Creative Solutions

The Enigma of Atlantis Bahamas

January 17, 2024January 17, 2024 TProphet0 comment

One of the most touted benefits of Caesars Diamond status is that you can get a free stay at the Atlantis Bahamas. This is a destination I wouldn’t ever have normally considered, but there was a really good sale fare from Vancouver to Nassau so I grabbed tickets a couple of months ago. This is usually a rational strategy: if there is a good deal on flight tickets, just grab the flights immediately and figure out the rest later.

I had no idea what I was setting myself up for.

Looking at a picture is the closest you might come to staying at the Atlantis Bahamas

I called in December and was informed that the calendar wasn’t open yet for February. “Call back after the first of the year, and there should be good availability” said the friendly agent. OK, fine. I called in on January 2nd, and was informed that the calendar would be opening for February in mid-January, without any certainty as to exactly when. “I know this sounds crazy because it’s really soon, but call back after the 15th and we should be able to take care of you.”

OK, fine. I called back today, less than two weeks before my planned stay (starting on the 2nd of February). “Have you ever booked with us before?” Apparently there’s a process where the Atlantis has to confirm my benefit with Caesars, and that takes a couple of days, and they can’t make a reservation before then. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because the first 10 days of February are sold out. “Reservations have been open since Sunday,” the agent cooly stated. That’s funny, because the Web site says that reservations don’t open until February 1st.

Now, rooms aren’t actually sold out. You can buy all of the rooms you want. You just can’t use your Caesars benefit on those days. Atlantis manages its inventory like saver level frequent flier awards. They black out popular dates, and you’re more likely to be able to use the benefit for a midweek versus a weekend stay, and during hurricane season versus a nice time of the year to visit. While we all prefer different experiences when we travel, it’s personally difficult for me to justify using scarce vacation days on a destination like The Bahamas in order to stay in a casino resort.

So, I ended up spending 11,000 Choice points per night (transferred 1:2 from Citi) to stay in the Comfort Suites next door. They charge a $45 per night resort fee on top of it, so I spent the equivalent of $510 in points and cash for a 4 night stay. That stings, although it’s only 1/3 the cash rate for an equivalent room (Choice had availability for a garden view suite). There’s still a remote possibility that someone will cancel and I’ll be able to stay during my planned dates, but the possibility is remote.

Should you go for a Caesars Diamond status? Possibly, if it makes sense (I got my status matched from Wyndham, and I get my Wyndham status from a $95 annual fee credit card, which is less than I’d spend on parking each year at a conference I attend in Las Vegas). However, I wouldn’t gamble extra, or buy a Founder’s Card membership, with the intention of using this benefit. My experience actually trying to book and use the Atlantis Bahamas stay has shown that unless you’re willing to travel midweek in off peak months, this isn’t an easy benefit to use. Honestly, though, what should I have expected from a property named after a lost city? Maybe it doesn’t even exist.

The Hotel Points Play Nobody Talks About

October 1, 2023October 1, 2023 TProphet3 Comments

Everywhere you look, you’ll see people promoting the Chase Ultimate Rewards program and points transfers to Hyatt. The love for Hyatt in the blogosphere seems unlimited, even though they have repeatedly devalued their loyalty program just like everyone else (both covertly, by raising the category of existing properties, and overtly, by shifting to a multi-tiered pricing model). Sure, Hyatt has some nice properties, but the majority of them are mediocre properties (many of which in the US are owned by the notoriously cheap operator Aimbridge Hospitality). Many of them don’t even clean your room. So the reality of Hyatt is that you’re paying higher prices for worse service, so it’s worth questioning the comparatively higher cash rates that they charge versus other properties. And this should factor into your calculations when spending points. Even if you’re spending points at a high return, if that return is up against a poor cash value, this isn’t a good use of points!

This brings up the hotel program that almost nobody talks about: Choice Privileges. I get it: the program is obscure. And yes, very few people would consider a Comfort Inn to be an aspirational property. Nevertheless, these are the exact kinds of properties that I spend actual cash on, and the cash prices are actually competitive. When I’m traveling, I am usually just looking for a clean comfortable room where I can get a good night’s sleep without breaking the bank.

Nobody would consider the Comfort Hotel Kanda to be aspirational, but does it really need to be? It’s just a 7 minute walk to Akihabara!

Here’s an example. The Comfort Hotel Tokyo Kanda costs 8,000 Choice Privileges points per night. That’s up against a JPY 17,700 rate on the weekends, which is $118.49. The property is just a 7 minute walk to Akihabara, which is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Tokyo. So if you were transferring points at 1:1, it’d be just shy of 1.5 cents per point which is a completely reasonable points redemption. It’s well above the Seat 31B weighted average realistic value of most points programs.

However, Citi ThankYou points transfer 1:2 to Choice Privileges, meaning that you’re paying just 4,000 Citi points per night. This yields a return just shy of 3 cents per point, and this isn’t some pie-in-the-sky valuation against cash you’d never actually spend. It’s close to 3 cents per point in value against a totally reasonable cash price that I’d be spending in Tokyo anyway, if not at this property, at another similar business hotel.

The value can be even greater than this. Take New Year’s Eve in New York. The Comfort Inn Manhattan-Midtown West is $540 per night all-in, cash rate:

$540 per night rate for a Comfort Inn, Midtown West Manhattan

If you’re paying with points, it’s 20,000 Choice Privileges points, or 10,000 Citi ThankYou points:

This isn’t just for the weird room every hotel on Manhattan seems to have. You know the one; it used to be a closet next to the elevator, and someone crammed a twin bed in there. You have your choice of two twin beds, a queen bed, or this swank king room:

This is a normal rate for New Year’s Eve in New York. It’s a completely reasonable property on Manhattan. And reserving through Choice Privileges delivers an absolutely astonishing 5.4 cents per point in value for your Citi ThankYou points. By the way, this inventory is live right now. You can go out and book it. If you go, send me pictures of the ball dropping in Times Square.

