Real Life Awards Archives

Jul 07 2016

Surveying Scotland: Introduction

Two kids creates more than twice the work. That holds true for regular life and travel. Nonetheless, we took it upon ourselves to travel to the United Kingdom to celebrate our son’s first birthday. Just kidding, it’s just when we were free.

As always, we paid for the majority of our flight with points. We even booked our first transatlantic flights in coach for the first time in five years. Slumming it! Just kidding, I’m just practicing what I’ve been preaching in my family travel hacking guide.

Read below for details of what we booked and the thought process behind it all.

Flights for Four

I wrote about booking our flights to the UK awhile back. Man, can’t believe I booked this trip back in August 2015. Either way, Delta availability still remains great. We elected to book in Delta One (aka business class) for the extra space. We figured since it was a redeye it’d be good for the kids to have “beds” overnight. I had to pay about $560 for the infant ticket: on international flights you pay 10% of the base fare even on award tickets. So overall call it 187.5K miles + $600 in taxes and fees for the four of us.

I'm convinced screen time is half the reason she flies — I’m convinced screen time is half the reason she flies

On the way back, the decision was between buying three business class tickets on United or four coach seats. Like I said, we haven’t flown coach across the Atlantic in years (though we did fly it to Aruba). That being said, we would fly our kids to California in coach and Europe only takes an hour longer.

Here’s how the pricing broke down:

Business Class (3 seats plus lap infant): 172.5K miles + $819 taxes and fees + ~600 for infant fare

Coach (4 seats): 120K miles + $384 taxes and fees

So basically, flying coach would save us 52.5K miles and a thousand dollars.

This ended up being a much easier decision than expected. You can do a lot of things with $1000… Plus 52.5K Ultimate Rewards points is like another $500. Anyway, we decided to fly in the back on the way home: it’s a day flight anyway. Gonna be interesting!

Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We'll see how the return goes — Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We’ll see how the return goes

We also used some Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards points to book a quick hop from London to Inverness, not much worth writing about there. Miss you Wells Fargo!

Lodging

While we use miles and points to save money, at this point we have committed to traveling to where we want to go – not necessarily where we can get everything for “free” (note: not free). Thus we decided on Scotland knowing full well that the Scottish Highlands are mostly devoid of chain hotels that we could use points redemptions on.

I’ve written about the importance of having a separate room, especially for my one year old. We can do without but then lose access to the bathroom. Only two of our stops have chains we can even redeem at: London and Edinburgh. I decided to book a room with a confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrade in London at the Hyatt Regency The Churchill. I figured we’d really need that second room to recover from jetlag.

Our first and last hotel room on this trip - not complaining — Our first and last hotel room on this trip – not complaining

We booked everything else through airbnb, Trip Advisor, or directly from websites. For the rest of our trip we will not be staying in chain hotels. Though in this case we’re only giving up staying at a Club Carlson or Hilton in Edinburgh – but I really wanted to avoid getting stuck with a small room. Maybe when H is older. If only this kid would sleep in bed with us!

Ground Transportation

Our one final cost was ground transportation. We bought round trip tickets on the Heathrow Express and then took a taxi to our hotel. We’re planning on doing the same in reverse but will eat the sunk cost and take a cab if we are running low on time for our departure (still recovering from jet lag).

We rented a car for a week in the Scottish Highlands. No tricks or gimmicks just looked for the cheapest price I could find and called it a day. Too much running in the background to worry further.

We’re planning on taking a train from Inverness to Edinburgh, though that is subject to change as well. Everything depends on the kids!

Final Thoughts

When we traveled with one kid, I’d say she only affected about 60-70% of our decision making. Maybe even less (40%?) once we had gotten used to traveling with her. With two under four, about 95% of our decision making has revolved around them. That’s just life for us now. So we’re flying coach, not worrying about saving every last penny, and thus far, having a great time. Will update with thoughts as we go along!

Oct 15 2014

Weird AA First Class Award Space Experience

I was booking an award for a client using AAdvantage and encountered a strange situation. I decided to share it because a) I think someone might be able to take advantage of this sort of glitch, and b) I wanted to hear if anyone has had a similar experience. Here’s what went down.

