Avios Archives - asthejoeflies

Jan 15 2015

Home for the Holidays: A Tough Flight with a Toddler

There are some nice touches in TPE airport

Never take a 23 month year old as a lap infant. That’s what we learned on our flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, quite possibly the worst flight we’ve ever taken with M! In the light of day, it wasn’t that bad but at the time it was a lot of stress.

First, a note. I’ve read on many baby-oriented travel websites some version of the argument: “You should always book your child a seat it’s safer etc. etc. etc.” Now I definitely agree that it is safer and it is always better to have an extra seat for your child.

On the other hand, I am cheap, and I have a lot of…um…frugal friends who never bought a seat for their child until they had to, and all of them said it was fine. So I decided to take it on a case by case basis. I really only ever considered buying M her own seat on economy flights, I figured there was enough room in the longroom premium cabins we fly in (and those flights indeed worked out). I’m not the only one who struggles with shelling out the dough for a lap infant.

It can get pretty tight with a toddler on your lap

Our Previous Decisions about Taking a Lap Infant

Here are the economy flights I had to decide for M in her 2 years as an eligible lap infant.

Roundtrip flight to Washington, D.C., 3 months old: This was an easy decision, all she wanted to do was burrow into us all the time so I saw no need to buy her a seat – this flight was no problem whatsoever.

A lap infant at 3 months is much easier than 23 months, in my opinion!

Roundtrip flight to Charlotte, NC, 9 months old: Again, this decision was fairly easy. She still wasn’t mobile, still wanted to sleep all the time, and was still easily satisfied when drinking milk. Not buying her a seat was an easy decision and again it worked out fine.

Roundtrip flight to Charlotte, NC, 15 months old: Still had no problem taking her on our laps at this age. She actually took her first steps on this trip, but before then she hadn’t walked and was okay hanging out on our laps for hours at a time. She also was still a big fan of milk, so I made the decision to take her as a lap infant. This flight was a little rougher than her previous flights, though still manageable.

Oneway flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, 23 months old: I actually changed the flights I had booked while we were still in Taipei. At this point I had seen how curious and excited M had been on our flights to Taiwan, so I knew what I was in for. I was deciding between spending 4500 Avios (technically 4050) and keeping her on our lap – I chose the latter. MISTAKE. And the subject of the rest of this post.

Oneway flight from Chicago O’Hare to Boston, 23 months old: I bought her a seat since I figured we’d be tired from a long flight from Hong Kong, we’d need the space, and there was zero probability there’d be empty seats on the plane on the Saturday after New Year’s. Good choice.

A Few Quick Thoughts on Taipei Taoyuan Airport

We ended up using the Grand Hyatt transfer to get to the airport. We couldn’t get any relatives to drive us so we couldn’t use our rented car seat and I wasn’t comfortable taking a 45 minute drive on the highway without one. Though it cost twice as much as a taxi (2400 NT or $80), using the transfer service was the safest and most efficient way to get to the airport. The hotel took care of getting a car seat (it was a nice and comfortable one too, Cosco) and the car even had complimentary Wi-Fi.

When we got to TPE, it dawned on me that it is a really nice airport. I mean, the duty free store has a restaurant and a computer with free internet. Lovely. Beyond that, it’s well designed and very aesthetically pleasing. And I didn’t even get to visit the Hello Kitty check in section!

Go to the right for family security (no queue!)

But what really impressed me about the airport was its family friendliness. There is a separate line for families that was completely empty which really made security a lot less stressful. The airport also didn’t feel overcrowded and was very stroller accessible.

Most importantly, they had these super sweet recliners at the gate!

From check in to boarding, I just found TPE to be a very well run airport. Maybe we got lucky, but that was my experience!

Starting the Flight Off Right

So I’ve noticed something ever since we started taking M traveling with us. Even though we are always among the first to board, it feels like time flies before we start pushing back. To be honest, for awhile I thought it was because we were in premium cabins – drinking champagne, playing with in flight entertainment, and testing seat recline controls takes a lot of time!

But I’ve come to realize that it now seems like such a short time from boarding to pushback because we are parents. You have to settle all your bags. You have to pull out all your toys. You have to get all your books ready. You have to disinfect the chair if you are feeling clean. Make a diaper change if you need to. All this while trying to keep a toddler from getting their head bashed in by a roller suitcase lumbering down the aisle.

Things deteriorated pretty quickly on the plane... — Things deteriorated pretty quickly on the plane…

Well, for some reason, on this flight we were even slower getting settled than usual. I was still fumbling in the overhead bin when a nice flight attendant kindly asked me to fasten my seatbelt. I sat down and did so, but M was getting fussy.

