Award Booking Archives - asthejoeflies

Jun 04 2018

Hawaii miles and points guide Part 2: Best award rates

In Part 1, we discussed who flies to Hawaii, how to find out which carriers might work for you, and how using partners can save you miles. In Part 2, we’ll take a deeper look at using partner miles and the best award rates to Hawaii. Let’s review how much US airlines (the ones actually flying from the mainland) charge for their own Hawaii flights.

	One-way Rates (OW)
	Economy		Business
Name	Low	Standard	Low	Standard
Alaska	15-20K	30-50K	40K	80K
American	20K-22.5K	40-50K	40K	67.5-90K
Delta	~25K	∞	~50K	∞
Hawaiian	20K-30K	40-60K	40K	80-130K
United	22.5K	45K	40-50K	90-95K

While these rates aren’t horrible, partners can do better. We’ll do a breakdown of each Hawaii carrier’s award options, but first, here are the highlights of your best options.

Award Sweet Spots

Alaska
- For non-stop West Coast Alaska flights, British Airways and Singapore are your best bets.
- For connecting/East Coast flights, consider using Alaska’s own miles with a “stopover”, or AA miles.
American
- West Coast AA non-stops are 12.5K with British Airways Avios, DFW is 20K.
- For connecting/East Coast flights, consider using Alaska’s miles with a “stopover” or AA if they offer any double-connection awards nobody else does.
Delta
- For all flights, use Korean SkyPASS 25K RT if you can deal with their antiquated rules and processes, or if you need a stopover.
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue for 15K OW are a good option if you don’t have UR or want to save them for other purposes.
Hawaiian
- Its easiest to just use Hawaiian’s own miles, but give any partners you can use a call and see what they have available.
United
- If there’s space, use Singapore. But if you have the United card, do check for expanded cardholder XN space.

Useful phone numbers of note (click links for other contact numbers)

Air France/KLM: 1-800-375-8723 (M-F 8:00AM-10:00PM, Weekends 9:00AM-7:30PM, all times EST)

Alaska Air: 1-800-252-7522 (24 hours)

British Airways UK call center: +44 191 4907901 (2:30AM-3:00PM EST)

British Airways US call center: 1-800-247-9297 (7AM-11PM EST)

Korean Air: 1-800-438-5000 (24 hours)

Singapore Airlines call center: 1-800-742-3333 (24 hours)

Carrier-by-Carrier Breakdown

By now you should be able to know who to search and where to search, so the last part is figuring out what miles/partner to use. I’ve broken it down below by each airline flying to Hawaii. At the bottom I’ve listed some phone numbers you might find come in handy.

Alaska

		One-way Rates (OW)
		Economy		Business
Partner	Miles Program	Lowest	Highest	Lowest	Highest
Alaska	Mileage Plan	15K	50K	40K	80K	Link
American	AAdvantage	22.5K	50K	40K	90K	Link
Cathay Pacific	AsiaMiles¹	22.5K	60K	52.5K	135K	Link
British Airways	Executive Club/Avios²	12.5K	25K+	37.5K	75K	N/A
Emirates	Skyward³	20K		37.5K		Link
Japan Airlines	Mileage Bank⁴	21K	37K	65K	100K	Link
Korean Air	SKYPASS³	15K		30K		Link
LATAM	LATAM Pass⁵	10.875K	21.75K	39K	78K	Link
Qantas	Frequent Flyer⁶	28K		66K		N/A
Singapore	KrisFlyer⁷	12K	12.5K	42K	47K	Link

Notes

Pricing is OW based on a RT flight. OW is 50% more.
Pricing per segment, distance-based
RT required
Total-distance based
Price shown based on a RT, total distance based
Chart price doesn’t match search engine
Zone based, per segment, no connections allowed.

Alaska is a great source for Hawaii awards from the west coast. Before their merger with Virgin America, they only served smaller California airports, as well as Seattle and Portland. But Virgin America is now fully absorbed into Alaska, and they compete with the legacies from LAX and SFO. There are two main sweet spots, in addition to Alaska themselves: Singapore and British Airways. They are fantastic options for Alaska flights, but only from the west coast. Both are segment and distance based, so the non-stop flights to Hawaii are 12K with Singapore, and 12.5K with British Airways. Booking both is not fun, as both require calling in to redeem. As discussed previously in Part I, you can find partner-eligible flights on AlaskaAir.com, where non-stop 15K/17.5K flights are almost always available via partners. You can also search for AA.com for Alaska award space. Anything that shows up should be bookable with other partners too. If you’re flexible, availability is pretty great. Check out this September from LA to Maui. Only one day doesn’t have space available, and that one day does have AA award space.

Singapore KrisFlyer

Singapore uses a zone-based chart. For Hawaii, this is simple. California, Seattle, and Oregon cost 12K for a OW flight and Alaska costs 12.5K. While they list similar cheap prices for every other state to Hawaii, they just don’t fly those routes so it’s a non-starter. Their business rates are extremely high and Alaska business is probably the worst of all carriers. The award chart doesn’t allow transfers, making each segment price separately. So you need to find non-stop flights for the 12K-12.5K price.

Singapore awards on Alaska cannot be booked online. You’ll have to call Singapore’s call center. Singapore is the easiest to get ahold of, as their call center is always open, and hold times are low. Their agents however are not very knowledgeable about their new Alaska partnership. It might take a couple calls to find one that knows how to search and book these awards. The change fee is currently $50, and redeposit fee is currently $75.

If you’re booking for anyone other than yourself, save yourself some time and set up your passengers as “Redemption Nominees” in your KrisFlyer account before calling in. Singapore transfers are not instant (1-3 days, or more) and they don’t allow holds for Alaska awards. I’ve never had an issue where Alaska Hawaii flights found on AA.com weren’t bookable by Singapore, but I have run into issues where Singapore couldn’t see domestic routes that were bookable on AA.com. If you don’t get your Alaska PNR while booking with Singapore, you can use the CheckMyTrip app and the Singapore PNR to get the Alaska PNR. With that you can choose seats and enter passenger data on the Alaska website.