I was looking to get the client to Hong Kong but couldn’t find a suitable itinerary on Cathay Pacific (using the British Airways award search tool). Knowing (thanks to Wikipedia) that American Airlines flies its own metal to Tokyo Narita, I checked to see what was available. I did direct searches from Chicago O’Hare and Dallas Fort Worth, but nothing was available near the date I wanted.

But for some reason, there are flights available when I start my search from another city?

Here’s where it gets weird. I did a few searches from other cities, including RDU (near where my client lives) and LAX (which has a direct AA flight to Narita). I found a couple flights involving overnights that had first class award on the day my client wanted to travel. In other words, there was availability leaving October 30th connecting to a first class award flight on October 31st. I was able to put these flights on hold . At this point, I had the idea to put the flight on hold including the long haul segment in first class that I wanted and then calling in to change the domestic legs to coincide with where my client lives.

Proof that I could put the flight on hold - I think I could have booked this (when I called the agent was ready to finish it for me) — Proof that I could put the flight on hold – I think I could have booked this (when I called the agent was ready to finish it for me)

At this point, it just got weirder. On two separate occasions I was able to put itineraries with long haul first class space on hold – both for the DFW-NRT flight and the ORD-NRT flight. The agents I spoke to when I called in saw this. However, when I tried to change the domestic legs, I was told that I wasn’t able to do that and still keep the long haul first class segment. The agent told me the most interesting thing – she said, “Sometimes the long haul segment is connected to the domestic segment so both have to be flown together”. She said the held itinerary (LAX-ORD-NRT, for example), would work, but if you don’t leave from LAX it wouldn’t.

Another itinerary that somehow opens up F space when you start from another city

This is probably one of the weirder things I’ve ever encountered since I got into this. Essentially, the first class space exists in some weird universe where you have to connect it to a specific domestic leg. But if you want to fly the first class long haul leg on its own you can’t get an award ticket. Strange, indeed. My assumption is that I would have been able to ticket the award if I just went through with the itinerary as held, but I didn’t want to try it out with a clients miles (obviously). So hopefully this could be useful to someone – if you try it let me know!

As an aside, the entire first class cabin is open – why you gotta be so stingy American?

Has anyone ever heard of this before?

Sep 26 2014

Sometimes it Pays to be Obsessive Part II: Staying in First Class after a Forced Downgrade

I was at a dinner the other night when a friend (and very good food blogger, coincidentally), told the group – “Oh Joe, he’s obsessed with miles and points.” At first I was like, woah, that’s kind of a strong statement – but – guilty. I’ve mentioned before how my semi-obsessive checking of award space has paid off in the past. I wanted to share my experience after a forced downgrade.

Our original itinerary had us going to Philadelphia first (gcmap.com)

I booked two round trip first class tickets on British Airways using US Airways miles back when they still weren’t charging fuel surcharges. Our routing was BOS-PHL-LHR-LYS on the outbound, and LYS-LHR-BOS on the return. Both transatlantic segments were in first class and we were super excited to take the trip.

Unfortunately, as these things go, I received a troubling e-mail from Award Wallet a month or two later.

Award Wallet alerted me to this unwelcome change

I called both British and US Airways – it turns out BA switched equipment and the PHL-LHR would no longer have first class. This kind of sucked because this equipment change was ONLY for our day of travel and we were pretty much locked in date wise due to childcare issues.

There were no alternative flights in first at the time, so I did what you should do when these kinds of things happen – I did not accept the change. Instead, I just left it as is and decided to wait and see if first class transatlantic (TATL) space would open up later. My one worry was that if I switched flights back into a first class cabin, US Airways would try to charge me the exorbitant taxes and fees (definitely over $500 maybe up to $1000 per person).

British Airways business class is still lie flat, but we paid for first and would prefer that

I was assured by a friendly agent that US Airways would do an even exchange (no extra money on my part). I took her name down in case I needed it, because the reality is many US Airways agents apply the rules differently. Booking awards with US Airways is a bit like the Wild Wild West, which can be a good thing (getting them to book a routing that is technically illegal because they don’t understand geography), or a bad thing (being forced to submit to a rule that doesn’t make common sense).

So, after not accepting the change, I, um, obsessively checked award space from Boston to London almost every single day for the next three months. So, yes, Jen, I guess I am obsessive. My reasoning? There are two flight from Boston to London every night, and I checked and saw a bunch of empty seats on Expertflyer.

