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Outlining my 2018 points biases, needs, and wants – a blog refocusing

One thing I always loved about the blog Milenomics was Sam’s deep thinking when it comes to matters of miles and points. Thanks to asthejoeflies (and everywhere else) contributor Robert Dwyer, Milenomics is back! I’ve been thinking all week about Sam’s article about his miles and points needs and wants.

He hits the nail on the head when he says “Learning a little about my needs and wants will help you to align with what I say or skip things that just don’t apply to you.  I think it is important that writers are clear about their inherent bias, especially when time and money are involved.” If you don’t understand a bloggers inherent bias, how can you objectively analyze her or his advice?

Outlining my miles and points needs and wants so that you know what you're getting when you read the blog. Needs and wants determine how you should act!
Life comes at you fast.

So, as my life has changed quite a bit, I thought it important to take a look at my inherent biases, needs, and wants when it comes to travel. I think this might be something worthwhile to do every year, to see how things have changed. Hopefully this helps you decide whether reading my blog is useful or useless to you (or somewhere in between)! 

Overall, if you read or skim this article, you’ll have a good idea of where I’m coming from when I’m posting in 2018. I’m sure some of you are in similar boats, so hopefully this helps. 

Life changes

I started this blog a few months before the birth of our first child. Now our baby turns five soon and we tow around a two year old and a two month old. Thankfully, our biggest fears for #3 didn’t come to fruition, but we still have some medical appointments to work around. 

In addition, traveling as a family of five presents its own logistical challenges that I haven’t quite worked out yet.

So I’m keeping my goals for the year simple. Two or three trips as a full family, and I’ll count a road trip if I have to. One or two trips with just myself and the older two kids (hopefully we do better than last time we did this), and maybe – MAYBE one of these trips will be international. I’ll get the baby a passport just in case (here’s my simple guide for that).

If we can swing it, I’d love to go on a trip with just my wife, but we’ll see. Three (plus a dog) is a large number to ask anyone to babysit.

My Needs vs. My Wants

Given my modest goals, I don’t need huge amounts of points necessarily but even in coach the costs add up. So to be quite honest, I am still in the process of reevaluating my miles and points needs and wants in light of what kind of point totals I’ll need. But here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Needs

  • Flexibility and the ability to change/cancel for minimum or no fees. 
  • Flight times that work for the kids – no super early or super late flights
  • A minimum of one stop, or stopovers
  • Lodging with at least two beds and a crib

Wants

  • Business class on flights over five hours
  • Seats altogether
  • Seat for the baby
  • Lodging with two or more rooms

Business class used to be a “need” on international flight, but with the amounts of points it will take and more importantly the availability, I’m not going to pigeon-hole us by making that a “need”. 

Everything else is pretty straightforward. At hotels/apartments having space to spread out can be the difference between vacation and insanity, though we can handle a single room for a short amount of time. My wife and I go back and forth whether all of us need to sit together as a family or split the team, but I think we lean towards all staying together. If flying domestically, we’ll grab a seat for the baby if the price is right. And I’m not going to take a 6:00 AM flight with my kids unless…well, I can’t think of a situation where I’d CHOOSE that. 

Outlining my miles and points needs and wants so that you know what you're getting when you read the blog. Needs and wants determine how you should act!
Yes I’m blatantly copying what Milenomics did in his post – my 2017 travel. Also don’t foresee that long leg to HKG again in 2018 🙁

My plan to address my travel needs.

Overall, my biggest “need” is flexibility. I have a lot of that due to Jetblue Mosaic status (from Jetblue card spend). I plan to keep that for the foreseeable future because I get flexibility (free changes/cancellations), can generally ensure the family sits together, and I can leverage the flexibility into flight times I want. An added bonus is the ability to buy up to Even More Space seats with points (generally <1000 pts each). 

Here’s a good place to insert that I am Boston based, which is important! I loved what Sam said about travel hacking being local. Jetblue has such a large presence here it makes sense for me to invest a lot in the program, but that might not be the case for you. Find the solution that best addresses your local travel needs. I think it’s worth iterating, things touted as “amazing deals” on national blogs might not be amazing for your particular circumstance.

