Education of a Points Freak, Q3 – What are the pros and cons of different airlines’ mileage programs? (US Legacy Airlines)

• Education of a Points Freak – Introduction
• Question 1 – Is accumulating points and miles for everyone?
• Question 2 – Won’t applying for credit cards hurt my credit?
• Question 3 – What are the pros and cons of different airlines’ mileage programs? (US Legacy Airlines)
• Question 4 – What are airline alliances and how are they useful?
• Question 5 – How can I keep track of all my account balances?
• Question 6 – What are other useful tools I can use?
• Question 7 – What are some good credit cards to start with?

Once I became comfortable with the idea of applying for a bunch of credit cards in order to get the sign up bonuses, I started getting to know the various airlines out there. I don’t have time to travel all the time like the hardcore bloggers, plus when I first started I still was wary of applying for too many credit cards, so I wanted to consolidate miles into one or two programs to being with. It’s generally a good idea to have a lot of miles in one or two programs anyway, though diversity helps provide coverage if you travel a lot. I’ve gotten a feel for the pros and cons of a lot of the big airlines out there, both in terms of the product the airlines provide and their mileage programs. Being based in the US, I’m obviously more familiar with US carriers, so in the first post addressing this question, I’ll be focusing on the US legacy carriers.

The term “legacy carrier” is generally used to describe the big four US carriers: American, Delta, United, and US Airways. Alaska and Hawaiian are technically legacy carriers, but I’ve rarely seen them included with the big four. For each of the big four carriers, I’ve provided a quick synopsis of the pros and cons of their products and mileage programs as I see them, and at the end of each section I have a short pros and cons cheat sheet with some other important info like associated credit cards. I’ve tried to include information about both domestic and international flights. It’s important to tailor your points strategy knowing what type of flights you want to redeem for – using the same amount of points, you could fly four transcontinental round trip flights in coach, or you could fly one round trip business class flight to Europe. These are just my impressions and opinions, so please take everything with a grain of salt!

Note: I’ve included links to the credit cards I’ve discussed, but they’re not necessarily the best offers out there (nor is the list comprehensive), so do your research or wait till I get to that later in this series!

American Airlines is the airline of choice for many points enthusiasts. Part of that is due to some lucrative credit card bonuses in the past, but a lot of it is due to American’s excellent award availability and easy to use award booking page. American is the only US carrier to offer pajamas in first class on international flights if you’re into that sort of thing (I am!). I’m sure people will disagree with me, but one thing I dislike about American is some of their planes just seem outdated. They are slowly updating their cabins, but some of the flights I’ve taken have felt like I was flying a plane from the 90s. Delta technically has an older average fleet age, but I feel like a lot more Delta planes have been updated. Maybe I’m flying the wrong routes. However, one thing I like about American Airlines product is they still seem to value first class. From the Flagship Lounge (available to first class only) to the product itself, American seems to be different from the other three legacy carriers, where first class is going the way of the dodo bird.

American has one of the most generous suite of benefits for their highest tier of elites, Executive Platinum. Every Executive Platinum receives 8 systemwide upgrades per year that can be used on any flight to upgrade from any fare. What this means is I could buy the cheapest coach fare to fly to Europe and upgrade to business class using one of my systemwide upgrades for free. Other carriers generally charge large co-pays when upgrading from the cheapest fare classes, EVEN when you are upgrading using your miles. AA has everyone beat with their systemwide upgrades. Thus, many people strive to get Platinum status on AA, and rightfully so.

For non elites, the mileage program is still pretty good. Though miles are relatively difficult to come by compared to the other carriers (mainly due to lack of credit card transfer partners), award availability is very good and the online award booking tool is excellent. Also, American has some of the best partners when it comes to mileage redemptions, especially internationally. Some of these include British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Japan Airlines, all of whom offer amazing transcontinental products. I’m dying to redeem miles for Cathay Pacific first class sometime in the near future (more pajamas!). The best benefit of redeeming AA miles for these products is that in many cases they cost less miles and less in taxes and fees. For example, if you flew on Cathay Pacific using Avios (British Airways miles), not only would they cost you more miles, but the taxes and fees would be much greater as well. If you are interested in learning more about the ins and outs of AAdvantage and redeeming miles for the best values, Million Mile Secrets has an excellent series on the matter.

There is also talk that American Airlines might get bought out or merger with US Airways – just something to note.