When that many seats are open there's always a decent chance award space will open up — When that many seats are open there’s always a decent chance award space will open up

The odds that British Airways would open two of those seats were decent. My plan was to switch onto those flights (or really any TATL flights in BA F that opened up) if possible, or in a worst case scenario just suck it up and fly in business.

Well, yesterday was the day – I logged in at around 130 PM and lo and behold there were two seats on the direct BOS-LHR flight. I couldn’t call US Airways until 230 so I had to sweat out that hour – I’ve seen award space go bye bye in that time before. But being so busy lately, I needed to prioritize the more important things in life first.

As soon as 230 hit, I called up US Airways. I explained to the very helpful agent what was going on and she put me on hold to see if she could switch me to the new flights. My heart skipped a beat when she said “You realize you might have to pay taxes and fees on this new flight now and they can be pretty high on British Airways.” <deep breath> I calmly and confidently replied, “I was told when I had called before that it would be an even exchange since the downgrade was forced on us – could you please see if that’s still possible?”

Lyon - here we come in F! — Lyon – here we come in F!

She said she would check on it and put me on hold. I hadn’t even whipped out the previous agent’s name yet. I was on hold for 15 minutes – I actually thought that since I was on hold for a long time she was probably doing the even exchange (otherwise she’d have come back asking for my CC information or whatever). Indeed, she came back on, thanked me for waiting, and told me she had taken care of everything. Woohoo!

So now we not only have reinstated our seats in first class without having to pay anything (not that I thought we should have, it was gonna be a real dilemma if they had tried to make us to and I didn’t have time to hang up and call again), but we have one less segment and can leave directly from home!

Final Thoughts

I share this anecdote to reiterate that in this game, it really does pay off to be obsessive sometimes. Jess and I don’t get to travel as much anymore now that Little M is around – so when we do I want to aspire to as high a level as possible. Right now we can still do that and it’s important to me to take advantage of the opportunities while they are still there. Never underestimate the importance of “gardening” your reservations.

Sep 16 2014

How to Plan Travel for Summer 2015 – Part 1

I try to avoid Asia in the summer - this picture doesn't indicate how ridiculously hot Hong Kong is — I try to avoid Asia in the summer – this picture doesn’t indicate how ridiculously hot Hong Kong is

It’s the time of the year to start planning our summer travels. Actually, you could say it’s even a little late for that, depending on your definition of summer. We usually travel in July so we’re a bit behind. Remember, most airlines open their schedules up 330 days in advance, so I can book travel up through August 11th right now on most programs. This post will outline my thought process for booking travel and hopefully give you some ideas for how you want to use your hard earned miles next summer! If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re likely not ready to book yet…get crackin!

Question 0: Cash or Miles?

If the answer to Question 0 is cash, you can pretty much skip the rest of this post. Right now is NOT the best time to buy cash tickets – prices will definitely drop some time in the next eleven months. If you don’t have enough miles to book that summer trip right now, you can build up those balances – chances are more than decent that space will open up closer in.

Question 1: When can you travel?

I find for most people this is the biggest determinant. Summer is usually a little better because people are more free to leave on Tuesdays and random things like that. Obviously, the more flexible you can be the better. Since award space is a function of airlines trying to fill every last seat, you’ll see the most availability on low travel days – Tuesdays and Saturdays for example.

The weather's a lot cooler in Peru — The weather’s a lot cooler in Peru

If you don’t have the flexibility and need to leave on weekends, it’s imperative that you make decisions sooner rather than later (or wait until the last minute next year, but then this article isn’t for you). Airlines are releasing less and less award space 330 days out, so you should try to be ready to go once your desired dates hit the 330 mark.

For us, we’re pretty flexible, if we can find anything for a 2 week trip in July we should be good to go. It’s Question 2 that is a bigger source of stress for us.

Question 2: How many in your party?

Oh, to return to the days when we were only looking for two seats. Little M will be two next year so she’ll no longer be flying on our laps in first. The added mileage cost plus the relative difficulty of finding three seats in first means we’ll probably be flying business next year – that’s if we’re lucky. It isn’t too hard to find 3 coach seats this far out, but a lot of airlines will only release two business class seats.