In terms of lodging, we are moving more towards renting apartments or getting double hotel rooms. Obviously the latter can be done with miles and points, the former will require more cashback earning. 

I also need to think about how to deal with traveling with five hundred car seats…but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Outlining my miles and points needs and wants so that you know what you're getting when you read the blog. Needs and wants determine how you should act!
Hate you.

How my miles and points wants and needs will influence the blog in 2018

I’ve spent the past few months thinking about what I want to write about here, and I think my 2018 is coming into focus. I’ve long said this blog is mostly a creative outlet, which still rings true, though I’m going to try to be a little more focused. So what kind of blog do I want this to be?

I definitely don’t plan to make asthejoeflies a “news” blog. There are plenty of sites out there that cover all the miles and points news as it breaks. I’ve never been good at that and I’m not about to start posting daily so that’s a nonstarter. If I post twice a week I consider that a good week already! (I’ve been writing this particular post for a week now…)

Let me crystallize my goal for the blog in a single sentence. My goal is to help readers fly their family further for less money and with less stress. What does that look like? I hope you can expect four main types of articles: 

1. Practical tips for traveling with children

Since I’m still traveling with young kids, I’d like to help out other families who are looking to travel with young kids. Obviously, my tips are what work for my family, but my goal for posts like this would be to give you food for thought as you plan the logistics of traveling with kids. Example: my kids seem to hate the CARES harness (we returned it) but other parents swear by it, so YMMV.

Posts in this category would be similar to my musings about car seats, travel gear for your kids, or how to apply for an infant passport.

Outlining my miles and points needs and wants so that you know what you're getting when you read the blog. Needs and wants determine how you should act!

2. Touring tips for families at various destinations

I love writing trip reports so I can look back on my family’s travel, so I may continue to do those, but I generally find them very time intensive. What I think might be more useful to readers is to give some insight into places to go/things to do/stuff to eat in various locations, especially abroad. If I have time, maybe I’ll even go back and write about places I’ve visited in the past.

And of course, posts about Disney World, one of the biggest family destinations, will fall into this category. So expect some more tips about making those trips more magical. (Full disclosure I’ll be there next week so you may see more Disney posts in the short term).

Posts in this category would be similar to my post on free Chicago kids activities, my review of the Hello Kitty restaurant in Hong Kong, and Disney Fastpass+ Tips and Tricks.

 

Outlining my miles and points needs and wants so that you know what you're getting when you read the blog. Needs and wants determine how you should act!

3. Using miles and points to save money on family travel

Sad but true, but travel hacking posts aren’t my number one priority here anymore. (But I’d like to think I still make a small contribution to the travel hacking community at large through the podcast.) Like I said, it’s just too much for me to keep up with all the news, so I am planning to focus the majority of my travel hacking posts on how families can save money on travel using miles and points. Of course, what I write about would be applicable to larger groups of adults, too!

I plan to write a bit about how miles and points “needs” change (like what I referenced above). If I ever see lots of award space that works well for families, I hope to write about that too. And I may even write about how (gasp*) I think I could handle coach if it gets us to Europe. 

The other side of the miles and points equation is miles and points earning, which I mostly try to do from home now. So expect some thoughts on that as well.

Posts in this category would be similar to planning to travel with five, cheapest lap infant award tickets, and expediting Jetblue Mosaic status earning.

4. Random musings on parenthood and family travel

My final type of post features some of my posts I’ve most enjoyed writing. Parenting creates a lot of feels, and sometimes I just need an outlet to write about them. Whether it’s how my wife keeps us from falling apart on the road, why I believe travel with young children is worth the headache (written for TDAD), or just thoughts on what it means to be a parent in general – every once in awhile I’ll just…write. 

Final Thoughts

I guess in the end, this is a bit of a reset/refocus of the blog. And I think that’s a great thing because I still want to write. Hopefully you all keep sticking along for the ride and enjoy what you read.