British Airways Executive Club/Avios

Like Singapore, British Airways awards are priced per segment and are distance based. All of Alaska’s Hawaii flights fall in the 12.5K OW price. You’ll have to call in to British Airways to book Alaska flights. That can be quite a pain. It’s ridiculous, but their US phone number only works during east coast business hours, even though it’s staffed in the UK. Hold times often exceed 30 minutes. The workaround to these two issues is calling one of the international numbers. If you have access to cheap/free int’l calls, consider this. I’ve found calling early (for the US) helps with the wait times. The good news is that the reps are very competent and friendly once you do get through. Just like with Singapore, you can use your BA PNR and CheckMyTrip to get your Alaska PNR for choosing seats on the Alaska website. Conveniently, British Airways lets you cancel/redeposit your miles with just the forfeiture of the $5.60 taxes on each segment.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

If you live in a city that Alaska serves, but does not have non-stop Hawaii service, consider using Alaska miles. Their prices are lower than most other legacies. They also shockingly allow stopovers on one-way awards still. As discussed on the podcast, that can be useful for not only splitting up the long trip from the Midwest/east coast, but also opens more options for piecing together awards without the 4-hr limit for domestic connections that many carriers have. It will cost a little more, at 22.5K, but you can also pair Alaska flights with AA flights if that works for your needs.

Other Partners

I’ve compiled other Alaska partners award rates, but I don’t have any experience actually booking them. The prices aren’t great and they aren’t easy programs to deal with, so I’d recommend avoiding them unless you somehow already have miles in that program. LATAM might look good on paper but that program is in flux and is a nightmare to deal with at the best of times.

American

		One-way Rates (OW)
		Economy		Business
Partner	Miles Program	Lowest	Highest	Lowest	Highest
American	American	20K	22.5K	67.5K	90K	Link
Alaska	Mileage Plan	22.5K		40K		Link
Cathay Pacific	AsiaMiles²	22.5K	60K	52.5K	135K	Link
British Airways	Executive Club²	12.5K	25K+	37.5K	75K	N/A
Etihad	EtihadGuest³	17.5K	22.5K	37.5K	47.5K	Link
Japan Airlines	Mileage Bank⁴	21K	37K	65K	100K	Link
LATAM	LATAM Pass⁵	10.875K	21.75K	39K	78K	Link
Qantas	Frequent Flyer⁶	28K		66K		N/A
Qatar	Qmiles⁵	25K	37.5K	50K	75K	Link

Notes

RT pricing. OW ~50% more
Segment-distance based
Based on AA’s old award chart, off-peak Hawaii is (1/12-3/8, 8/22-12/15)
Total-distance based
Based on RT, total-distance based
Online chart probably wrong

American’s sweet spots are more limited to the west coast, but availability is pretty good. This year I even saw 7 seats being release for the ultra-peak season between Christmas and New Year’s. AA has multiple flights daily to all four Hawaiian Islands from LAX. British Airways for 12.5K OW from the west coast is an incredible deal. Etihad uses the old AA award chart and routing rules for now, which could be useful. You can transfer Citi ThankYou Points to Etihad, but their customer service can be very poor. Proceed at your own risk.

British Airways Executive Club/Avios

British Airways awards are priced per segment, and are distance based. All of AA’s (and Alaska) Hawaii flights fall in to the 12.5K OW price. Delta also flies from DFW to HNL and OGG. And unlike Alaska, who services the entire west coast, AA only has LAX and PHX at this price point. These awards can be booked online (and the transfer from UR/MR is instant). There is currently an issue on the BA website that forces you to search about 5-15 times before AA award flights show up, but BA/AA are aware and are looking into it. You might have better luck calling in. The BA Executive Club US phone number only works during east coast business hours, even though it’s staffed in the UK. Hold times frequently exceed 30 minutes. The workaround to these two issues is calling one of the international numbers. If you have access to cheap/free int’l calls, consider this. I’ve found calling early (for the US) helps with the wait times. The good news is that the reps are very competent and friendly once you do get through. You can use your British Airways PNR directly on the AA website to choose seats. There has been a unique perk for many years when booking AA flights with Avios: Priority AAccess. If you have this on your boarding pass after checking in, you get access to premium check-in, security, and boarding.

Alaska Mileage Plan

Alaska miles can be a good option to Hawaii, as you can pair Alaska and AA flights, and take advantage of Alaska’s very generous stopover policies. They allow stopovers on one-way flights, and they also charge the same for Hawaii-US as they do for Hawaii-Europe. So you can find gems like this one below. Hawaii to LA, then a week later LA to London. For only 22.5K. There is no limit on the stopover other than the 330-day booking window.

You have lots of options for how to book flights to Hawaii using miles and points. We take a look at the best award rates to Hawaii and how to book flights with miles to Hawaii. — A good use of Alaska’s free stopover on a one-way award

Other Partners

I’ve compiled most of American’s partners award rates, but I don’t have any experience actually booking them. The prices aren’t great and they aren’t easy programs to deal with, so I’d recommend avoiding them unless you somehow already have miles in that program. LATAM might look good on paper but that program is in flux and is a nightmare to deal with at the best of times. Qantas seems to have different rules based upon where you reside. I’ve heard people use Etihad for American awards before. Their customers service is awful but their routing rules were still the pre-deval AA prices, so you might find a gem with some work, luck and risk.