Another option we (and your family) could consider is splitting up the family by cabin. For example, a family of four could snag two seats in business and two in coach relatively easily and just switch off on the outbound and return (or however they like). Or if you’re particularly brave, one in business and three in coach. Of course that depends on the age of the children.

A third option for families with older children is splitting up the itinerary altogether – parent + child 1 on Flight 1 and parent + child 2 on Flight 2. I don’t really prefer this option because it’s a lot of moving parts (and we’re not there yet size/age wise), but it definitely makes finding award space a lot easier!

Question 3: What programs do you have miles in?

Obviously this question is going to go a long way to dictate where you will be going. If you have a ton of SPG points, the world is pretty much your oyster since you can transfer to programs in every major alliance. If you are rich in Ultimate Rewards, you are likely flying Southwest or United, etc. etc.

If you have a ton of miles in a specific program, then you’re locked into booking flights with that airline and its partners. Hopefully you have a large portfolio with decent balances spread across different programs, this will maximize the options available to you.

Lufthansa first class is probably too expensive these days - too bad — Lufthansa first class is probably too expensive these days – too bad

In our case, we have a ton of AA/US miles and a bunch of Membership Rewards and Delta Skymiles, so we are pretty limited. All our other balances are in recovery – we are slowly working to build them back to levels where we can use them to book for everyone. I find that it goes in cycles – you burn all your points in one program and then rely on other programs while you slowly rebuild your balance in the first. It’s like leaving a field fallow for a year so you can grow better crops the next year…or something.

Question 4: Where do you want to go – domestic or international?

In my thinking, where to go is the fourth thing I ask myself. The benefit of miles is you can get places in comfort while saving a lot of money – the drawback is if you’re dead set on a certain location you might find yourself out of luck. Miles are best used when you are flexible.

I always start by considering whether I want the family to go domestic or international. This is a question I am personally struggling with right now. In a lot of ways, going domestic is easier – shorter flights, less miles, etc., but going international is what I love to do. Depending on your answer to this question, you’ll start zeroing in more on what miles you should be using.

If you want to go domestic, the best value can be found in distance based sweet spots. KennyBSAT has an amazing primer (with routes) on these sweet spots, so check them out and see if you fall into any of them. If I can’t find a distance based sweet spot, I personally would rather pay cash and fly coach and save my miles for an international trip in a premium cabin.

The reason why I’m struggling this year is because the cost of international travel (in business) is a lot more now that we have to pay for our daughter – and who knows what she’ll be like as a 2.5 year old. I’m still leaning international though…

Question 5: What continent/state do you want to visit?

Once you’ve decided international or domestic, you kind of need to zero in on a certain region. With domestic it’s a little easier, you can just start your search by looking for award space on sweet spot routes from your hometown.

You don't get castles like this in the States — You don’t get castles like this in the States

For international, the continents you can travel to are going to be limited by your miles balances and the cost of travel. Since we have so many US/AA miles, our family can technically travel to any continent next year. Still, if we go abroad, we’ll probably stick to Europe due to the shorter flights (and the extreme heat in Asia). We’re not going to take Little M on a safari while she’s still prey sized and we’d want to do that if we went to Africa so we eliminated that.

Question 6: Where’s the availability?

Searching for availability is a post in and of itself, so I’ll hit on that next time. In the meanwhile, you might get lucky with the AA space KennyBSAT pointed out last week – I know I have a flight on hold!

Final Thoughts

If you want to travel on miles, start booking now! Hopefully seeing my thought process helps you crystallize yours – burn those miles and enjoy!

May 14 2013

There’s a Burn Notice on my Points: American AAdvantage

Burn Notice: Introduction

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 1

Burn Notice: Delta Skymiles Part 2

Burn Notice: Hilton HHonors

Burn Notice: American AAdvantage

As I mentioned in my last post, we had to burn our Hilton points due to the impending devaluation. We redeemed our Hilton points for four nights in Bora Bora. So to finish off my burn notice, I had to figure out how to get us there. My wife insisted we go in business class (it’s a de facto five year anniversary trip), so I either needed 300,000 Delta Skymiles or 250,000 American AAdvantage miles. There is a LOT we could have done with 250,000 AA miles, and I tried to convince my wife to go in coach, but to no avail. But it’s okay – points are for burning, right? Here’s how we redeemed the miles for flights to Tahiti.

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