My travel needs and wants will inform what I write, but I’d love to know what your travel “needs” and “wants” are too! What can you not live without when traveling? What do you consider a luxury? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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Earning and expediting Jetblue Mosaic Status with the Jetblue Plus card

One of my favorite çredit cards in my wallet is the Jetblue Plus card. It’s definitely not the sexiest card, but I’m at the point in my “career” where I choose my favorite cards based on my travel needs, not what everyone tells me. I’m not here to review the card – honestly I couldn’t tell you the value of the current sign up bonus. (Update: Googled it, 30K/$1000 at time of writing). While free checked bags and 2X points on groceries is good, the ability to earn Jetblue Mosaic status via the Jetblue Plus card is the reason I keep the card.

To earn Mosaic status, you need to spend $50K on the card in a calendar year. You can do this fairly cheaply thanks to the 2X on grocery spend (gas points FTW). Let’s take a quick look at the benefits of the Mosaic status and how to expedite your status. I finished my spend in August but still don’t have Mosaic status since it takes 4-6 weeks to update. But there’s a way around that gate!

You can earn Jetblue Mosaic status with the Jetblue Plus card. Though it takes months to update your account, here's how to get benefits quicker!
I did my first mileage run with Jetblue, and chased my first status with them too

Why I value Mosaic status

I had Jetblue Mosaic status last year and really enjoyed it. The basic status perks are:

  • Waived change and cancellation fees
  • 2 free checked bags (but you get one with the Jetblue Plus card already)
  • 15,000 bonus points upon qualification (can’t get this via card spend)
  • Complimentary alcoholic beverages
  • Access to Even More Speed at security and priority boarding
  • Ability to buy Even More Space seats with points
  • Other stuff

Some of these benefits don’t present much value to me. TSA Precheck nullifies the benefit of Even More Speed, I don’t drink a lot on planes in economy because I constantly need to use the restroom, and I don’t need all the checked bags.

Waived change and cancellation fees, on the other hand, come in very handy, especially with a family. I earned a ton of points making my spend, points which have a fixed value (usually 1.3-1.6 cents per point). While that might not seem amazing, it should be pretty straightforward to earn for under that value.

You can earn Jetblue Mosaic status with the Jetblue Plus card. Though it takes months to update your account, here's how to get benefits quicker!
I find a lot of value in Jetblue Mosaic, but it’s not for everyone

The fact that Mosaic status allows me to change my award (and paid) flights without a cancellation fee comes in super handy. That way I can play with my itineraries to find flight times that work best for my family. I like to lock in preliminary flights early but tweak them if the price drops or better prices become available for more desirable flight times.

The second handy feature of Mosaic status is the ability to buy Even More Space seats with miles. You can purchase these seat upgrades for anywhere between 200-1000 points (give or take). Since those upgrades go for $20-$120 (give or take), this is a great deal, especially considering how easy it is to earn the points.

How to expedite your Mosaic status

The terms and conditions state that after you meet the spend, it may take 4-6 weeks for Jetblue to award your Mosaic status. According to the Barclays agent I spoke to, Barclays sends the information that you met the spend to Jetblue after the second statement close post spend. Past that it takes another couple weeks for Jetblue to update your status, it feels a little longer than 4-6 to me.

If you want to speed things up, there’s a way to do that. Give Jetblue a call and tell them that you have the Jetblue Plus card and you’ve met the 50K spending. At this point you should be transferred to a supervisor. If you want to be awarded Mosaic status as quickly as possible, they can call Barclays and confirm that you have met the spending. Then they start the internal machinery to award you your Mosaic status (1-2 weeks).

If you’re in a bit of a time crunch (or the supervisor is), they can also apply Mosaic benefits without actually giving you the status outright. I wanted to upgrade to Even More Space seats less than a week out from the flight I’m currently sitting on – my Mosaic status wouldn’t update in time.

The supervisor has the power to apply the benefits, not only did I buy this exit row seat for 800 points, I also cancelled a future flight with the cancellation fee waived at the same time. Wonderful!

