The Frequent Traveller Thread - Perks, points, and deals for beginners and experts
02-11-2017, 10:38 AM
I've been meaning to write a pretty basic entry - how do I book flights. Its basic, but at the same time its a pretty complex algorithm and I am sure I'm subjective about it some of the time, and also using my personal preferences (like flying with Asian flight attendants rather than white ones).
Where we goin'
First and foremost, whats your decision based on. Is it for a specific reason or just a "wanna get away."
Wanna get away is fun - what I mean is a trip anywhere. If cost is an issue (when isn't it, on a relative basis), the best tool for WGA trips (not on SW, I'm just using their slogan) is google flights. You can put in your potential departure points, the class of service you want and basically zoom in and out around the map for the whole world and see the prices for RT or one way flights. For everywhere, for date ranges, for special carriers and alliances.
So, if I want to leave Bangkok, where I'm currently posting up, and hit Europe for some civilization (haha), then I can set BKK, PEN, HKT, KUL (each of the other three cheap from BKK), for example, as my departure cities in Google Flights, and then pick one city in Europe (say, CDG - Paris). Once the search goes, it will also populate the rest of the map around Europe and tell you the relative prices of the various destinations. If you find a deal that you love, on a carrier you love, for a place you've wanted to visit, its time to get away.
However, the same approach works for trips one needs to take, either to visit a specific place for a purpose, or perhaps even because you want to retain status on an airline and are close. A few examples.
Last May, when i was going to Cannes, shit was really expensive from HKG to Nice, the nearest city to Cannes. But using google flights, I saw in biz class very cheap tickets from BKK to Budapest, for whatever reason. And I saw I could get from BUD to NCE very cheaply in economy after a few days in BUD, a city I had wanted to visit anyway. So rather than an expensive biz class ticket to NCE, a cheap one to BUD, with a cheap second flight in econ. to connect to NCE. A mini-vacation, cash saved, bingo.
Another example...two years ago, when closing in on top status with American Airlines (which used to be quite valuable), I needed about 10K EQM to make it. I was again, at that time, spending most of my time close to HKG airport. it was the end of the year, approaching Xmas season, and ticket prices were bumping. Using google flights for a biz class search, I located a RT from BKK to Seoul, Korea (BKK is a good place to test for cheap biz class flights as many cheap flights in J leave from BKK - other cities in Asia with good J prices tend to be the ones I mentioned above, and sometimes in Vietnam or certain places in Indonesia. For Europe, check Scandinavian countries and Dublin for good exit points in J, tho in general Europe has gotten pretty cheap).
Anyway, I found that flight, ran the numbers and saw it would put me just over the line for top status. No way to find that out without using google flights (or ITA, which is run on the same engine as google flights). I booked the tickets, took the ride, earned about as many RDM in value as the flight cost, and got lounges, upgrades (on AA but also CX, quite frequently) and assorted other benefits including bonus RDM on earnings) for another year.
A few notes on google flights. Its good and usually the best place to start to try to narrow things down. However, its not perfect. Searching some airlines, Malaysia and Garuda for example, directly (and even Qatar), I've seen specialty pricing that google doesn't capture. Why - I've no ideas but depending on your route, as a gut check consider some direct searched on carrier's sites.
Google is good, but if you're an economy flyer don't forget some of the discounters. Orbitz usually shows up directly in google, but some of the prices that might show up in websites like kiwi.com, Qunar.com (chinese), Ctrip.com & Elong, (Chinese) and Momondo may be lower that what's found in google (or google may reflect them, tho not usually the Chinese ones). I've often found flights cheaper in China on Ctrip than were available as the carrier had only provided access to the deep saver fares to Ctrip.
How to Travel.
I generally look at value more than anything else. I don't book expensive business class tickets (and make sure I generally don't need to, as I can use miles - the more expensive the biz class seat, the better the inherent value of redeeming miles for it). I book cheap, length business class tickets with large redeemable miles earnings which serve as a discount on the tickets themselves, a rebate to be used on future trips (and also, with the added benefit of flying further meaning you move that much closer to status for the subsequent year).
Another example. I'm flying to the USA in the next few days. Rather than flying from SE Asia across the pacific (the short way), I found a very inexpensive ticket in J on a great carrier via the mid-east. My flight time increases - I have some additional transit time. But the next cost of my ticket in business from SE Asia to California (using the miles earned as a rebate at say, 2c per miles), is 400 USD for the ticket. RT. In biz. On a carrier all would agree is top ten, if not higher.