“Where are her toys?”

“Oh, they’re in the diaper bag.”

I got up and went back to the overhead bin, and my search started getting more and more frantic as I realized the diaper bag wasn’t there. As my panic was reaching its peak, the flight attendant asked me again, this time more firmly, to take my seat. I took my seat, sweaty and stressed, thinking, “we’re not even pushing back yet!”

Except we were! Honestly I was floored the time had flown by so quickly. I had actually been standing while the plane had started its pushback. Parenthood, I tell you, is like a time machine – you arrive in the future way sooner than expected.

Stickers only go so far (these are awesome though you can restick them multiple times!)

Well, at this point I was in full blown panic, M was on the border of a major meltdown (she hates the lap infant belt), and Jess was like, “You left it in the terminal!? You lost it!??!”

Anyway…a terrible start to the flight. Let’s just say that I ended up finding the diaper bag (I had put it into another overhead bin) – I just didn’t find it until AFTER they had called back to TPE to ask them to look for it. As terms of embarrassment goes, this wasn’t as bad as running across the tarmac, but it was pretty close.

A Crazy Lap Toddler

In my defense, when we booked the flight it wasn’t even 2/3 full. And the flight was on an A340 so there are over 250 economy seats! There were also 8 seats available on miles so I figured the flight was empty. I also had this brilliant idea about seat selection. I picked two seats across the aisle from one another. The seat in the middle section had an empty seat next to it but the two other seats full – I figured nobody would pick that middle seat unless they had to. Which they did, because the plane ended up being full! BACKFIRE.

I chose the circled seats but it didn’t work out as I had hoped

We decided to stay in our seats across the aisle so she could walk back and forth. That ended up being okay, because when M was squirming only one of us would have to deal with her at a time. It honestly was very tough to entertain her – we used stickers, her headphones, books, everything we could think of, but she was just super bored. And it was only a two hour flight!

We did get served a meal which helped to break up the flight. I was pretty impressed, it was just a rice box but a) it was pretty tasty and b) they managed to service the entire flight in such a short period of time. Cathay is a great airline with great service no matter what class you’re flying in.

This lunch was a nice surprise on our flight

Overall, I think the stress of “losing” the diaper bag was the worst aspect of the flight, but I still would probably never take a child over the age of 20 months as a lap child again, at least during peak travel season. The worst part is the fact that the kid is just too big, no matter how hard she tried and we tried it was impossible for M not to kick the person in front of her. I felt so bad and so embarrassed and so stupid for not buying that extra seat. But alas, what was done was done.

But this flight overall just felt like we were counting down the minutes until we landed. No inflight entertainment (okay I snuck in one episode of Silicon Valley) and no rest whatsoever. Thank goodness for the duty free magazine – M kept wanting to search it for Hello Kitty products!

Final Thoughts

If you fly enough with your kids, you’re going to end up having a rough flight. This one wasn’t even that bad, but definitely the worst we’ve ever taken with M. I should never have cheaped out and skipped out on a seat for her – she’s just too big to sit in our laps in economy. Lesson learned!

Once again, toddler headphones saved the day. But she's way too big for our laps in coach! — Once again, toddler headphones saved the day. But she’s way too big for our laps in coach!

Other Posts in this Series

Introduction

United Domestic First and LAX Star Alliance Lounge

EVA Royal Laurel Class Review

Using Public Transportation in Taiwan with a Toddler

Visiting the Taipei Zoo

Eating in Taipei

Grand Hyatt Taipei King Suite Review

A Tough Flight with a Toddler

Public Transportation in Hong Kong with a Toddler

Typical Hong Kong Tourist Activities

Hong Kong Disneyland with a Toddler

Jan 05 2015

Creating a British Airways Household Account – Why and How

Making a British Airways Household Account makes sense for almost everyone

Creating a British Airways household account is a simple, relatively painless process that I personally thinks makes a lot of sense for many families. I was recommending a friend do this for himself and his wife the other day so thought I’d do a quick refresher on why you might want to create a household account and how to do it.

Pros and Cons of a Household Account

For the unfamiliar, a BA Household account gives you the ability to pool miles with another member of your household living at the same address. This is particularly useful when you have miles split up between spouse/family accounts, since you can minimize “orphaned” miles.

Example: my wife wants to take a flight from Boston to Charlotte that will cost her 7500 Avios. She only has 6000 Avios, while I have 3000. If our accounts are separate, we cannot book this ticket without transferring or buying more Avios. However, if we create a household account, we can book the tickets since we have 9000 Avios total between the two of us.