Delta

			One-way Rates (OW)
			Economy		Business
Partner	Miles Program	Flying On	Lowest	Highest	Lowest	Highest
Air France/KLM	Flying Blue	Delta	17.5K		?
Korean Air	SKYPASS	Delta	12.5K		20K

Delta’s chart-less SkyMiles program is rarely a good deal to Hawaii. The lowest I’ve seen Hawaii flights go for with SkyMiles lately is a little under 25K OW. While we’ve seen some rock-bottom award rates to the Caribbean, I’ve yet to see any sort of Hawaii prices that would make me consider using them from the west coast. They do release a good amount of space to partners, but it can be seasonal. Sometimes they’re super generous, other times they can zero out everything for months. The best partner search engine used to be Air France’s site, but they recently killed their calendar search as an option on their main site. You’ll just get an error unless there is space available on your dates, both coming and going. It’s likely anything you see here is bookable by a partner, but that’s not always the case. Korean’s site is a pain to search, and often it won’t show flights that their call center can see. Virgin Atlantic’s site is a bit of a pain, you have to search by country/state to select the airports, but it will show Delta Hawaii award flights with a little massaging of the inputs, and you can expand your search to a 5-week period. This is probably your best search engine for Delta partner flights now. I’d recommend finding available flights with Virgin’s site first, then calling or using the website of Korean/Flying Blue.

Korean SKYPASS

Korean offers one of the best deals to Hawaii, mostly because they don’t consider Hawaii any different than the rest of the United States. There’s no separate zone for Hawaii in SKYPASS’s Delta chart. The only issue is Korean’s archaic rules and booking process. Technically you can only book for family members. And you’ll have submit paperwork such as birth certificates and marriage licenses. Thankfully, Korea will let you hold awards for ~30 days. So if there’s space, you can secure the seats then deal with the paperwork later. It takes roughly a week for them to approve your family after you submit the documentaiton. Korean is pretty flexible for routing, and even allows a stopover. Here are their rules (with my notes on the realities in parentheses).

Up to two transfers permitted between city of departure and destination each way (Up to three segments allowed each way).
One stopover (over 24 hours) is permitted during the entire journey, and is included in the number of transfers. One surface segment is permitted at the destination, and is not considered a stopover. (1 stopover per trip, and open-jaw is allowed, but #3 below means any connection over 4hr is a stopover)
Standard for stopover North America Domestic: Stay over 4 hours (anything over 4hr is a stopover, anything under is just a transfer/connection).
Transfers cannot be made at the city of departure and destination (you must return to your original departure city, no using your stopover for a free one-way).

Air France/KLM Flying Blue

Flying Blue customer service is pretty abysmal in my experience, but they provide a very easy way to quickly book a Hawaii flight on Delta flights. Transfers from MR/UR/TYP should be instant. And if you’re thinking of using FlyingBlue, create an account right away. They can block brand new accounts from making reservations, especially ones that are close to departure. You’ll also need one to search. They used to allow layovers on awards, but those are now completely gone.

Hawaiian Miles

			One-way Rates (OW)
			Economy		Business
Partner	Currency Name	Flying On	Lowest	Highest	Lowest	Highest
Hawaiian	HawaiianMiles	Hawaiian	17.5K-30K	40-60K	40K	80-130K
JetBlue	TrueBlue	Hawaiian	22K	30K	45K	70K
Virgin Atlantic	Flying Club	Hawaiian	20K	40K	40K	65K
Korean	SKYPASS	Hawaiian	15K		30K

	Inter-island
	American¹	Hawaiian	7.5K	15K	15K	30K
	Delta	Hawaiian	7.5K
	JetBlue	Hawaiian	6K		12K
	Korea¹	Hawaiian	5K	10K	20K	40K
	United	Hawaiian	7.5K
	Virgin Atlantic	Hawaiian	7.5K

Notes

Priced per segment

Hawaiian offers nice service, going so far as to offer a hot meal still. It’s still awful airline food though. Most of their planes are widebodies, but they’ve recently started taking delivery of A321 narrowbody aircraft. If you see awards on hawaiianair.com at 35K-40K RT, then call the partner and have them check for you. Hawaiian releases space differently to each carrier, so you’re at the mercy of the redeeming program. You have to pick up the phone and call (PUTPAC). Recently, Hawaiian had tons of space on a new route with their own miles at their own Low rate, but JetBlue only saw 3 seats max. But they saw those 3 seats every day for a whole month. None of the partners offer any other carriers flights as part of their Hawaiian awards, so you have to start in a city with Hawaiian service. You can also use a variety of currencies to book your Hawaiian inter-island flights, if you’re planning on visiting more than one island on your trip. My general recommendations for island-hopping are: 1-7 days 1 island, 7-14 days 1 or 2 islands, 14+ clearly you’re from Europe with that much vacation time so go nuts, see it all.

United

		One-way Rates (OW)
		Economy		Business
Partner	Currency Name	Lowest	Highest	Lowest	Highest
United	Mileage Plus	22.5K	45K	40-50K	90-95K	Link
Singapore Airlines	KrisFlyer	17.5K		30K		Link
Aeroplan	Aeroplan	22.5		40K		Link
Lufthansa	Miles & More	20K		35K		Link
Avianca	LifeMiles	24K		42.5K		Link

Anything with only United flights that shows up at United.com at 22.5K should be bookable by partners, apart from flights marked “Exclusively available to you as a Chase cardmember”. Those are XN seats and can only be used with United miles, while logged in to your United account. I’ve often seen XN seats available for peak dates when nobody else is offering any award space. Keep that in mind if United is an option for you.

Singapore KrisFlyer

Singapore KrisFlyer is almost always the best option for booking Hawaii United flights. You can transfer from UR/MR/TYP. They allow a stopover, which can be useful both for the stopover and expanding your award options.

United Mileage Plus

MileagePlus can be useful for United’s partnership with Hawaiian, as they allow tacking on an inter-island segment at no extra cost. You can also take advantage of their new “Excursionist” perk with a free inter-island segment. Useful if you already have MileagePlus miles, but you’re still better off transferring to Singapore I’d you’re starting from scratch.

Other Partners

These should be a last resort, but they are an option if you already have the miles and can’t think of a better use of them. Avianca can be a nightmare to deal with, proceed with caution.

Southwest

Southwest recently announced that they’ll be flying to Hawaii starting early 2019, and maybe late 2018. They’ll be flying from tertiary California airports to start: OAK, SJC, SMF, and SAN, and will fly to each of the major airports in Hawaii. They even announced that they will start flying inter-island, but not until late 2019.