Now, I get it. Citi doesn’t pay fat commissions to bloggers like Chase does, so their cards are promoted less. Citi also has fewer cards in their ThankYou Rewards program, so it’s harder to churn through signup bonuses: you actually have to spend on their cards to earn ThankYou points. For the most part, there aren’t fancy splashy high annual fee cards in the program; in fact, Citi probably wins the “fewest perks” award for their card lineup (they don’t even offer secondary rental car insurance). So this program, in all likelihood, gets less attention than other programs.

Choice also doesn’t have fancy aspirational properties (their Ascend Collection brand, which are Choice’s highest end properties, are upper midrange at best). If you’re the kind of person who is excited more by the hotel where you’re staying than the destination you’re in, this program is probably not for you. You also can’t reserve more than 3 months in advance, so if you’re planning well in advance, it can be hard to use this program. Choice seems to manage their program to give away the rooms they don’t think they’ll sell, with an availability floor for rooms booked with points.

If you’re going to stay in a mediocre property anyway, wouldn’t you rather pay a price to match? Skip overpriced and dumpy Hyatt properties and consider a Choice or Wyndham hotel instead.

I Booked The Cheapest Airline In Canada (And Paid With Aeroplan Points)

March 29, 2023March 29, 2023 TProphet0 comment

Canadian startup low cost carriers have a checkered history in Canada. The first low cost Canadian carrier I flew was Canada 3000, which went out of business in 2001.

Canada 3000’s seating configuration was so dense that they might have been trying to fit 3,000 people on the plane

Many other attempts at low cost carriers have failed: Zip, Zoom, and Jetsgo. Even Air Canada couldn’t make the concept work, and retired their Tango subsidiary (although their cheapest economy class fares are still called “Tango”). The low cost carrier concept stubbornly keeps failing over and over in Canada, which is hardly surprising given that airport operating costs are some of the highest in the world (a report to the Canadian Senate in 2012 detailed myriad structural issues, and essentially nothing has been done or fixed since–in fact, operating costs have only gotten higher).

Nevertheless, startup airlines in Canada continue to open, fly for awhile, and then abruptly fail (usually leaving passengers stranded). The shakiest of these is currently Flair, which apparently didn’t have the money to take delivery of 11 new Boeing jets it had ordered, and which recently had four of its jets seized for non-payment of leasing fees. The 20% on-time performance rating for their Abbotsford-Calgary route is fairly representative.

So, did I book with Flair? Of course not! They weren’t the cheapest, and this article is about the cheapest airline in Canada. As it turns out, that’s tiny airline startup Lynx Air, which is currently flying a fleet of six aircraft. I had never heard of Lynx, but they popped up when I ran a search on an online booking site. I instead booked directly with the airline on their sketchy-looking Web site, and got back an email confirmation that looked like a phishing scam:

However, clicking on the attachment revealed an itinerary that looked like it was from circa 2003, using a random assortment of fonts that looked like a ransom note, and confirming that I had a roundtrip ticket to Calgary over March break weekend for CAD $168.00.

This is virtually unheard of; other airlines were charging well over $300 each way. I’m not sure whether Lynx forgot that it was a school holiday or what, but I really wasn’t going to question it.

The fare breakdown was as follows:

That’s right, roughly half of the roundtrip airfare went to airport fees, and that’s before the airline’s share of the operating costs. Lynx would definitely be losing money on me.

“But wait,” you might say, “the headline says you paid with Aeroplan points. How did that work?” Well, I have the Chase Aeroplan credit card. A few months ago, Chase was offering a 30% bonus to transfer points into Aeroplan, and if you have the credit card and transfer 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points or more into Aeroplan, you got another 10% bonus on top of it. So I ended up with 70,000 points in Aeroplan. Well, in February, Chase decided to be exceptionally generous and started a promotion. You can now redeem Aeroplan points towards travel purchases (literally anything that codes as travel) at 1.25 cents per point. This meant that I could effectively spend the Ultimate Rewards points I transferred for 1.75 cents per point in value.

And that’s exactly what I did, as soon as the charge posted to my Chase Aeroplan credit card account:

I went ahead and paid for my airport parking with Aeroplan points, too–why not?

Was this a good deal? I think so. Sure, it’s not as high as the realistic ceiling for Aeroplan points. It is, however, just below the weighted average for Aeroplan points, and in Ultimate Rewards terms, it’s above the weighted average for Chase Ultimate Rewards points. And I had specific dates and times of travel that I needed (since I was going to Calgary for an event) so I had to opt for what was actually available.

More importantly, this fare was cheaper than alternatives and would otherwise be unattainable with points. While you can theoretically use Chase points at 1.25 cents per point on their travel portal, that only works for airlines that list their fares with Chase. Obscure low cost carriers like these don’t show up, meaning you’re only shown more expensive options.

9,895 points for a roundtrip flight is virtually unheard of

Less than 5,000 points each way, with no money out of pocket, is an incredibly good outcome for redeeming points on a short-haul flight (especially on a flight like Vancouver to Calgary that is under 500 miles, but over 11 hours of dangerous mountain driving). And remember, I got those points with a 40% bonus. To me, this was an absolute “no brainer” of a redemption.

So how was the flight? Stay tuned for the next installment!

