had a meeting “I needed to be at” by 8pm so I needed to get to Anchorage by 7pm to make this “meeting”.

Instead of letting the representative suggest a replacement flight for me, I told him I researched other flights and I would like the LGA-ORD-ANC flight and he had no issues putting us on it as he was manually able to open award availability for it. When we first booked our flights, that specific flight was not available on miles but the San Francisco option was so we chose that even though our goal was to get to Anchorage as early as possible. The schedule change by United actually allowed us to switch to a better flight for us (though due to a bunch of other issues we actually didn’t fly this route…that’s the next blog post).

2) The Ability to Cancel Your Flight for Free

Sometimes the schedule change is so great it doesn’t make sense to take the trip anymore, especially if its a short trip. Since the airline didn’t hold up its end of the bargain with the scheduled flight times you booked, you can request a free refund for your flight, even if its on a non-refundable ticket. For example, your return flight was moved up two hours but now you can’t make a “scheduled lunch with a client” so you can explain that to the agent and tell them you need to cancel the flight as a result. They should waive the $150 or $200 cancellation fee and put the money right back on your credit card.

You can also take this approach to cancel a flight that you booked that you don’t want to take anymore. This actually happened to me as I booked Andrea and myself a weekend getaway last December to Miami when I saw a cheap fare under $200 but as the trip was drawing closer, we both didn’t want to go anymore. She was working a lot and we wanted to enjoy the Christmas season at home together. Looking for a way out of this flight, I looked at the reservation and noticed the return flight changed to arrive 25 minutes later than scheduled. 

I had my ticket (no pun intended) to cancel this flight for free. I simply called up Delta and explained arriving any later than initially scheduled would jeopardize an onward connection I had on another separate ticket so I needed to cancel this flight. They offered to put me on an earlier flight but I told them I had changed to an earlier flight myself separately, so they proceeded to cancel our flights for free! I might have stretched the truth about an onward connection that I would miss but it allowed me to get out of a non-refundable ticket for free.

One BIG PIECE of Advice – H.U.C.A

For a small time change in the flight of say under 20 minutes, it might be tough to convince an agent that you need to be switched to the earlier/later flight. Even if its a legitimate change of several hours some agents might refuse to change it still. Don’t let that discourage you. Follow the mantra of H.U.C.A. (hang up, call again) and you might get an agent who is more sympathetic about you being late to that all important “business meeting”. I’ve found saying you will miss something business related, family related or missing another flight that you booked on a separate ticket are the easiest ways to convince an agent why the schedule change doesn’t work for you and you need to cancel/change flights.

Leave me any questions in the comments!

 

 

June 25, 2014

Good To Know: How Changing Your Location Can Result in Cheaper Airfare

Some of the most common questions I’m asked are “when should I buy a flight” or “do you think this is a good price for this flight” and I never have a perfect answer. Airfare pricing is confusing – it changes up to 3x daily, it varies for no discernible reason to us outsiders as it is based on secret algorithms from the airlines and if someone tells you they know the best time to find the lowest price for a flight, they are lying to you (ya that whole 3pm on Tuesday is a myth).

However, a friend forwarded me an interesting article over at Map Happy about how changing where it appears you buy the ticket from can drastically lower the price of your flight. This works best for certain international flights and domestic flights within a different country (not the US). Let me explain.

When most people go to check prices for a flight, they might use popular sites like Kayak, Orbitz, Google ITA or even the airline’s own website. The one common denominator with all those sites is that it assumes you are purchasing the ticket from the US – as in your current, physical location is in the US when purchasing the flight.  That is obviously most likely true but what the author of the article pointed out is by tricking the computer into thinking you are in a different country, you might be able to get a lower price on the SAME EXACT flight.

I’ll let you click through to the article for more details but the author cites searching for a domestic flight within Colombia on the standard sites with a US-centric approach and then searching Google ITA by changing her location to Colombia. The US-centric approach produced an Avianca flight costing $137 while when searching Google ITA while appearing to be in Colombia, the price changed to 116,280 pesos (it prices in pesos since it thinks your in Colombia) which converted to USD is only $61.59! That’s a difference of $75.41 –  Over a 55% savings!!

The one problem with Google ITA is you can’t actually book the flights through them. The author recommends going to the airline’s website at this point that had the cheapest flight and finding the menu or drop down when you can select the location you used earlier (in this case Colombia). From there, she was basically able to get the same price on the flight and save herself a ton of money for the same exact flight!

Changing your location on LAN's website for example

Changing your location on LAN’s website for example

Here are some tips to make this work for you:

  • Use Google Chrome as your web browser and use the translate feature if the website is not in English
  • Always choose the country of the flight you are searching for (i.g. searching for Brazil flights? Choose Brazil as your location)
  • Remember this works best for domestic flights within a different country (sorry but not the US)
  • Always use a credit card with no foreign transaction fees as these sites will bill your credit card in pesos or whatever the local currency is

(H/T to Dale for sharing)

May 30, 2014

Points & Miles 101: Different Types of Points & Miles

To recap thus far in the Points & Miles 101 series, we have discussed:

Today’s topic will discuss the different types of points and miles out there. As you will learn shortly, all points and miles are not equal.

101

1. Airline Miles – Ever hear the word “Skymile” or phrase “frequent flyer miles”? Airline miles are probably the most well-known type of points or miles out there. Every major carrier has them and calls them something different. Examples include Delta SkyMiles, American Airlines AAdvantage, United MileagePlus, JetBlue TrueBlue etc..