Companion Pass

Well as I’ve shown above, there are tons of cheap awards to Hawaii. And if you’re paying cash, Alaska’s Free Companion Fare is a fantastic option, and available right now. And many won’t even be able to get to Hawaii on a single ticket. If you’re not flying out of one of the four airports they’re flying to Hawaii from, and think you’re going to score an awesome deal with your shiny new Companion Pass, you’re dead wrong. It’s highly likely they won’t even SELL you a single ticket to Hawaii, as they never sell flights with overnight connections. You can’t get to the west coast early enough to catch the flights to Hawaii. And you get back to CA way too late to catch a connecting flight. The ideal Hawaii flight for us Californians is early morning to Hawaii, then an afternoon flight back. That means a flight will leave ~7-9AM, and return around ~8-10PM. This is how their competition is flying almost every single flight from SMF/OAK/SJC/SAN. I don’t see them starting new service with the worst times. If you want to use your companion pass from a town without a shorthaul, early, non-stop to those CA cities, you’ll have to buy two tickets. Maybe they’ll overhaul their system and finally allow these types of tickets to be sold? Unlikely. Don’t believe me? Go try and book a flight from one of the announced CA Hawaii cities, such as SMF-GCM, SAN-AUA, OAK-LIR, or SJC-NAS. You’ll just see this.

This could be remedied when they fly inter-island, as it would make sense to overnight planes and/or fly red-eyes. But they said that’s only a maybe for late 2019. When they start they won’t have a lot of planes capable of making this flight. They certainly won’t have enough planes for multiple flights daily to one island.

I’ll admit I’m not a fan of Southwest, but I will make the bold statement that they are going to offer one of the worst flight experiences to Hawaii.

No food for purchase
No in-seat power
Armrests thinner than a quarter, uncomfortable for one arm, impossible for two to share
No seatback IFE
Streaming IFE available, but you need a separate app
Family boarding after Group A means Group B might have a tough time finding seats together. A lot of families on Hawaii flights.
No codeshare agreements
It’s unlikely that they’ll have onboard WiFi to Hawaii, but that could change because they are installing modern satellite WiFi systems on their new planes.

Flying Business/First to Hawaii

In general, don’t bother. If you can score a widebody or lie-flat seat, at a low rate, then it’s worth considering. Currently anything east of DEN is serviced with a widebody plane. Occasionally hub flights to HNL, sometimes OGG and KOA, could be on a 767/777/330. And the occasional AA/Delta/United plane to HNL/OGG Occasionally an AA/Delta/United plane might have a 757 with lie-flat seats. This is happening more often as ex-transatlantic 757s get old. But those could be subbed with domestic F, or even a 737/321 at any point. Be cautious paying a premium for that.

Widebody “Low” premium seats are extremely rare these days. With the proliferation of the variable-priced “Standard” award, they throw any excess premium space at the lowest Standard rate and it’s snatched up quickly by the road warriors who have more miles than time off, and take their family on their yearly vacation in style. It’s a win-win for the airline. Their own elites are happy and they get more miles off the books. And service to Hawaii varies wildly from crew-to-crew, flight-to-flight. It’s more likely worse in J/F than in Y, as it’s a popular route among senior FA’s. Sure, you get a free Mai Tai, but anything with a fruit juice other than lime ain’t a god damn Mai Tai.

Hopefully you’ve found this info helpful. Stay tuned for Part 3 where I discuss all of your options for booking hotel awards. I promise plenty of boring tables and diagrams for that too.

Questions? Follow Tim on Twitter!

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May 16 2017

Cheapest lap infant award tickets for international travel

In general parlance, you usually hear that lap infants are “free” until they turn two. That’s generally true – if flying domestically you can bring your under 2 year old on a plane and they can sit on your lap free of charge. However, on international flights, you have to pay at least some money for a lap infant – not free. This extends to lap infant award tickets – even if you pay for your flight with miles, you’ll have to pay cash (or miles, for some airlines) for your lap infant.

Most airlines charge 10% of the adult cash fare for international lap infant award tickets. So regardless of how you pay for your ticket (cash or miles), the lap infant ticket costs 10% of the cash fare. So a lap infant on a $400 cash fare costs $40. For business and first class lap infant tickets, this can be very expensive! Our Cathay Pacific flight (paid with 140,000 AA miles) to Hong Kong cost $8000 if bought with cash. The lap infant should have cost us $800! (Not sure how AA screwed it up, but they only charged us 10% of the coach fare so oh well. I was ready to pay $800.)

For families, if you have the miles flying in business class or better often can help make the long hauls more bearable. You can lie flat with your child or get some rest while the other parent takes care of them. And it IS possible to avoid expensive cash outlays for the infant award tickets. I thought I’d share the airline award programs that offer the cheapest lap infant award tickets. Use these programs to save money or miles when booking your lap infant award.

Note, in almost all cases, you will book the lap infant ticket with the airline issuing your ticket, aka whoever you pay your miles to. This seems a little counterintuitive at times, but I’ve never had to pay the carrier I’m flying, always the carrier who I paid miles to for the ticket. As in all of life, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between.

I’ve listed what I’ve found to be the cheapest programs in alphabetical order but I’m sure I missed some so let me know your experiences below! If a program isn’t listed here, it’s likely to cost you 10% of the adult revenue fare (or more). I’ve also included a few notes of things to bear in mind for each program.

Air Canada (Aeroplan)

Infant award ticket cost: $50 or 5000 miles (economy), $75 or 7500 miles (prem. econ.), $100 or 10,000 miles (business), $125 or 12,500 miles (first)

Airline Partners: Star Alliance

Transfer Partners: Membership Rewards

News broke last week that Air Canada will move away from their Aeroplan program, well let’s hope that they don’t change their lap infant award ticket fares! You can use Air Canada’s Aeroplan miles to book flights on Star Alliance carriers. Star Alliance still remains the largest airline alliance and you can pretty much get where you want to go anywhere in the world.