How I Power My Devices When Traveling Abroad

January 14, 2019January 14, 2019 TProphet0 comment

It’s something that you might not think about when you’re booking a ticket overseas, but it’s really important: not every country uses the same type of plug that we use in North America. In fact, other countries don’t necessarily even use the same voltage! It ranges from as low as 110 volts in Japan, on up to 240 volts in most of the rest of the world. It’s a mixed bag in the Americas, with familiar plugs operating at 110 or 120 volts in the US, Canada Mexico, and most of Central America. Meanwhile, South America is split between US, European and a grab bag of other standards.

You checked into your European hotel room, tried to plug in your cell charger, and……

Check Before You Buy

There is no shortage of places to buy plug adapters online, and mercifully, I won’t bombard you with affiliate links to junk sites. Instead, check out the IEC World Plugs Reference, the world’s most authoritative source on which power is used in what countries. Use this reference to figure out what types of plugs are required in the country you’re visiting.

Most American travelers who need a plug adapter are visiting Europe. You can usually get away with only two adapters: Type C (Europe) and Type G (UK). However, I don’t like using Type C because it isn’t grounded. I do have a Type C adapter and will use it in a pinch, but I also carry a Type F adapter and it’s a relatively rare occasion that I can’t use it. Those rare occasions, however, are usually important ones which is why I carry both.

If you’re visiting other locations, just check to see what type of plug you need. China and Australia use the same plug type (it’s technically different but they’re interchangeable in practice), South Africa uses its own standard, etc.

The Cube Tap Hack

One of my favorite hacks is using a cube tap in combination with the international plug adapter, sometimes chained to a ground lifter.

Your plug adapter will typically come with a single universal or US-style plug on it. This is annoying if, like me, you travel with a laptop, cell phone and spare battery, all of which need to be charged at the end of the day. I bring along a cube tap and just plug that into the plug adapter, which gives me 3 US-style outlets. Don’t plug in stuff that draws a crazy amount of power or you’ll overload the circuit, but it’s fine for the typical assortment of consumer electronics.

You can also find a ground lifter or “cheater plug” at a hardware store

One other item worth buying is a ground lifter, also known as a “cheater plug.” You can buy these in any local hardware store. If you look online, you might find a “non-polarized” version (if you look at the image above, the prong on the left is slightly wider than the one on the right; a non-polarized version will have evenly sized prongs). Non polarized ground lifters can be used in Japan as a plug adapter. The reason to buy this is so that if you’re stuck using a Type C outlet, you will have a way to plug your cube tap into it. Yes, this does result in a giant, Rube Goldberg stack of stuff hanging out of the outlet, and yes, you might need to put something underneath it to keep it from falling out of the wall. Don’t judge me.

Don’t Fry Your Stuff

If you haven’t heard the sizzle of electronics and seen a puff of smoke wafting gently from the general vicinity of your power outlet, you haven’t spent enough time abroad. It happens to all of us eventually. Here’s a quick crash course in how I avoid frying my stuff. Obviously, I am not responsible if you fry your stuff!

These labels with tiny print are super important!

If you look at the picture of the above laptop power brick, you’ll see the part where it says Input. This is important! It will tell you the voltages for which the unit is rated to operate. This Asus power brick, like most laptop power bricks, is designed to work pretty much everywhere in the world. It operates from 100 to 240 volts, at either 50Hz or 60 Hz, and it draws 1.5 amps (this is useful because it helps you estimate how much power your stuff requires–everything you’re plugging in, all together, should not exceed 10 amps).

The Output section is less important. This simply represents what is coming out of the little round plug that goes into your laptop. That’s going to be consistent no matter what the input is. However, if you’re used to using your laptop in the US, your power brick will probably get a lot hotter when you use it in Europe. This is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just working harder than it normally does (because there is more work required to step down a higher voltage).

What if the Input section said 100 ~ 120v 50/60Hz? If you guessed “laptop smoke,” you guessed right! This would represent a power supply that is designed for use in Japan and North America only. While it’s exceedingly uncommon for this to be the case with laptops anymore, it’s not unusual for other devices to be incompatible with higher voltage power sources. Some common examples I have seen are monitors, Internet routers, and personal care devices (such as shavers). While you can buy step-down transformers that purport to reduce the voltage, in my experience, the only ones that work reliably enough to trust that they won’t fry my stuff are heavy commercial ones. These cost a lot and weigh even more. Whatever incompatible device you want to power probably isn’t worth the hassle.

Wrap-Up

It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have the right plug changer when you land abroad. They’re widely available and can be purchased in almost any luggage or electronics shop. However, why spend your limited time abroad chasing logistics that you could take care of beforehand? Leave the US with the right plug adapters and you’ll both keep your devices charged and happy, and save yourself a lot of time.

Near Disaster: Chase Ultimate Rewards And Flying Blue

June 3, 2018 TProphet5 Comments

I needed to take a last-minute business trip to Kiev. Cash fares were hovering over $900 one way for one-stop itineraries, so I started looking for opportunities to use points. When I book my own award travel, I optimize for the most efficient use of points and the stand-out value was 25,000 Ultimate Rewards points for an Air France flight. There was a long layover in Paris, but I really like Paris so the 9 hour layover was fine. It’s enough time to visit the Louvre and enjoy a coffee in a sidewalk cafe.

Unlike most airlines, Air France touts their economy class cabin. We’ll see if it lives up to the hype!