American Airlines Quick Facts

• Fleet Size: 608
• Average Fleet Age: 14.9 Years
• Top 3 Hubs: Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (DFW), Chicago-O’Hare, IL (ORD), Miami, FL (MIA)
• Alliance: Oneworld
• Important International Transfer Partners: British Airways (Europe), Cathay Pacific (Asia), Japan Airlines (Asia), LAN Airlines (South America)
• Associated Credit Card(s): Citi Platinum Select / AAdvantage Visa Signature Card, Citi Executive / AAdvantage World Elite MasterCard
  
• Major Transfer Partner(s): None
• Pros: Good award availability, great web award booking tool, low taxes and fees
• Cons: Some domestic planes are older, little in the way of transfer partners
• Off-peak award tickets? Yes
• One way award ticket for half miles? Yes
• International Stopovers? One, only at North American gateway cities on international round trip awards
• International Open Jaw? One, plus one at origin/destination, only on Oneworld awards

Delta is the main carrier my wife and I fly and the only airline we have status on. In general, Delta offers a good product, although it’s not amazing by any means. Delta was the first legacy carrier to switch to all two-class products, meaning none of their planes have first/business/coach. Instead, on domestic flights the premium cabin is called first, while on international flights the premium cabin is called Business Elite. The majority of international flights have been retrofitted with fully lie flat seats which are quite comfortable. Although Delta doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles, Business Elite is a fine product which will get you to your destination rested and well fed.

Delta’s mileage program generally elicits strong visceral reactions from people – you either love it or you hate it. Delta Skymiles have been sarcastically dubbed Skypesos by the frequent flier community. They are relatively easy to earn, yet it can be very difficult to redeem them for saver award flights (the cheapest number of miles needed for an award flight). This problem is compounded by an online award booking engine that feels unwieldy at best, and completely broken at its worst. This has borne itself out in my own miles game, my wife and I have earned over 400,000 Skymiles flying only 50,000 butt-in-seat miles over the past few years, but only managed to redeem 100,000 of them.

Still, Skymiles aren’t impossible to redeem. Bloggers such as The Points Guy and Delta Points have pointed out that if you piece together an award flight segment by segment, searching for low level awards in each segment, you usually find there is more availability than the website says. I’ve done some dummy award bookings this way and found some great deals. Also, Delta allows one stopover and one open jaw, which helps maximize the number of places you can visit on one trip. That allows you to visit three cities for the same number of miles as one regular round trip award ticket.

One note of caution, there has been a lot of scuttlebutt in the flyer community lately about possible changes in the Skymiles program. Many are worried that it is going to become a fixed point program, e.g., 1 mile = 1 cent. That would devalue Skymiles even further. Right now, you can fly round trip to Europe for 100,000 miles in business class. However, if Delta moves to a fixed system, say, where 1 mile = 1 cent, 100,000 miles will only get you $1000 in flights which would NOT get you a RT ticket in business unless an amazing sale is going on.

• Fleet Size: 722 (not including regional carriers)
• Average Fleet Age: 16 Years
• Top 3 Hubs: Atlanta, GA (ATL), Detroit, MI (DTW), Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (MSP)
• Alliance: Skyteam
• Important International Transfer Partners: Aerolineas Argentinas (South America), Air France (Europe), KLM (Europe), Korean Air (Asia)
• Associated Credit Card(s): Gold Delta Skymiles Credit Card, Delta Reserve Credit Card
  
• Major Transfer Partner(s): American Express Membership Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest
• Pros: Low taxes and fees, miles easy to earn/transfer from partners, open jaws/stopovers provide itinerary flexibility, no last-minute booking fees
• Cons: Difficult to book awards or find availability, potential changes in Skymiles program might devalue miles, one way awards cost the same as round trip
• Off-peak award tickets? No
• One way award ticket for half miles? No
• International Stopovers? One
• International Open Jaw? One

Right now, United is my favorite airline out there for award redemptions. Its product is generally pretty good, although a lot of long haul transcontinental flights are switching over to the 2 class system a la Delta (that’s not too big a deal to me though). They are considered the world’s largest airline in terms of destinations, and it really shows when booking awards. Moreover, they have some of the best partners out there, especially to Asia, which is important for my mileage needs.