As the name suggests, these miles are best for flights but not much else. The old school way to earn airline miles is by flying paid tickets but I and many other travel hackers now primarily earn airline miles through credit card signup bonuses and spending on these credit cards.  For perspective, I could either earn 50,000 miles for signing up for a Citibank American Airlines Credit Card or by flying 50,000 miles in the air on American Airlines on tickets paid for by myself or others. I think I know what I would choose 🙂

2. Hotel Points – All major hotel chains have hotel loyalty programs such as Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards and Starwood Starpoints. Hotel points are generally more flexible then airline miles as you could use them for free hotel nights or convert them to airline miles. In some programs this can be very beneficial – for example Starwood will allow you to convert 20,000 Starpoints into 25,000 airlines miles. In others though, the ratio isn’t as great and the best use remains towards free nights at hotels.

3. Bank Reward Points  – There are two types within this category with one being significantly better than the other.

• Transferrable Rewards Points – These points are my favorite types of points and they include Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards. There are so many options on what to do with these points. You could book any flight or hotel room with these points directly and just pay the total cost in points or you could transfer these points to many different airlines or hotels. I personally love the 2nd option most because it gives me the most options for my trip and doesn’t lock me into one specific program. If I have 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, I could transfer 25,000 points to United to book my flight and 50,000 points to Hyatt to book 3 free nights at a hotel and still have 25,000 left over to top off an account or save for a future trip. The flexibility here is what makes them so valuable.

• Fixed Value Rewards Points – This is the more traditional bank reward points and this is also what I’d guess many people have as this covers Capital One, Barclays and Bank of America points. These points are generally worth .01 each and they allow you to book any flight or hotel. So for example a $400 domestic flight will require 40,000 points but with United or Delta or American Airlines, a domestic flight is only 25,000 airline miles. Many people also redeem these points for cash back or merchandise which I personally would never do nor would I recommend. I generally stay away from these points as I can get a lot more value out of flexible points or even airline miles and hotel points.

What kind of points or miles do you plan to collect?

May 22, 2014

Points & Miles 101: Tracking Your Points & Miles For FREE with AwardWallet

In the last installment of Points & Miles 101, I left you with the cliffhanger (ok maybe not) of a great way to keep track of all your frequent flyer, hotel loyalty and even bank rewards accounts, such as Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards. The secret and FREE tool I use is AwardWallet. 

If you have ever used Mint, AwardWallet works in a similar fashion in that it securely stores a member’s login information to each and every account. Between Andrea & I, we have over 50 accounts saved in my AwardWallet account. Just think if I had to log in to each account to see how many miles I had, when my miles expire or if I received my free miles from the offers earlier this week, that would be a huge time commitment! Additionally, I’m not sure I could remember 50+ different usernames and passwords!

Below is a snapshot of my AwardWallet homepage. As you can see it lists the frequent flyer program, account number (though I blacked out mine below), elite status level, number of miles and lastly, their expiration date. It will even track the most recent change in miles in an account (the +166 for example with the green arrow) or if you have any special items such as my $99 companion fare ticket with Alaska Airlines.

Some of my balances

Some of my balances

Additionally, it will also send you email updates when a balance has changed in that account or when points or milesare close to expiration. This is a very helpful benefit as even I sometimes forget when my miles might expire (and don’t worry there are super easy ways to extend the life of them but that’s another P&M 101 post in the future).

Here is my signup link to create an account at AwardWallet –  AwardWallet Signup Here.

As I think I’ve explained, I love AwardWallet and I think they do an outstanding job at tracking your points & miles balances for you for free. It’s really nice to log into one website and see 50 different points and miles balances instead of logging into 50 different websites to check my balances.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I will earn some very small referral points if you signup for AwardWallet via that link. Thank you for your support!
May 20, 2014

Roundup of Four Offers for Free Points & Miles!

This has been a good week for free points and miles as several deals appeared this week. I’ll give a brief rundown of each.

1) Create a Southwest Frequent Flyer Account and Earn 750 Miles! Hopefully most of you followed my advice previously and created your frequent flyer accounts already but if not, Southwest is offering 750 miles for signing up for an account. I have a referral link I can send you directly to signup in which you will receive the 750 miles and I will receive 500 miles for referring you. Please contact me if you’d like me to refer you!

2) 500 United Miles –  United has a dining program in which you can earn 500 miles just for signing up! I’ll go more in-depth on airline dining programs in another post but basically you link your frequent flyer number and credit card and if you go out to eat at a participating restaurant, you get extra miles! Once you signup and link a credit card, there is no extra work – just pay with that credit card at the restaurant!

3) 2,000 Marriott Points Per Month via Social Media. Marriott just launched a new program called “Plus Points” in which members can earn up to 2,000 Rewards Points per 30 days for participating in specific social media tasks on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare. This includes liking hotels on Facebook, tweeting certain hashtags and more. The Points Guy has a good rundown of the info here. If you did this for a few minutes each month, you could potentially earn 24,000 points a year which is a free hotel room up to category 5!

Free hotel room for playing around on social media!

Free hotel room for playing around on social media!

4) 500 IHG Points! The hotel program for Intercontinental, Holiday Inns and more is offering 500 free points for taking 3 really short quizzes (seriously it takes 20 seconds each). Here are the links to the quizzes (below just click the quiz) and here is a separate link to the answers (c’mon how easy can this get).

1. 300 Point Quiz 

2. 100 Point Quiz 

3. 100 Point Quiz (#2)

Now of course none of these deals alone will get you enough miles for a free trip but every little bit helps. You never know when you might be 500 or 1,000 points short. Remember the points and miles game is a marathon, not a sprint and every little bit helps.