Unfortunately, the Flying Blue program is an absolute disaster right now. Air France/KLM just switched the chart from a fixed value redemption chart to variable redemptions (which, based on my analysis, is one of the biggest airline devaluations in history–most awards are up a minimum 30% and some are up 500%). It was a total fluke that the flight I wanted still cost 25,000 points, yielding 3.2 cents per point in value all-in (net of taxes/fees I had to pay out of pocket). This is very good redemption value on a ticket for which I would have paid real money. However, the devaluation comes on top of another negative change, removing the award calendar, which has driven call center volumes through the roof (because the only way to search for availability over a range of dates is to call now). Because of this, it can now take 2 hours to get through to an Air France representative.

Of course, my worst nightmare happened. Rather than posting immediately, after I transferred my Chase points, the points didn’t show up. I called Chase, who said that they transferred the points and it was Flying Blue’s fault. I called Flying Blue, and they said they hadn’t received the points so it was Chase’s fault. Both suggested I just wait. So I waited, and waited, and waited. I called to put the seats on hold so they wouldn’t disappear while I was waiting. Eventually I gave up and went to bed.

The following morning, the points still weren’t there. 4 hours before the flight, they still weren’t, so I called Flying Blue again. Fortunately, the friendly representative in the Mexico-based call center had a solution: “We are aware of this issue so we will advance you the points and your account will have a negative balance. When the points post from Chase, your balance will go back to zero.” She put me on hold, then came back a few minutes later to collect my credit card number. And just like that, I had a ticket to Kiev! I didn’t really believe that I did until I went to check in, and the computer spat out boarding passes.

So, certainly a stressful beginning to a trip, but a happy ending. I have no status with Flying Blue. I have never booked a ticket in their program. They don’t know I write this blog. They just thought on their feet and solved the problem by taking a risk (I could have been lying about transferring the points). And so instead of stranding me, which is totally what I expected, I’m now on the way to Kiev.

Summary

Chase is now reading a new telephone script when you call: “It can take from 1-7 days for your points to post after they are transferred.” After slowing down transfers to Korean Air and now Flying Blue, it appears Chase is trying to make Ultimate Rewards less valuable by making it impossible to redeem them for last-minute flights. This doesn’t appear to be a technical glitch; based on the policy change being communicated by their telephone agents, it seems to be deliberate. Also, there is nothing in writing on Chase’s Web sites to communicate the change, so people are going into this process with no idea that points transfers are no longer instantaneous.

Generally speaking, I like the Chase Ultimate Rewards program better than American Express Membership Rewards. However, the ability to have immediate use of transferred points is key. Award travel inventory is dynamic (a seat that is available now likely won’t be in a couple of days, particularly to a popular destination) and most of the value in keeping your points with a bank program instead of an airline program comes from the immediate ability to transfer and redeem points. There are fewer reasons to collect bank points instead of airline points if you aren’t able to easily redeem them for awards.

Airline points programs are rapidly losing credibility so it would be bad for consumers if banks to go the same direction and make points harder to redeem.

How To Position With An Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award

February 15, 2018February 16, 2018 TProphet4 Comments

When you’re booking an international award flight, one of the trickiest things to figure out is how to get from where you are going to and from international gateways. Although there is more point-to-point service nowadays, the majority of international flights travel between major hub cities with connecting flights on either end.

Alaska Airlines has a somewhat unusual and often frustrating rule when it comes to partner award tickets (these are tickets that involve flights on airlines other than Alaska Airlines). You can only mix a single partner and Alaska Airlines flights, which has historically made positioning really difficult on Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award flights.

The upside of this approach is that it allows Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan to run separate award charts per partner, which (presumably) allows Alaska to price award flights in a way that reasonably correlates with their cost. So, rather than having a single chart for all partners that averages the cost across all programs, they can have a separate chart for each partner. Overall, I think this makes sense because some partners (such as Emirates) appear to be very expensive for the program while others (such as Condor and Icelandair) are relatively inexpensive.

If Dusseldorf is your destination, it’s surprisingly difficult to get there with Mileage Plan.

The downside of this approach is that, in order to reach partner gateways, you’re limited to the reach of Alaska Airlines within North America (which used to be a serious drawback) and you’re also limited to the reach of the partner you’re flying. So, for example, if you are flying American Airlines to London, you can’t continue onward to the rest of Europe with British Airways. Additionally, in some cases, Alaska Airlines only has partnership agreements with a primary airline, and not all regional affiliates:

Cathay Pacific: No access to Cathay Dragon
Hainan: No access to Hong Kong Airlines
British Airways: No access to Comair (South Africa)

However, just to make things more confusing, there are other cases where it is possible to fly regional affiliates. You can use American Eagle flights on an American Airlines partner award, and you can also use Openskies flights on a British Airways award.

This means that when you’re booking an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award, it’s important to know which airlines fly to your destination, and what other ways you might possibly get there. For example, if you’re traveling to Dusseldorf, you won’t get there on Condor; they only fly to Frankfurt and that is the end of the line as far as Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is concerned. You could do it on British Airways, connecting through London, but you must fly the entire route (except for connecting to and from the British Airways North American gateway city, which can be done on Alaska flights) on British Airways. However, when you consider the fact that British Airways charges more miles, the fact that British Airways also levies a fuel surcharge, and the pain of connecting through London, you’re probably better off flying to Frankfurt and taking the train from there to Dusseldorf.

Another thing that gets really confusing is which Alaska Airlines flights you can take in order to position for a partner award. Let’s walk through an example to see how it works. Suppose you want to travel from Seattle to London in business class this summer. There is a flight that seems perfect from North America to London:

The problem is, when you try to start from Seattle, this flight doesn’t show up no matter what you do:

The other flights are all mixed cabin itineraries, and the economy class segment is the long flight (by the way, Alaska, you really should fix this). So obviously you wouldn’t want to book these.

Frustratingly, though, there’s an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to JFK! It should work, and you should be able to add this, right?