So if you have met the spend for Mosaic status on your Jetblue Plus card and don’t want to wait for status or need to use the benefits, just call up Jetblue and they will help you out. From both supervisors I spoke to, it sounds like this is a fairly regularly thing. It’s great to see customer service agents use common sense – both mentioned to me that it was obvious I had made the spend because they could see how many Jetblue points I had earned via my credit card!

Final Thoughts

Jetblue Mosaic status is the first status I’ve ever chased, since its benefits are valuable to me. While it’s more of a low level status, there’s a lot that you can do. If you want to expedite your status or benefits, just call Jetblue. The status is good through the next calendar year so you can just keep repeating the 50K spend if you want to keep Mosaic status indefinitely. 

You can earn Jetblue Mosaic status with the Jetblue Plus card. Though it takes months to update your account, here's how to get benefits quicker!

My experience redeeming the Citi ATT Access More $650 credit

Last year, the Citi ATT Access More card flew into our lives and everyone got super excited. Unfortunately, it flew out of our lives just as quickly and you can no longer apply for the card. But it was and remains an exciting card: a $650 credit towards an AT&T phone ostensibly being the draw. However, the best part of the card is 3X on online purchases, which is still great even though they no longer code for gift cards.

So this post probably only applies to a few people’s situations, but I waited an entire year to redeem my phone credit. I use T-Mobile and didn’t want a new phone when I first got the card. So here’s my experience redeeming for the phone credit and some tips. I used Doctor of Credit’s AT&T guide extensively, but I learned a couple things when redeeming for the phone credit myself. Here are the steps I took.

Step 1 – Find a friend

Even though I don’t fear the hard pull as I used to, I like to avoid them when I can. If you buy a new phone through AT&T while signing up for their service, you’ll receive a hard pull.

If you have a friend or family member who has AT&T, you can add a line to their plan. This avoids the hard pull. @andimal9 on Twitter mentioned that their order was cancelled when buying through a friend’s account.

With that in mind, I changed the billing address on my friend’s account to my own address before purchasing the phone and it indeed worked for me. Basically, any information I could change to my own; I did before purchasing. I’m not sure if that made a difference but I didn’t run into any issues.

Step 2 – Buy phone

Buying the phone with the credit was pretty straightforward. There is a link in your Citi online account to click which brings you directly to AT&T’s website. From there you login (as your friend or family member) and just go through purchasing your phone. 

Redeeming your Citi ATT Access More $650 phone credit is pretty straightforward, here's my experience and some tips to help you.

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8+ (it’s great!) and just added a line. I thought I was adding myself to my friend’s family plan but for some reason it just added a $40 line, which wasn’t a big deal. Bear in mind I found the AT&T website to be sort of user unfriendly – tough to figure out what’s going on at times. 

One quirk I noticed was that sometimes when you click through it seems like the site hasn’t registered the Citi ATT Access More connection. So make sure you see that before you click through and complete your purchase. 

Step 3 – Unlock the phone

After you receive your phone, if you plan on using it with another carrier, you need to unlock it. I read (on aforementioned DoC post)  it can be harder to unlock the phone if you’ve already activated your ATT service. With that in mind, I’d recommend unlocking the phone before you activate.

Unlocking the phone is pretty simple, you can find all the steps at this site. If you haven’t activated the phone yet, say you are NOT an AT&T customer and you can add your IMEI number. If you’re not sure how to find that use Google, it’s different for different phones but for the most part you can find it in “About Phone”. 

Redeeming your Citi ATT Access More $650 phone credit is pretty straightforward, here's my experience and some tips to help you.

Once you submit your unlock request, you’ll receive an e-mail from AT&T with an unlock code. You can use this to unlock your phone when you use any non-ATT SIM card. I just plugged my T-mobile SIM card (the one I planned to use with the phone) in and unlocked the phone.

Step 4 – Activate AT&T service

After I unlocked my phone, I took the T-mobile SIM out and put the AT&T SIM card that came with my phone in. I then used that AT&T SIM card to activate my AT&T service – pretty straightforward.