Lap infant award tickets seem pricey, but not if you know the best airline award programs to use. These airlines have the cheapest lap infant award tickets!

Flat rates really help to save money, and the flat rate of $125 or 12,500 miles for first class is one of the best in the business. $100 or 10,000 miles for business class ain’t too shabby either. One thing to beware of for Aeroplan, they do levy fuel surcharges on a lot of routes so you need to factor that into your calculations. Still, a lot of times you come out ahead booking through Aeroplan. Check out their reward chart here.

Asiana

Infant award ticket cost: 10% of mileage cost plus taxes and fees

Airline Partners: Star Alliance

Transfer Partners: Starwood

While it’s tough to beat Aeroplan’s flat rate, a close second would be programs that offer lap infant award tickets at 10% of the mileage. For a 100,000 mile adult redemption a lap infant award ticket would cost 10,000 miles. Asiana’s program operates in this fashion which is great if you need to fly on Star Alliance.

Lap infant award tickets seem pricey, but not if you know the best airline award programs to use. These airlines have the cheapest lap infant award tickets!

The Asiana program has a few things going for it. First, it allows family pooling, which makes a big difference when you are sitting on tiny balances for your kids (though less of a difference than you might think, considering you probably don’t credit to Asiana often). Asiana has some great sweet spots, like 50,000 one way in Lufthansa First Class (or any first class) to Europe but they hit you pretty hard with the fuel surcharges. Still, 5,000 miles for the lap infant for LH F is tough to beat, so it’s something to consider.

To me difficulty of getting miles presents the biggest difficulty with Asiana. Bank of America offers a credit card with a modest signup bonus but other than that you need to transfer from Starwood, which can be difficult to earn. Still, if you can get the miles, it’s a program worth taking a look at for your lap infant needs.

British Airways

Infant award ticket cost: 10% of mileage cost plus taxes and fees

Airline Partners: Oneworld

Transfer Partners: Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards

British Airways saved our family a ton of cash the first time we took our daughter back to Asia. British Airways Avios are easy to earn and can transfer from both Membership Rewards and Ultimate Rewards. The downside of Avios comes in the form of the distance based award chart, which gets pretty annoying. But when you consider booking a lap infant on your award, sometimes Avios can make sense. 10% of the mileage fare beats the $800-$1000 or so you’d pay when booking the same premium cabin with AA miles.

For example, now a one way direct first class flight on Cathay Pacific cost 140,000 Avios or 110,000 AA miles. But the lap infant cost would be 14,000 Avios or something like $1000. So in some cases using British Airways will save you overall. So even though people mainly use British Airways for short haul flight these days, don’t ignore them for long haul flights if you plan on bringing a lap infant in a premium cabin.

Korean Air

Infant award ticket cost: 10% of mileage cost plus taxes and fees

Airline Partners: Skyteam

Transfer Partners: ~~Ultimate Rewards~~ (RIP)

Korean Air is a bit of a hidden gem in my mind, especially since their fuel surcharges have gotten less expensive. They have great availability on their own flights, including in premium cabins, and infants only cost 10% of the mileage fare. If you’re flying to Europe from the East Coast they can be a great option for flying on Delta metal too (and saving on lap infant award ticket fees).

The biggest drawback with Korean Air is having to create a family plan with all your family members. It’s not super difficult (as in it no longer requires faxing) but it can be a bit cumbersome. Create the family plan earlier rather than later so you don’t need to deal with it if you need to buy last minute tickets. You can also hold awards for a ridiculously generous amount of time, two weeks (here’s how to create a family plan and an award hold). As a Chase Ultimate Rewards partner, earning Korean Air miles is pretty straightforward and you have a lot of options, making Korean Air a great option.

Lufthansa Miles and More

Infant award ticket cost: Just taxes and fees

Airline Partners: Star Alliance

Transfer Partners: Starwood

Lufthansa Miles and More only charges taxes and fees for lap infant awards which is great! But they charge high fuel surcharges, not great. The best way to use Miles and More is for flights with carriers like United who don’t charge fuel surcharges. If you can find flights on United to Europe you like, you can get to Europe and back for 105,000 miles round trip and not too many fuel surcharges while taking your lap infant for very little as well. I probably like the Miles and More program the least out of all the programs in this post, but if you have a lot of SPG points lying around, they can be a good option. Check and compare the Asiana and Lufthansa award charts before you make your decisions.

Final Thoughts

If you want to fly in a premium cabin, lap infant award tickets can be expensive, even if you pay for the flights with miles! When deciding what to book, there are a ton of factors – convenience, point balances, out of pocket cash costs, etc. etc. If you can, I recommend using one of these five programs to book at least one person in your party’s ticket. That way you can attach the lap infant to their ticket with the lowest cost possible. It takes some extra work but with the potential to save almost $1000, it’s worth it in my opinion.

Let me know if there are friendly lap infant programs I missed and any tips and tricks you might have in the comments!

Apr 27 2017

Hong Kong Revisited: Surviving the 15 hour flight with two young kids

So we took M back to Asia before she turned two and figured we owed H the same. Coming to Hong Kong for only a week seemed like a great idea back in August, time will tell whether it was! But since H managed to get himself born in July going this summer before he turns two is impossible. The first and last steps of our journey: flights with two kids on Cathay Pacific BOS-HKG (and return) in business class.

My buddy Dan reviewed Cathay Pacific business class awhile back so I won’t bother too much with the details. Bottom line: super solid, comfortable product with good food and tons of entertainment. Truly an ideal way to fly to Hong Kong in business class as an adult. Also, one of the only reasons we managed to go to Hong Kong for such a short time (7 nights) with such young kids was being able to fly in business class. (The other? Grandparents.)

We took Cathay Pacific BOS-HKG in business class with our four year old and toddler. Here's how we managed to survive the 15 hour flight. — Hong Kong Airport – look at the camera, kid!