There is actually a specific reason why you can’t book this. It’s because you can only add an Alaska Airlines positioning flight if it’s available at the low “saver” level. And to find those flights, the best way to search them isn’t to look on Alaska Airlines’ Web site. Instead, you should search on the American Airlines Web site, which only shows Alaska flights in fare classes that can be hooked up to a partner flight. This surfaces a heretofore hidden option:

Wait, what’s this?

The perfectly timed overnight flight that would give you a full day in New York isn’t available for partner awards, so you can’t use it. However, by using the American Airlines Web site, another option surfaced.

Because this flight goes into a different New York area airport, and because of the overnight layover, this route didn’t show up on the Alaska Airlines Web site (although the Alaska site, to its credit, is considerably better at piecing together unconventional itineraries than most). So, to make this price out, we have to build it as a multi-city itinerary:

You can force a routing by putting in the specific airports you want. It’s hard to see here, but I specified LGA on the inbound flight to New York, and JFK on the outbound. That caused it to price out:

Boom!

So, what’s really cool about this? Before the Virgin America merger, this is not a routing that would have worked. You’d have been stuck buying a flight to New York, or booking two separate awards. However, this routing makes use of Alaska’s newly expanded network to build in positioning flights.

It this an ideal itinerary? No. There is a fuel surcharge, British Airways has a below average business class, and there is a forced overnight in New York. However, you are flying in first and business class all the way to London, and have a full day to enjoy New York along the way. While not the best option, it’s certainly not a bad option for summer travel to Europe.

The next time you’re searching for an award flight with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, don’t forget that you can add Alaska Airlines flights to your itinerary at no extra charge–if you can find partner availability. That’s the hard part, but with some creativity and a bit of luck, you can stretch your miles even farther!

Don’t Pay More For Last-Minute Award Flights

January 23, 2018January 24, 2018 TProphet5 Comments

It’s well-known that the closer to the travel date you buy your trip, the more your ticket usually costs. This is because business travel often occurs on short notice and last-minute travel is rarely optional. Accordingly, airlines are able to charge a premium, and they shamelessly do so. A flight from Seattle to Los Angeles may cost well over $200 when purchased on short notice. Here are some example Alaska flights leaving from Seattle tomorrow:

Flying to LAX tomorrow? That’ll be $271. Ouch!

Meanwhile, if you book 3 weeks in advance, the fare can be as little as $59:

This fare is so cheap that it’s a no-brainer to pay cash.

For a long time, the pricing of flight awards was entirely disconnected from the supply-and-demand dynamics in play. Award inventory hung out on its own, and the pricing remained the same whether you were booking 330 days in advance or on the day of travel. This is no longer the case with all airlines. Sticking with an Alaska flight from Seattle to Los Angeles as an example, here’s what the pricing looks like if you travel tomorrow:

12,500 points is the highest saver pricing level for Alaska domestic economy class award flights.

Meanwhile, if you book in advance, the pricing can look a lot different:

Booking in advance? The pricing is a lot lower–in this case, 40% lower!

Alaska and Delta change the price of flights depending on how far in advance you book your flight. It’s always cheapest if you book 3 weeks or more in advance and in the example above, it’s 40% cheaper to do this.

With Delta, the close-in booking price goes up for both their own flights and for partner flights. However, with Alaska, the close-in booking price only goes up for their own flights. However, unlike Delta, Alaska publishes an award chart showing the price range so you always know the maximum price of an award flight in the class of service you’re booking.

American and United don’t adjust the pricing of awards. Instead, they charge a $75 close-in booking fee if you don’t book 21 days in advance. Naturally, both airlines make last-minute award seats available inside of 21 days in advance, presumably so they can maximize booking fees.

My Favorite Programs For Last-Minute Flights

When I’m booking award flights at the last minute, I have two occasionally conflicting objectives: minimizing fees and using the fewest number of points. Sometimes, an award with fewer fees costs more points. So, this becomes a question of not just finding an award flight, but both optimizing the award program I use to book the flight and balancing points redeemed versus cash spent.

You may not be familiar with these award programs, but it’s possible that you have points you can transfer into them. There are plenty of other articles on the Internet about transferable points (Starwood, Citi ThankYou Points, Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards) so there’s no point in rehashing these here.

Aeroplan: This mileage program, affiliated with Air Canada, gives you access to United flights with no last-minute booking fees or higher prices for last-minute bookings. Aeroplan also charges lower award prices than many airlines. The downside is that Aeroplan passes along fuel surcharges. These aren’t charged on United flights, but are charged on a lot of other airlines, such as Lufthansa and Air Canada (Aeroplan is, believe it or not, a poor choice of program for booking Air Canada flights). For airlines such as these, Avianca LifeMiles is a better alternative.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: Need an award flight on American Airlines? Alaska will charge you a partner booking fee of $12.50 each way, but this sure beats the $75 last-minute booking fee charged by American. You can also book American partners British Airways, Cathay Pacific and (soon) Finnair with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles.

Avianca LifeMiles: I hesitate to recommend this program for last-minute bookings because the Web site often has technical errors, and the complicated manual workarounds required when this happens take several days. However, if the Web site does in fact work, there are no last-minute booking fees, no fuel surcharges, and attractive redemption rates for United and other StarAlliance flights (such as Air Canada). Why bother? Well, why not, if you have nothing to lose?

British Airways Avios: This program is particularly good for booking award flights on Alaska Airlines and American Airlines. If you’re booking at the last minute and your flight doesn’t involve a connection, the pricing for these flights can be less than with the airlines’ own programs. There is also no last-minute booking fee. Note that award tickets are charged per flight and based on distance, so connecting flights are often much more expensive in terms of points than with the programs of partner airlines. Long-haul flights also tend to be expensive, especially in premium cabins.