Step 5 – Using your existing service (optional)

So the terms and conditions of the $650 refund state that you need to keep your AT&T service activated for 15 days. Once you’ve activated your AT&T phone, you’re actually free to use your original service (if that’s the service you want to keep). If you’ve unlocked your phone (Step 4), pop the AT&T SIM card out, pop your original SIM card in and you’re good to go! Once the AT&T SIM card is activated you don’t need to actually have it in a phone (though I put it in my old one).

Step 6 – Cancel your service after 15 days

After 15 days with activated AT&T service you can cancel your plan. Your plan should not have a contract since you bought the phone full prices so there are no cancellation fees.

One annoying thing, if you added a line to a friend or family member’s account, is that the primary user needs to cancel your line. Make sure you buy them dinner or let them use your Xfinity cable streaming or something!

Note, AT&T does not prorate months, so if you cancel after a new month starts you’ll get charged for two. To avoid this, try to buy the phone at the beginning of your friend’s cycle and make sure you cancel before the next statement closes.

Step 7 – Profit! (wait for your $650 credit)

It took me $650 credit a little over a month to post. I bought my phone on July 15 or so and the credit hit my statement on August 15. I didn’t have to call or ask for anything, it just automatically showed up. I’ve read experiences where people needed to call in, again, refer to DoC’s post.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully most people don’t slack like me and have already redeemed their $650 Citi ATT Access More credit. If you haven’t, hope this post helped you! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go play with my Samsung Galaxy S8+.

 

 

Which Citi Thank You cards offer a travel uplift?

Kenny from Miles4More once said, and I’m paraphrasing with a h/t to The Wire here, “With Citi, logic ain’t got nothin’ do to with it.” OK he didn’t phrase it anywhere near that way but that was the gist! I learned this the hard way when trying to get the 1.25x Thank You Points uplift when booking travel. Thanks to Robert Dwyer’s tip, I wanted to put a deposit down on a Disney Cruise using Thank You Points. I’ll quickly share my experience and then try to offer clarity on which Thank You cards offer the travel uplift and which don’t via a comparison of the three cards.

Why I couldn’t get a 1.25x uplift on my Disney Cruise deposit

Bob wrote that Citi Prestige or Premier cardholders could get 1.25 cents per point (or 25% uplift if you prefer) when booking travel with Thank You Points, including the deposit for the cruise. I had no reason to dispute that fact, so I called up the number on the back of my Citi Prestige card to put a deposit down on my cruise. You can read through his post about how that works, it’s pretty straightforward: just feed the agent the dates (and staterooms if you want) and they will quote you the same price you see on the DCL website. 

Everything went smoothly until I got to payment. The agent quoted me a price in Thank You Points that obviously represented a value of 1 cent per point. That didn’t make sense to me so I asked and she told me the the Prestige only gives 1 cent per point on non-air travel. Doh!

I had made the incorrect assumption that since the Premier card, which has a lower annual fee, offers 1.25 cents per point used for booking all travel, the Prestige would offer the same. But the Prestige, which costs $355 more in annual fees, only offers 1.25X for airfare. What gives?

Even more confusingly, I couldn’t even find evidence online that the Premier allows you to get 1.25X value on your TYP when booking for non-airfare. Check out what I pulled from Citi’s website for the Premier:

Citi doesn't do a great job offering clear info on their Citi Thank You cards, so I decided to take a stab at laying out the pros and cons of each card.

Compared to what I pulled for the Prestige:

Citi doesn't do a great job offering clear info on their Citi Thank You cards, so I decided to take a stab at laying out the pros and cons of each card.

Both cards offer a 25% bonus on points redeemed for travel and the graphics on both cards only say “airfare” specifically. I searched high and wide on the internet and couldn’t find anything officially from Citi about the Premier offering 25% on cruises, cars, etc. Nothing with a date at least.

So- does the Thank You Premier have a redemption bonus for travel beyond airfare?