This post will focus on how the flight affected our kids. We spent 420,000 AA miles to fly in J so it’s fair to question whether it was worth it. Here are some things that stood out to me as a parent of a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old flying BOS-HKG on Cathay Pacific.

The lap infant fare cost much less than expected

You need to buy a lap infant ticket when flying internationally.Of course this ticket doesn’t cost a ton since it’s not full price – for most airlines, including AA, it costs 10% of the cash fare. This includes award tickets (though some awesome airlines like British Airways and Korean Air charge 10% of the miles. Aeroplan also has set cash costs which really save you money if you’re booking premium cabins). I wrote about my experience doing just that with United here. You technically need to get a lap infant ticket on domestic flights as well but those cost nothing.

Anyway, I prepared myself to pay 10% of the cash fare for our business class seats, around $800. Like with United, I decided to wait until the last week to call in for the lap infant. Business class fares don’t fluctuate too much so I didn’t think I risked much.

The AAgent surprised me by quoting me about $240 for the lap infant ticket. I’m not sure how she came up with that (coach fare, perhaps), but I took it and ran! So you never know…but be prepared to pay quite a bit. We have before.

Leaving at 1:45 AM is really tough on the kids (outbound)

As a parent, I always prefer direct flights. So when Cathay Pacific started the Boston to Hong Kong flight it was pretty exciting. The downside, however, is a 1:45 AM departure time on the outbound.

We decided to put the kids to bed at normal time (8 PM, I guess an hour early for M). We woke them up right around 11:30 PM and then left immediately. They were pretty groggy and then mostly delirious at the airport, not a great start to the trip.

Of course, we didn’t sleep at all so by the time we all boarded the plane we had kids with not enough sleep and parents with none. Jess boarded first with M and got her settled while H and I played in the empty terminal. By the time the boys got on the plane, it was time to go, so we settled in for the long haul.

The return flight leaves at a much more reasonable time, 6:10 PM Hong Kong time. Of course, it arrives at 10:10 PM Boston time, leading to a lot of jet lag, but I’ll leave that to another post.

15.5 hours is an incredibly long time

Our flight to Hong Kong took 15 and a half hours, the return took about 15. For the most part, the return was much easier – both kids slept about eight hours. The rest of the time M watched a ton of Doc McStuffins and other TV, while H…went nuts? I’d say 18-24 months is quite possibly the worst time to travel with your child.

A toddler that age knows what they want but can’t express it. They want to go places but don’t necessarily have the physical skills to do so consistently. Plus, H needs to move around much more than his sister did at that age.

One thing I’m not sure we made the right decision about, we got three seats in a row. That means to cross to the other side we had to go through the galley. That meant more room for H to walk, but I felt bad cutting through to help out. Eventually I just started climbing over the center console!

Entertaining the kids

Disclosure: Links in this paragraph earn me a small commission on Amazon if you buy through the links. I only linked products that we found useful, appreciate the support!

We bought a bunch of stuff to entertain the kids on the plane. Some things, like Wikki sticks and some car magnets, didn’t work out too well for our kids. But other stuff, like this Melissa and Doug Color Blast coloring book (with “magic pen”), provided great entertainment not only on the plane but throughout the trip.

Besides that coloring book, three other things we bought stood out. First, we bought more take and toss sippy cups. We find that our kids thermoses sort of explode due to changes in cabin pressure; these sippy cups provide a way to keep the kids hydrated without worrying about a mess. (Tip: if you do bring a thermos, keep the cap open to adjust for the pressure. Science!). They only cost $1.25 when I got the, $4 now but still worth it to me. Note they are add on items.

Secondly, Jess bought this huge Tsum Tsum sticker book which occupied M for a long time. She loves this sticker book and played with it a ton even after we arrived. Jess bought it at Target for $15 or something but you can grab it from Amazon for $10.

But da real MVP by far was this pill planner box Jess bought. I confess, I was completely skeptical about this. But I should have realized multi-purpose items reign supreme. We hid snacks, stickers, etc. in the pill planning box and both kids loved to pop each box open to get what was inside. This especially saved us with H, who probably used the box for over an hour throughout the course of each flight. Pill planning boxes – not just for the elderly!

Flying in business class helps, though I’m not sure how much

Like I said at the top, we couldn’t have done this trip without flying in business class. But that mostly is a function of how little time we were in Hong Kong. Now I know Trevor can do Hong Kong in 48 hours, but kids obviously are different. Not only do they get a ton of jetlag, but the parents get a lot less rest – so adrenaline runs out.

The best part of flying business was maximizing rest. When the kids slept, we could lay down fully, so even though I only grabbed three hours on each flight, I felt better than if I had stayed upright. Having food on demand also helped, but you can get cup noodles in economy so that mostly washed out.

I’d say the second benefit came from the attentive service. Since we had a much better flight attendant to passenger ratio, they helped out a big deal. Remember, on Cathay J, they expect you to ring the call button when you need something so don’t be afraid to do that. I’m always impressed by the quality of Cathay’s flight attendants and these flights were no exception.

Finally, and this sounds dumb, but the fact that there were so many buttons to push really helped to keep H occupied. Toddlers are silly, just give them stuff to push and they can stay happy for quite awhile!

Amenities are nice, but a longhaul flight is about survival

Despite the nice amenities of being in business class, we mostly arrived at both our destinations wrecked. A fifteen hour flight with two kids feels like a long war of attrition. It’s nice to lie fully down, but you can never fully rest because you keep one ear open for your kids.

We had no major meltdowns (greater than 5 minutes), but we had a couple minor ones to deal with. Come to think of it, we probably dealt with the same number as we’d deal with in a regular 15 hour day so that wasn’t too bad. No dirty looks either!

Cathay gave H an “amenity kit” with a couple of diapers and Mustela – nice stuff! I actually needed a new small bag for our passports so I’m using it now. I’m guessing they do this in economy too but I don’t know for sure. A nice little baby amenity. In terms of being lap infant friendly, Cathay was great.