Flying Blue (Air France/KLM): This is a great way to avoid Delta’s higher mileage rates when booking at the last minute. Award pricing is similar to Delta’s “old” award chart, which is less expensive than today’s pricing. There are no last-minute booking fees. Note that unlike Delta, Flying Blue passes along fuel surcharges on Air France/KLM flights. These can be substantial so be sure to crunch the numbers when considering the cash versus points cost of a trip.

Hawaiian: While the Hawaiian award chart is more expensive than most, availability is relatively generous for last-minute flights to Hawaii.

jetBlue TrueBlue: Except for partner flights on Hawaiian (for which using HawaiianMiles is generally a better deal), jetBlue charges based on the price of a flight. Although this is rarely a great deal for last-minute flights, you can sometimes get better value booking with TrueBlue points than using bank points towards a cash fare via a travel portal.

Singapore KrisFlyer: Another way to make last-minute bookings on Alaska Airlines or United at attractive redemption rates and no booking fees. The downside is that this must be done over the phone, and points don’t transfer immediately (but typically do transfer on the same day).

Southwest: This program charges based on the cash cost of a ticket. However, unlike many other airlines, Southwest sometimes has cheap fares right up until the last minute. It’s always worth checking Southwest if they fly a route you want to take, and you’ll almost always get better value out of Southwest points than you will using a bank’s travel portal.

Programs To Avoid For Last-Minute Flights

Some programs look good on paper for last-minute bookings because they don’t charge last-minute booking fees or higher redemption rates, but these are ones that I typically avoid:

Aeromexico: This program has unattractive redemption rates and a reputation for poor customer service. It also takes nearly a week for points to transfer into it.

ANA: Points transfers take several days, so this program isn’t useful for last-minute bookings unless you already have ANA Mileage Club points.

AsiaMiles: Points transfers take at least 24 hours, so this program isn’t useful for last-minute bookings unless you already have AsiaMiles. If you do, this program is useful for booking flights on Alaska and American without last-minute booking fees, although the redemption rates are typically higher than you would pay with either program.

Korean Air: This program requires partner awards to be booked round-trip, and the booking process for partner awards is very complicated requiring multiple phone calls and even the occasional fax. It’s a great program for specific “sweet spot” bookings when you can find availability and meet all the requirements, but it’s not good to use for last-minute award seats.

Iberia: This program won’t allow you to book less than 24 hours in advance even though availability is shown. Also, round-trip bookings are required.

Emirates Skywards: High redemption rates and the complexity of redemptions make this program a good one to avoid.

Wrap-Up

When you need to take a trip at the last minute, don’t just look for award availability in the program of the operating airline. Booking through a partner airline could save you both points and money!

Adventures With LifeMiles: South African Airways and United Business Class

January 20, 2018 TProphet3 Comments

Having secured my outbound flight to South Africa, I needed to figure out how to get back. My first choice was using Avianca LifeMiles because I don’t trust the program, had a substantial mileage balance, and the program doesn’t levy fuel surcharges (which are substantial over such a long distance using other programs). I was starting with 69,000 Avianca LifeMiles. 60,000 of these came from an Avianca Vuela credit card signup (so I got them for free), and the remainder came from a combination of flights credited to the program and credit card spend. Now, LifeMiles is one of the least trustworthy programs of all airlines. This is not a program you want to keep a lot of miles in, and especially not for long. Behind the scenes, LifeMiles is the spun-off (but captive) program of a financially shaky Colombian airline in the midst of a bruising management battle. They have frequently devalued points, sometimes with no notice. In fact, in between the time I booked this trip and flew (just 3 weeks later), there was another program devaluation.

Making matters worse, it’s often very difficult to redeem LifeMiles. You’ll see blogs say stuff like “it isn’t for the faint of heart” (often while trying to sell you a credit card or even worse, purchased miles), but that doesn’t actually mean anything. Here’s what redeeming LifeMiles is like in practice: The Web site suffers from frequent technical issues, so it’s often not possible to book flights that show as available. And when it does, you’re negotiating with Colombians which is like negotiating for anything else in Latin America–patience and Spanish-language ability are both a big help. Unlike with other airlines, calling in won’t help you here: telephone agents just use the Web site for you (and charge you a fee to do it) so if you can’t book it on the Web site, you can’t book it over the phone. So, although I definitely wanted to burn LifeMiles if possible, I was willing to use other miles if it wasn’t possible. As long as I was willing to return January 16th or later, there was plenty of availability in economy class using multiple programs so I was confident in attempting to book with LifeMiles given that I had more than one backup plan.

One recent change in the LifeMiles program is that they now allow mixed cabin bookings, and they also discount a business class itinerary based on the economy class legs involved. This is actually positive because most programs charge you the full business class price if even one leg is in business class. I am not entirely sure how the pricing works, but one example is it was only ~51,000 LifeMiles for a mixed cabin itinerary departing from Johannesburg to Frankfurt in economy class, connecting onward to a United flight in business class to San Francisco. I don’t really understand the logic here because if you took a flight from Europe to the US in business class it’s 63,000 points, but it’s cheaper for a longer journey if you have a leg from Europe in business class on a mixed cabin itinerary. I kept playing with the site and eventually found an itinerary that would get me back to Seattle if I was willing to fly an overnight segment in economy class, connect in Europe, and then connect again in Chicago. It wasn’t ideal but the price was right so I went ahead and attempted to book it.

Not an itinerary I was excited about–except for the price.