During my call, the Thank You rep confirmed on the phone that the Premier does give 1.25 cents per point when booking for all travel. I’ve since confirmed this, two ways. First, check out this screenshot:

Citi doesn't do a great job offering clear info on their Citi Thank You cards, so I decided to take a stab at laying out the pros and cons of each card.
Screenshot via Robert Dwyer

As you can see, the Premier still gives 1.25 cents per point used for booking a hotel. (And wow that Courtyard is overpriced I’ve been to Natick.)

The second way I confirmed the 1.25X was through my own cruise booking. I really wanted to get rid of my TYP but didn’t want to give up the 25% uplift, so I upgraded my Thank You Preferred card to a Premier. It took about two days for everything to register in the system, but ultimately the upgrade enabled me to put my cruise deposit down with the 1.25X bonus. Score!

Comparing Preferred, Premier, and Prestige earning and redemption bonuses

Since Citi makes it so darn confusing to find the information, I thought I’d just lay it all out here. I’m 99% sure this is accurate as of June 2017, but who knows with Citi?! At the very least I confirmed everything last night.

Citi Thank You Preferred

  • 2X points earned on dining and entertainment
  • 1X points earned on all other purchases
  • Can only be used to book travel at rate of 1 cent per point
  • No annual fee

Citi Thank You Premier

  • 3X points earned on travel including gas stations
  • 2X points earned on dining and entertainment
  • 1X points earned on all other purchases
  • Can be used to book travel – airfare, hotels, cruises, car rentals at rate of 1.25 cents per point (25% bonus)
  • Points can be transferred to airline partners
  • $95 annual fee

Citi Thank You Prestige

  • 3X points earned on airfare and hotels
  • 2X points earned on dining and entertainment
  • 1X points earned on all other purchases
  • Can be used to book airfare at rate of 1.25 cents per point (25% bonus). (Higher rates may be available up until July 23, 2017)
  • Points can be transferred to airline partners
  • Receive a rebate on 4th night of a hotel stay booked through Citi
  • $100 Global Entry Credit
  • $250 annual airfare credit (will be credited for any purchase(s) from an airline)
  • $450 annual fee

I’ve compiled some of the most important things to think about when choosing between these card into the infographic below.

  Citi doesn't do a great job offering clear info on their Citi Thank You cards, so I decided to take a stab at laying out the pros and cons of each card.

Which card works the best for your travel goals?

Early last year, Citi Prestige was the hot credit card to have. Since then, Citi devalued the card – amongst other things they took away the 1.6 cents per point you used to get paying with points for travel on AA. They also reduced the value you get for booking all airfare to 1.25 cents per point. This all goes into effect in a little over a month (July 23, 2017). 

So at this point I don’t think the Prestige wins for most cases. The $450 fee is very hefty and you need to book a lot of four night cash hotel stays to make up for that. The $250 credit is fine but that means you’re paying cash for your travel and mentally justifying the $450 fee to yourself. But, if you book a lot of cash stays, like for work for example, I still think the Prestige could be a strong card. 

At this point, I personally feel the Premier card gives the best bang for your buck. You only pay $95 for the annual fee, and the expanded 3X travel category can offer some great opportunities (gas stations anyone?). Since Prestige and Premier offer the same exact uplift when booking for travel (25%), you win there too. Plus, like I said, you can book for things like cruises and hotels – which you can’t do with the Prestige.

And of course, if you don’t want to pay an annual fee, the Preferred is a decent option. It offers lower bonus earnings and just 1 cent per point for travel redemptions, but that might match your style better.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully you won’t get caught off guard like I did about what does/does not qualify for the 25% uplift when redeeming points for travel. Thank You points can occupy a very useful place in your points strategy, but make sure you get the card that works best for you!

Anything I missed? What’s your preferred favorite Citi Thank You card?

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Citi doesn't do a great job offering clear info on their Citi Thank You cards, so I decided to take a stab at laying out the pros and cons of each card.

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.)

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!

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).

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 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.

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!

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!

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!