The toughest part of flying with a lap infant on Cathay

To me the hardest part was using a seatbelt on H when taking off, landing, or in turbulence. In the States, on most carriers you just literally hold the lap infant in your lap. On Cathay and many other foreign carriers, they give you a seat belt to loop with your own. You then need to buckle that around the kid.

Both my kids unequivocably hate that thing. They don’t mind wearing a seat belt sitting alone, but they hate the lap + seat combination. So the most stressful time of the flight? Sitting in turbulence with a freaking out H on my (or Jess’) lap. Luckily our flights were pretty smooth so we didn’t need to worry about it too much!

Final Thoughts

I recognize plenty of our friends fly to Asia with their young kids in coach so I know how lucky we were to fly up front. I’m glad we got to do it, the whole purpose of this trip was to get H back before he turns two. Unfortunately, that meant we could only stay a week, but thankfully we had the miles to fly in J. That really helped minimize jet lag – though that still was pretty rough (to be continued).

Overall, Cathay Pacific J is a wonderful way to fly to Asia, if you’ve got the miles it’s a worthy redemption. A hefty redemption at 420,000 miles to be sure, but that’s why we play the game. Remember you can use AA or Alaska miles, the latter much cheaper! Stay tuned to read about my jetlag wars with H – fun times were had by none!

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Apr 07 2017

A quick look at Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges

I actually scheduled this article to be posted while I visit Hong Kong next week, but since people are flipping out about Delta’s latest devaluation I moved it up the queue. When I wrote about Korean Air award holds the other day, I decided to poke around and test out some flights to Europe on Skyteam partner airlines. I found that Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges run much lower than I had thought. I’d argue that travel hackers should look more and more to using Korean Air miles.

I spent most of my time looking at fuel surcharges to Europe in business class, because that’s where the real sweet spot is. 80,000 Korean Air miles for round trip in Delta business class vs. 140,000 Delta miles for the same flights, IF the fuel surcharges are worth it. Before I get into my East Coast biased research (that’s not a joke), let me say that I’m just positing that you should consider Korean Air award tickets as an option, but by no means do I think they offer a slam dunk. Some things you should know before we get started.

Korean Air Skyteam awards must be booked for round trip travel
Virgin Atlantic can also book Delta flights (but not other Skyteam). 90K RT from select East Coast cities like Boston, 100K RT otherwise, no stopovers
Korean Air Skyteam awards allow one stopover
Like with all Korean Air awards, you can only book for family members in your family plan
You can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Korean Air

Why Korean Air is worth considering

Straight up, Virgin Atlantic presents a better value than Korean Air for Delta flights to Europe. No fuel surcharges and it’s cheaper. When you decide between Korean Air and Delta miles, you need to ask yourself whether 60,000 Delta miles (the price difference) are worth the cash outlay for fuel surcharges. For Virgin Atlantic that difference in miles is as low as 10,000 miles, so in general you’re better off with Virgin Atlantic, since both KE and VS transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

However, you still should keep Korean Air in your arsenal. With Korean Air, you can get one stopover, you can’t get that with Virgin Atlantic so that might make it worth it. You also need to go through the regular decision making process – do you have a surplus of X currency lying around, can you get a better deal transferring MR to Virgin Atlantic instead, etc. etc. For this post I only used itineraries that you can’t book on VS, but tons of itineraries on VS exist so I suggest you seek them out.

So let’s not bury the lede here: in many instances paying the fuel surcharges on Korean Air might be worth it. Especially if you have a lap infant since they only cost 10% of the miles instead of 10% of the revenue fare (which could be $600-$1000). Now lots of this hinges on Delta availability, which can be great for Bostonians like myself, but not so great if you live in a small city. Still, Delta business class availability for four this July:

BOS-CDG (one way)

JFK-CDG (one way)

DTW-CDG (one way)

Award availability should be similarly good to cities like London. A lot of people live in those three cities and award availability is decent from others, so don’t let people tell you otherwise. Delta sucks because of unpredictability, but that doesn’t mean its award space sucks.

Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges to Europe on partners

So before I get into the numbers, I should address that I mostly focused on business class flights. That’s because the mileage difference is way more stark between Delta miles and Korean Air miles for business (140,000 vs. 80,000). In economy, a 10,000 mile difference (60,000 vs 50,000) presents much less value.

So let’s see what we got, starting with my hometown of Boston.

So this itinerary costs you 80,000 KE miles and $513.22. On Delta:

On Delta it’ll cost you 140,000 miles and $139.76 (I chose the wrong flight for screenshot but the fuel surcharges should be the same). So the question to ask yourself: Are 60,000 Delta miles or Membership Rewards worth $373.46 cents to me?

There’s no right answer to that question. Maybe you use Barclays Arrival points to pay the $373.46, that’s different than using cash, which, famously, is fungible. But that difference came out much smaller than I had expected.

Here’s Detroit-London:

So Detroit to London in Delta business class using KE miles costs 80,000 miles and $546.59. Delta?

So Delta costs 140,000 miles and $260.66. So again, are 60,000 Delta miles/MR worth $285.93 to you?

To me, there’s no right or wrong answer here, but this definitely puts Korean Air on my radar in terms of options to Europe.

One Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharge example to Asia on partners

One award redemption that had Gary Leff downright chagrined was LAX-PVG. I didn’t search this route for my original post but I let curiosity get the best of me so I figured I’d share. Here’s LAX-PVG outbound on Delta:

PVG-LAX return on Delta:

I included both options since the rage revolves around how it costs 15,000 extra miles on partner airlines (justified rage). Anyway, this flight costs anywhere from 160,000 Delta miles and $220 to 190,000 Delta miles and $350.

On Korean Air:

The equivalent flights on Delta would cost 175,000 miles and $220. So in this case, are 20,000 Delta miles worth $200 to you? Again, just presenting the data (though in this case I personally would go Delta. But if only partners were available, KE becomes very attractive).