Naturally, the Web site choked and failed. Who knows why. It doesn’t matter. I got all the way to the end and it bombed out. This happens often. I called in, and they suggested I try again. No dice. So, I found out from the telephone agent that there is a backdoor procedure you can use with LifeMiles to book. You start by emailing [email protected] with the itinerary you want, and an explanation that you can’t book it online due to technical errors. It helps if you have screen shots of the itinerary and pricing. The LifeMiles support center will email you back a day or so later and ask for a scan of your passport. I sent them a picture. They’ll then forward it to a really friendly guy in Medellin, Colombia. A day or two later, he’ll call you up and ask if you if you still want to book. Best of all, he works directly in the reservations system, and has access to StarNet, so he can book any StarAlliance inventory that is available to partners. This is very different than you’ll normally see on the LifeMiles site, where certain partners (such as South African Airways) appear to be blocked.

He confirmed with me the itinerary I was attempting to book, but it wasn’t actually available any longer. In between the time that I had originally looked and the time that I worked through the email procedures, the inventory had disappeared. However, while we were talking, I was searching (on the United Web site, which still isn’t perfect but does a better job of showing StarAlliance inventory) and I found a better itinerary. It was business class from Johannesburg to London on South African Airways, then from London to Chicago in business class on United, and finally from Chicago to Seattle in economy class.

Still not perfect, but much better than before.

He saw the itinerary as bookable but it wasn’t appearing on the LifeMiles Web site, so here’s the craziest part: we negotiated the price! It’s 75,000 LifeMiles for an itinerary that is entirely in business class. However, since there was a leg in economy class, he agreed to discount the itinerary to 72,000 LifeMiles. This seems like around the right price based on what the site was displaying for similar itineraries, but it’s clear he just manually priced the itinerary and had the ability to charge any price that made sense. Since I had only 69,000 points, he collected $99 for the 3,000 additional points along with the roughly $101 in taxes and $25 booking fee. A couple of days later, I got an itinerary in Spanish that had a ticket number, so I called in to United and South African Airways to pick seats. I still didn’t believe that I actually had a ticket until my boarding passes printed out in Johannesburg and made sure I had two backup plans in the bag. However, the backup plans weren’t needed: the ticket was actually there.

The Economics – In A Nutshell

My primary objective was to return in mid-January in a premium cabin on at least one long leg (preferably the Africa-Europe overnight leg), using LifeMiles, and minimizing out of pocket cost. I was successfully able to achieve this objective at an attractive redemption value.
Some flexibility was needed. I compromised on airlines and didn’t focus on “aspirational” products. That is all academic when you’re traveling to or from a popular destination like South Africa in the austral summer and a good redemption is–first and foremost–one that gets you on a plane for free. A ticket in hand is worth far more than a dream and a points balance. Would I rather have flown back in Cathay Pacific first class? Sure, but it wasn’t available at all, and can’t be booked with LifeMiles anyway.
Neither United nor South African Airways operate the best business class cabins in the world–not even close. However, they do offer lie flat seats on long flights, operated safely and professionally. And this is 90% of what you’re going for when you book in a premium cabin. The other 10% is the trimmings.
I needed to be able to think on my feet. LifeMiles is a Latin American program run by people in Colombia and a patient, friendly and flexible approach to business will get you farther than having rigorous American or European expectations.

I still didn’t get amazing value for these miles, at least the way I value them. I don’t look at this as a $4,000 ticket (or a 5.5 cent per mile redemption), even though that’s what the flight would have cost in cash. Why? I wouldn’t ever have bought that flight. Instead, I look at this as a $650 ticket, because a roundtrip ticket to South Africa on my dates in economy class would have cost about $1,300 (for a decent logical routing; the cheapest terrible routing through China would have been about $1,000).

Out of pocket, I saved about $425 in cash. That’s 0.6 cents per mile. However, I got most of these miles for free, and the opportunity cost was … well, what, exactly? Another devaluation? More failed redemption headaches? Also, there is value in a business class seat, it’s just not the price the airline charges for it. Is that closer to the 1.7 cents per mile that LifeMiles charges during mileage sales? Probably. This comes in at $1,224, or around double the price of an economy class seat. For an amount of premium cabin flying that pushes 10,000 miles, that’s a pretty fair price.

Wrap-Up

I generally feel pretty good about being able to use LifeMiles for anything at all before they suddenly devalue, so I felt very good about the value I was able to achieve for them in this case. Sure, this wasn’t the world’s most “aspirational” redemption. However, nothing in this market is given the number of points I had.

How I Hacked My Trip To Sunny SoCal

December 18, 2017 TProphet1 Comment

On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I was originally planning to return directly to Seattle on a nonstop flight with Alaska Airlines. However, after shivering in the frigid temperatures and looking at the terrible forecast for Seattle, I decided that it might be better to head somewhere warm.

Alaska Airlines has really been adding a ton of service to San Diego lately, and I was delighted to see that nonstop service from Minneapolis was starting the day I was leaving Minneapolis. Even better, saver level award space was available. This opened up a great opportunity for me because it was close to the Thanksgiving holiday and award space was very difficult to find. So I hatched a plan: fly to San Diego, rent a car, drive to LA, get an airbnb for a week, visit friends, drive to Phoenix for Thanksgiving with family, then back to San Diego, and finally, a flight back to Seattle.

Two flights. One award ticket.

Well, the first order of business was changing my flight. I already had a flight booked from Minneapolis to Seattle using British Airways Avios. This had cost 10,000 Avios and $5.60 in taxes. However, if I simply changed the ticket with Avios, it’d cost a $55 change fee plus the difference in miles (another 7,500 Avios). British Airways charges per flight based on distance with a minimum cost of 7,500 points. This obviously wasn’t the optimal solution.