However, I'm not adverse at all to booking economy on discount carriers. If one cannot find a valuable reward ticket redemption (no avail, bad values), it can, for flights of a certain length, be by far the best value. I fly Air Asia pretty frequently (I tend to pay for the front row of economy - love those red uniforms). They fly many routes directly that one could only fly with a major carrier indirectly. They are cheap as fuck. And I've been lucky with them not being delayed, tho that means I'm due. But again, its about value...last year, flying from Medan to Penang, I could have flown MH, through KUL, for double the price and three times the travel time as my cheap Air Asia flight direct. Done the same recently for HKG to SIN, as the Cathay and Singapore direct flights are very expensive between those cities (and not great values for booking with miles with AA miles - SG bookings are not always available), but Jetstar (not a fan, but I got there) was really really cheap.
Miles Vs. Cash
This is fairly straightforward. First of all, if you're booking economy (or even biz) redemptions at less than 2c per mile using miles you earned from every day spending (not from sign up bonuses, perhaps, tho one could argue the same), then stop. Just stop. Sign up for a cash card with 2 percent back, an simplify your life. Or start flying premium. But those redemptions are uneconomic.
In general, I'd say, you should aim to be achieving north of 2.5 cents per mile on all redemptions of airline miles or you shouldn't be using them (there are exceptions, and also, the more miles you have the less each additional one has in value to you. And Delta). I'd also include SPG points, AMEX MR, Chase UR and CitiTY points in this - 2.5 and up. 3 would be even better. And if below 2c/point, see the previous paragraph.
Why? Well, I've discussed why the baseline is 2c/point. Because you can get a card that will give you that in cash. If you can get that in cash, then you can buy that ticket, earn the miles for flying it (which you wont when you trade points for a reward ticket), get status (or toward it) for flying on a revenue ticket, etc. I goosed it up to 2.5 because on an award, youre forgoing all these additional benefits (including the mileage earnings (and think outside the box - don't credit AA to AA if the earnings are shitty, perhaps credit to CX or Alaska). Since you get none of these things, its not an even swap - a redemption should have a higher value in c/point than a cash back card. By some amount. 25 percent is arbitrary - make up your own mind.
AMEX has actually done something really interesting. They've basically allowed card holders (across two cards for now, tho there is a promotion that makes both of the following available on just the business platinum for a limited period of time - registration required, and its targeted) to earn 5x points for flight bookings - and to redeem those points on any business class ticket, or on any of your primary airline choice's tickets, at 2c/MR point. For money spent on airline tickets (from the carrier), thats an amazing 10 percent off biz class and your primary carrier's tickets. Of course its just on your airline spend (you're still getting a minimum 2/c per point on all other tickets when you redeem points spent on non-airline or other bonus spend).
The promotion of 5x earnings is on the personal platinum (tho its been made available on a targeted basis for a few months on certain biz platinum cards). The 2c/MR redemption is a biz card attribute (its 1c/MR on the personal platinum, still good but not nearly as compelling).
But the important part here is two-fold. First of all, these are not award redemptions - these are revenue tickets. Again, earn status, redeemable miles, etc etc with these tickets. So 2/c a mile, but with the benefits of having purchased the ticket.
And even more importantly, its not based on award availability. These are tickets that are revenue - its whats being sold for your travel dates. You don't have to twist yourself into a knot trying to find an available award - you can simply book whats out there.
The benefit is double on premium class tickets (and your chosen carrier).
It can be counterintuitive. Another example, I had to book a flight for a friend. It was close to Chinese New Year, and everything out of SZ was way pricey - 300 bucks for a coach ticket, one way, for an hour flight. Fuck me.
Air France had no availability to book the Chinese sky team partner flying the route, even after keeping me on hold for thirty minutes to figure this out. Fun fun.
However, using AMEX's travel website, I realized that business class seats were marginally more expensive than coach seats (340USD vs. 300) and available. THIS IS OFTEN THE CASE WITH USA DOMESTIC CARRIERS ON DOMESTIC ROUTES, nowadays.
So using AMEX MR points to book the flight, I used 17,000 points to book a 340 F class flight, rather than spending the 300 for the economy seat. It wasn't an amazing deal, but I was tight for cash that month, and there was no award availability. I don't like booking revenue tickets (this is a revenue tickets) much for folks you know wont use the earned miles, but again, I had to book the ticket and saved spending the cash.
I recently did this for myself (much better) on a MH ticket to Bali from Bangkok. A 400 dollar ticket RT in biz (already a great deal) becomes even better when it can be booked for 20,000 MR points on any date the fare is available, and still earn back around 10,000 AA points due to it being a J revenue ticket, and my status with the airlines.
I'm guessing there might be some questions, so I've leave it at this.
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Strip away judeo-christian ethics ingraining sex is dirty/bad & the idea we're taking advantage of these girls disintegrates. Once you've lost that ethical quandary (which it isn't outside religion) then they've no reason to play the victim, you've no reason to feel the rogue. The interaction is to their benefit.
Frequent Travs
Phils SZ China