I can book this itinerary as long as my Household Avios is > 10,000, regardless of my individual balance

In my experience BA takes a proportional number of miles from each account (so in this case it would be something like 2475 from me and 5025 from my wife). Don’t quote me on that last part though, I never really do the math because it doesn’t matter – in a household account Jess’ miles are mine and vice versa.

I think this has become particularly important due to Chase and AMEX’s more stringent point transfer policies. For Chase, you can still get around transferring to non-spouses (though I personally would never do this), but for AMEX, you can’t transfer to a spouse’s frequent flyer account unless they are an authorized user on the card. This is a problem if, like me, you only have an AMEX Platinum card which costs a whopping $175 to add an AU.

You can only transfer points to your own and authorized users' FF accounts now — You can only transfer points to your own and authorized users’ FF accounts now

In my example above, if we had separate accounts, I would not be able to transfer the 1500 extra Jess needs to her account because she isn’t an authorized user on my AMEX card. Thus, to book her the ticket, I’d have to transfer 4500 to myself – wasted points. This is why I love the household account. You can even book tickets for people outside the household as long as you designate them as a “family/friend”.

The cons of a household account exist mainly for people who try to game the system. Technically, everyone whose miles are being pooled needs to live at the same address (though family/friends do not). That means members of your household can use your miles at anytime to book their own travel. But you really shouldn’t be creating a household account with anyone you don’t trust.

Also if you are pooling with people not living at your house, I guess there is some risk that you get “caught in the lie” and get in trouble, but I doubt it.

The biggest con is not being able to book tickets for people outside your household or circle of family/friends, but in reality this is not big deal. You can have up to 7 people total in your household plus 5 family/friends who you can book tickets for but who do not pool their miles (this didn’t use to exist so at the time it was a real con). Anyone you add to either list must remain for six months. So I guess if you have than 12 people you are booking tickets for, this is a real con, otherwise, I think household accounts are a no brainer.

OK maybe their family is too big (happynicetimepeople.com)

Another con that is easy to work around is the fact that “Executive Club Members must be 18 years or older before they can spend their Avios”. To get around that, I just designated M as a family/friend and not a member of our household (otherwise her miles are just stuck and wasted in our household account, though I guess they are stuck and wasted regardless. What kind of policy is that!?).

Oh and one more important thing to note is each individual member of a household earns Avios and tier points in the same manner as they always have.

Creating the Household Account

Creating a household account could not be simpler. Log in to your BA account and navigate to Executive Club => Household Accounts. From there you will be basically taken to a page listing most of the stuff I went through without the lovely commentary.

Nomination form - simple! — Nomination form – simple!

After that it’s simple, click the “create household account”, and then nominate members. You’ll need their Executive Club number (if they have one) and last name. If they don’t have an Executive Club number yet, you’ll have to include their e-mail address and they will be sent an Executive Club sign up form.

Then you’re all set! You can start using your pooled miles immediately, like I did for my parents after a couple of fails. You’ll also notice when you manage your account that you’ll see two pools of Avios: “My Avios” and “My Household Account Avios”. At this point, all that matters is the latter.

Final Thoughts

I’m sure most of you have one of these already, but just wanted to make sure everyone has set up this super useful feature with British Airways. Honestly, at this point I can’t think of any real downside – though my jetlag is hitting hard so who knows how my brain is functioning at the moment. But I think in most cases this will make sense. And don’t forget AMEX has an Avios transfer bonus until 1/31/15 if you’re thinking of going somewhere soon!

Aug 25 2014

Concerned about a British Airways Devaluation? Book these

Update: Since I typed this up, via PFD, BA has denied any changes are forthcoming on Twitter. But I think the information on these flights are useful so I’m posting this anyway. These are still good flights to book, and potential devaluations are always a nice reminder to earn and burn.

So, I was about to go to bed around midnight last night when I caught wind of a possible British Airways devaluation that can happen any minute. It’s not official, but it makes sense that it’s going to happen. The first people I saw write about were Free-quent Flyer, View from the Wing, Milenomics, and PFD (plus KennyBSAT on Twitter) – so you can read more about the details there.

Are these going away? (Image via @KennyBSAT/Miles4More)

Anyway, at times like these, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has the proper advice: Don’t Panic. Instead, book these great values just in case. I’ve included itinerary ideas, how to search, how to book, and how much it’ll cost you to cancel.