However, British Airways offers another option: you can cancel your flight and redeposit the Avios. This also costs $55, but there’s a loophole: the $55 is deducted from the taxes and fees already paid. If you cancel online, British Airways won’t refund any fees, but also won’t charge any additional. So, in effect, you can cancel domestic US flights booked with Avios for $5.60.

Given that I was flying Alaska Airlines, another option was to book with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. I typically don’t book Alaska flights with Mileage Plan miles (using them for partner redemptions instead), because most Alaska flights are short to mid-haul and are thus cheaper with the Avios award chart. However, Mileage Plan has a very unusual benefit: they allow a stopover on a one-way trip.

What does this mean? Alaska treats a trip from Minneapolis-San Diego-Seattle as a single ticket, even if you stop over for 10 days in San Diego. And if you can find space at the lowest award level, it means the trip costs only 12,500 miles. Stopovers are specifically allowed under Mileage Plan rules and while most people don’t take advantage, it’s an entirely legal and risk-free “hack.” The catch? You have to find “saver” level award availability (in economy class, “W” fares) for the entire journey. Your trip must be entirely on Alaska Airlines where a domestic stopover is involved (on partner awards, stopovers are only permitted in international connecting cities). And you can only take a stopover at a logical connecting point. San Diego was a logical connecting point for my trip from Minneapolis to Seattle, because it’s in the correct direction of travel and doesn’t exceed the maximum permitted mileage. Alaska does have some measures in place to prevent illogical connections, such as Minneapolis-Portland-Los Angeles-Seattle.

It’s not just in San Diego where you can take a stopover, and people in the Lower 48 probably aren’t the biggest users of stopovers. This is a really valuable benefit for folks in rural Alaska who often get stuck in Anchorage overnight before they can fly onward to anywhere. Without it, they’d effectively be unable to book award tickets to anywhere other than Anchorage. Additionally, many folks traveling from Alaska to the Lower 48 stop over in Seattle for shopping before heading home. Everything costs more in Alaska so this makes plenty of sense. The Tukwila Costco is strategically located near Sea-Tac Airport and I’d be surprised if at least 10% of its business isn’t Alaskans.

724 miles by air… and quite a few more by car.

Fortunately, the same benefit extends to those of us in the Lower 48, even at relatively new “mini hubs” like San Diego. Now, I’ll be completely honest: taking advantage of the stopover benefit did cost me money I wouldn’t otherwise have spent. After all, I was really going to Los Angeles and Phoenix, not San Diego. This meant I had to drive 100 miles farther than I wanted, but I did it in a rental car that was less expensive than it would have been in Los Angeles. I also had to overnight in San Diego versus flying out the day I wanted to leave, but the $35 hotel room I bought on Hotwire was cheaper (by far) than buying a flight. There were definite trade-offs, but I think they were worth it for the savings. And spending some time in San Diego, a city I often overlook, gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a friend I usually only see once a year.

The upshot? Look for new routes when you’re looking for award space. These are often wide open with saver level award space, even when most routes have been booked up for months around a busy holiday period. And if you’re flying on an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award ticket, don’t overlook the value you can get out of a stopover. This is a huge benefit. It’s one that really differentiates the program from its competitors (most of whom have taken away the ability to do this), and stopovers can really make an award trip more fun!

How To Use Miles To Escape From Irma

September 5, 2017September 5, 2017 TProphet0 comment

If you live in Florida, you’re probably looking at Irma and wanting to get out. However, a lot of other people already had the same idea and now flights are looking like this:

Southwest is sold out

Or this:

It’s available… if you can afford it

So what can you do if you want to escape the hurricane? Look at some other options.

For all flights, American Airlines is honoring its “last seat” pledge and making seats available to AAdvantage members at the “standard” price. These awards are very expensive, at 20,000 points. Normally I’d never recommend booking one of these, but this is actually solid value for an “hurricane flight” at over 2.7 cents per mile in value. As of this writing, there is still one seat available to each of Dallas and Chicago on 9/6/17.

Alternate airports

While most flights out of the primary South Florida regional hub of Miami are booked, there are still a few seats available on flights from Fort Lauderdale.

Non-US Locations

Another option to evacuate south Florida with points is with jetBlue TrueBlue points, but you’ll also have to leave the country. TrueBlue points can be redeemed at a fixed value toward flights. While most jetBlue flights are sold out, there are a few seats left on their Fort Lauderdale to Mexico flight. Don’t have any jetBlue points? They transfer instantly from American Express Membership Rewards.

When you need to leave the country immediately, jetBlue has you covered

Cash Deals

Last-minute walk-up fares are pretty expensive for international flights, but jetBlue is duking it out for supremacy with Aeromexico. Both forgot to raise their fares on this route during the hurricane crisis, so you can book the closely timed Aeromexico flight out of Miami for a little over $300 right now. This is one of the cheapest ways out of the region.

Another good way to fly is to look for codeshares on international carriers. Air Canada has a codeshare on a United flight from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles via Denver. If you can find it (I use Momondo for my searches) you might be able to get out for about $200, instead of $2,000.

Bank travel portals (for spending your bank points) aren’t a good way to get out right now. They are showing prices even higher than the airlines. It’s best to just pay cash if you want to get out and can’t use points another way.

General Advice

Look for routes off the beaten path. You might need to get creative with routings and look at places like Panama City, San Salvador or even Madrid as possible evacuation points. It’s already tough to get a ticket at all, so don’t waste time booking.

Airports are going to be a complete zoo so show up many hours before your flight. Don’t expect the airlines to be able to re-accommodate you if you’re late. They won’t have any flights. By this weekend, everything will be shut down.