You probably know that Continental and United just completed their merger within the past year, and although most of the kinks have been worked out, some are still there on united.com. Still, it’s a great improvement from the old “United.bomb” website. United’s elite tiers have been a little devalued since the merger, you don’t get much with Silver these days (though that’s true for all the legacy carriers). The highest elites also don’t get the systemwide upgrades on any fare like AA Executive Platinum (it depends on fare class). For plebes like me, there are fees for booking an award within 21 days of travel, and most of United’s quality partners like Lufthansa often only release premium award space within 10-14 days of departure.

Still, for my money, you can’t beat United in terms of flexibility and getting great awards. Now that Chase Ultimate Rewards is a transfer partner, there are a lot of ways to get United Miles and a lot of ways to redeem them. The one negative in terms of transfer partners is Starwood points transfer to United at a 2:1 ratio – not worth it. Still, points freaks know that Ultimate Rewards are very attainable, so one should be able to get enough to redeem for flights on United and its Star Alliance partners.

• Fleet Size: 705
• Average Fleet Age: 13 Years
• Top 3 Hubs: Houston, TX (IAH), Chicago-O’Hare, IL (ORD), Denver, CO (DEN)
• Alliance: Star Alliance
• Important International Transfer Partners: All Nippon Airways (Asia), Lufthansa (Europe), Singapore Airlines (Asia)
• Associated Credit Card(s): MileagePlus Explorer Card, MileagePlus Club Card
  
• Major Transfer Partner(s): Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Pros: Great award partners, especially in Asia, good award availability, open jaws and stopovers allow some fun itineraries, low taxes and fees
• Cons: Online award booking tool sometimes displays phantom availability, partner award availability has been decreasing
• Off-peak award tickets? No
• One way award ticket for half miles? Yes, no stopovers
• International Stopovers? One
• International Open Jaw? Two

People joke that US Airways is the illegitimate child of Star Alliance, but it’s kind of true, since it really does kind of live in the shadow of United. Its website doesn’t do it any favors either, it’s impossible to see award space on partner airlines online (so I just go to united.com). You have to call in to book any partner awards. US Airways does have a younger fleet and generally more updated cabins, so it definitely has that going for it.

Another thing people love about US Airways is the annual grand slam promotion. This is the page for it from last year. Essentially, the grand slam is a promotion from US Airways where you can earn a lot of bonus miles, either thru transfers from partners, flying a certain number of segments, or even random things like downloading toolbars. It’s kind of like a checklist, and for everything you do, you get a “hit”. The more hits, the more miles. People bank thousands of miles through this every year, at little cost, and some people even find it very fun!

The other nice thing about US Airways is that they offer some nice niche awards. For example, off-peak business class awards to Europe will only run you 60,000 miles. You also can get to South America during off-peak times for the same number of miles. That means depending on when you are booking travel, you could save up to 25% off booking with United miles. Thus, if you have a nice bank of US Airways and United miles, you can make out pretty well booking Star Alliance tickets by timing them correctly.

• Fleet Size: 338
• Average Fleet Age: 12.8 Years
• Top 3 Hubs: Philadelphia, PA (PHL), Phoenix, AZ (PHX), Charlotte, NC (CLT)
• Alliance: Star Alliance
• Important International Transfer Partners: All Nippon Airways (Asia), Lufthansa (Europe), Singapore Airlines (Asia)
• Associated Credit Card(s): US Airways Premier World MasterCard
  
• Major Transfer Partner(s): Starwood Preferred Guest
• Pros: Great off peak awards and some real value to be found if you’re willing to work for it, US Airways Grand Slam promotion makes it easy and fun to earn miles
• Cons: Practically impossible to book award tickets online, higher taxes and fees than most legacy carriers
• Off-peak award tickets? Yes
• One way award ticket for half miles? No
• International Stopovers? One stopover OR one open jaw allowed
• International Open Jaw? See above

Final Thoughts

This post is by no means meant to be an exhaustive discussion of the pros and cons of each carrier. It’s just a starting point for you to begin to get a feel for what’s out there. Also, I purposely didn’t include any low-cost carriers like Jetblue or Southwest because they are fixed point value programs. There are a lot of ins and outs of their programs and a lot of value to be had, but since I don’t have that much time to fly, I focus on earning miles in the legacy carriers where I can get the most bang for my buck. I personally would rather use miles to redeem for a trip that I couldn’t otherwise take (like first class on Lufthansa), so that’s where I focus my time and effort. Hope this has been helpful, and feel free to post any comments/tell me mistakes I’ve made in the comments!