1. Short Haul AA/US flights in Economy (9000-25,000 Avios Round Trip)

As always, British Airways Avios short haul flights present the best value. If you know you have to take a trip – see if you can find space on AA or US and book the flights as an award. For example, a flight from Boston to JFK can put you back $300 in cash, or you can book it for 9000 Avios and $5.60. Here’s the award chart:

Avios award chart - not just good for British Airways flights! — Avios award chart (click to enlarge)

Anything under 650 miles (each way) for domestic AA or US flights is a great deal. Zone 2 is usually a pretty good to great deal, and you still should get a lot of value out of Zone 3 on AA/US domestic flights.

If you don’t want to do the research yourself, KennyBSAT has a nice series on Award Sweet Spots with Avios – East Coast, West Coast, Florida, and Dallas/Chicago.

How to search: You should search for both AA and US short haul flights online at aa.com. This post explains how to do it if you’re unsure. One thing to note – you must look for direct sAAver flights only – two segment flights are going to increase your price because Avios are distance-based. Non sAAver flights won’t be available to book on British Airways

How to book: Once you’ve found the flights, you can just book them on britishairways.com. Navigate to “Book Flights with Avios” and just search on your date, you should see the same flights you found on aa.com

Cost to cancel: I’ve never had personal experience with this, but the general consensus is British Airways charges $55 OR all the taxes and fees you were charged, whichever is lower. So your cancellation charge if necessary should be $5.60 – worth the speculative booking.

Avios are a great deal from the West Coast to Hawaii

2. West Coast to Hawaii in Economy (25,000 Avios Round Trip)

This is actually a specific short haul flight from #1, but merits its own mention because it’s the best value going to Hawaii. Any direct flight from the West Coast to Hawaii falls into Zone 3 and would only cost you 12,500 Avios and $5.60 each way.

How to search: Same as above, aa.com.

How to book: Same as above, britishairways.com

Cost to cancel: Same as above, $5.60 per segment

3. Boston to Dublin in Economy or Business on Aer Lingus (25,000 or 50,000 Avios Round Trip)

Using Avios, you can fly from Boston to Dublin for the same price as a domestic round trip. Or you can fly two people in Business class for 50,000 Avios each (100,000 total aka cheaper than almost everyone else’s transatlantic cost). Aer Lingus (a BA partner) has a direct flight (also one to Shannon) and it falls into Zone 3 – hence the awesome price.

The Cliffs of Moher are well worth a visit in Ireland

A friend said to me last month ago – “Shouldn’t I just be pounding the Boston to Dublin flight over and over to get to Europe?” Answer – yes. Being Boston based, this is my biggest worry about a British Airways devaluation. There is more risk for this flight (cancellation fees) but a potentially higher reward (you’ll be in Europe!).

How to search: Search for Aer Lingus flights on united.com. How to here. Aer Lingus is also a United partner so you can search there. Aer Lingus award space does not show on britishairways.com

How to book: Ugh, the worst. You have to call British Airways, wait on hold forever, then feed them your flights. It’s annoying but worth it. 1-800-452-1201 is the number to call.

Cancellation fee: This should cost you $55 to cancel and an extra $25 service fee – so you might want to be a little more sure when you book this one.

Final Thoughts

I really hope this doesn’t happen or British Airways at least gives some warning, but Iberia didn’t and I’m not holding my breath. I’m sure there will be some sweet spots in the new chart, but this is going to be a real loss. I would say – I’m fresh out of Avios and I’m not transferring from Chase or Membership Rewards to speculatively book – I wouldn’t do that unless you know you’re going somewhere. But that’s just me. Hope this was helpful!

Update: As I said above, British Airways says the devaluation isn’t happening but who knows. These are still great trips to book regardless!

May 05 2014

Deciding Between Miles, Points, or Cash for Short Haul Flights

Short trip, lots of options, not all equal (gcmap.com)

If you’ve just started the miles and points game, the temptation might be to use your newly earned miles for everything. Or, you might be in the situation where you have a ton of miles but don’t know what to do with them. I play the miles and points game for two reasons. First, I want to experience things that I’d never be able to afford in cash (namely, international premium cabin flights). But the second reason I play this game is to make travel more affordable. If you’re in this game for the second reason at all, it’s important to know how to make judicious decisions about when and where to use your miles.

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Aug 08 2013

Using British Airways Avios to book American Airlines tickets

Sometimes British Airways Avios are your best American option

A friend asked me if I could do a post on using British Airways Avios for flying on American Airlines flights. It may seem counterintuitive, but there are times when you want to use one type of airline mile to fly on one of its alliance partners. In this case, British Airways and American are Oneworld partners, and you can save some miles by using BA Avios in the right instances. Here’s how:

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