One Korean Air stopover example

I did mention that Korean Air offered the stopover benefit, so I wanted to share one example of how great that can be. I took a look at BOS-CDG // CDG-LHR (stopover) / LHR-BOS. Basically, visiting both Paris and London.

The itinerary looks like this on Delta:

These flights cost 165,000 miles and $327.76. You need to pay an extra 25,000 for the business class leg between Paris and London since Delta no longer allows stopovers. Same itinerary on Korean Air?

Booking the same flights on Korean Air cost 80,000 Korean Air miles and $701.24. So this time, we’re talking 85,000 Delta miles/Membership Rewards points for $373.48. A clear and present value? In my mind, yes, but do what works best for you and your family.

Final Thoughts

Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges really came out lower than I had expected. They are still at that level that would make me need to make some hard decisions, but it’s great to have another option to get to Europe, especially from the East Coast. Yes, Delta’s unpredictability sucks, but I find little use whining about it these days.

Instead, I encourage you to leverage their decent award space and book with other partners. I used to think that Virgin Atlantic and Flying Blue were the only viably realistic ones, but looking at the sizable yet not exorbitant Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges, now I’ve got a third option. And so do you! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write another post to schedule for vacation. Thanks for nothing, Delta!

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Featured image courtesy of Pixabay

Apr 06 2017

How to put a Korean Air award on hold for a family

One reason I love having an Award Booking Service is it gives me the chance to book award travel. I’d love to book my own award travel, but I don’t get to do that as regularly anymore! One thing I’ve noticed though is that it’s easy for me to keep going back to the same well. One thing I find myself using for clients again and again is the generous Korean Air award hold policy.

Back in the day using Korean Air involved using a fax machine. Now that those bad boys have reached the verge of extinction, it’s much simpler to execute an award hold for yourself and your family. Let me tell you a tale of why you might want to hold an award and how to execute it.

One of the few frequent flyer programs that allows award holds is Korean Air. Here's how to use the generous Korean Air award hold policy for your family! — Korean Air has great award space to Asia (Image Credit: Pixabay)

Why hold an award?

Most people can probably skip this section, but just in case. Holding any award obviously provides a degree of flexibility. You can search for alternate flights, you can bug your wife about letting you book the tickets, etc. etc.

For Korean Air, the best and most legitimate reason to hold an award is to allow yourself time to transfer miles into your Korean Air account. You can transfer both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest points into Korean Air. Ultimate Rewards transfer instantly but SPG takes a couple days, so you really need the ability to hold these awards for peace of mind. I’m always stressed transferring to Singapore from SPG, for example.

Creating a Family Plan

If you want to book awards for someone besides yourself (aka your family), you need to create a family plan. Luckily this has become much more straightforward now that you can do this online.

First, create a Skypass account for every member of your family. This took me about 45 seconds per person – the registration process for kids and adults is identical. Unlike some US carriers (ahem Delta!), you don’t even have to call in or send in a separate form – thank goodness!

Then, log in as the user whose miles you plan to use (or the person you plan the transfer the miles to). Go to “My Dashboard” => “Family Plan” => “Add a Member”. Then select apply online, the easiest method.

Just fill in the information of your family member and upload a document for proof of relationship (Tip from commenter Melanie: make sure name matches passport exactly!). For immediate family members this is a piece of cake – marriage certificate or birth certificate should do the trick. Also as long as your documents have both members birthdays you really only need to upload one document (if not, add secondary documents with your birthdays visible).

Note Korean Air really wants you to add family members to the family plan. So if you want to fly with a friend, they’ll probably need to book with their own account. Here’s a list of family members as defined by Korean Air (they use a dropdown list):

Grandparent
Maternal grandparent
Parent
Parent of spouse
Spouse
Brother/sister
Child
Grandchild
Daughter/Son in law
Child of daughter

If anyone’s gotten past these feel free to add to the comments. I do have one thought: why only child of daughter but not child of son? Come on, now!

Searching Korean Air award space

Korean Air has some pretty generous award space, especially in premium cabins. A paid Expertflyer subscription provides the easiest and fastest way to search for award space, but you can also search for it online using the Korean Air website. A bit slower but good enough! I’d recommend creating your family plan first because you can only search for as many seats as you have family members.

You don’t need to do this before you call but I always find it useful to have an idea of what flights have space before I call so I can feed the agents flights. I did find some discrepancies between what the agents saw and what Expertflyer showed me (some positive, some negative), so bear that in mind as well.

Creating a Korean Air award hold

Once you’ve created your family and found the flights you want, creating the Korean Air award hold is pretty painless. Call up Korean Air at 1-800-438-5000 and feed the agent your dates and flights. I’ve called a couple times in the last few days (middle of the day) and haven’t waited longer than five minutes. You probably will end up using the word “hold” but I think Korean agents call it a “reservation.” Regardless, after you feed them your flights and the confirm the availability, you get put on a brief hold and then they come back with your reservation held and a confirmation number.

At this point, ask how long the reservation will be held for. I made a couple of holds and they all will last for 14 days – shorter than in the past. Not sure if that’s the new timeline but it’s still better than the next most famous hold policy out there (AA – 5 days).

Things of note for family awards

At this point, you can complete the reservation online once you have transferred your miles over. Note you will have to submit an online form to do this. You can also complete the reservation over the phone, but this will necessitate the fax shenanigans of yore. If you no longer live in the 1990s and have since gotten rid of your fax machine, stick to booking online.

I saved the very best Korean Air feature for last: lap infants only cost 10% of the mileage, not 10% of the cash price. So if you fly in a premium cabin, instead of looking at a $1000 round trip charge you’re looking at something on the order of 6000-12000 miles. Great stuff.

Final Thoughts

Korean Air is great for travel to Asia on Korean Air metal, not so great on partner carriers. Europe SHOULD be a sweetspot (80,000 RT in business) but they charge significant fuel charges on transatlantic routes. Still, especially for families needing to get to Asia to visit relatives, Korean Air award holds are clutch and should be part of your arsenal.

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