Travel Planning Archives - Page 6 of 9

Jan 10 2015

Some Delta Skymiles 2015 Award Booking Beta Testing: Good and Bad

It's slightly easier to get into these now that Skymiles 2015 is here — It’s slightly easier to get into these now that Skymiles 2015 is here

A couple of things conspired to get me to dust off my old Delta Skymiles login. First, I was searching for award space for a client. It just so happened the day I started, don’t call the airline pointed out that Delta was releasing a surprising amount of partner award space. I’m not sure whether the latter is still going on, though in my research I did see more space than I had in the past. Thirdly, I’ve actually been stockpiling Delta Skymiles in anticipation of 2015 – I’ve never had problem finding space and I wanted the new one way flexibility. Here are some things I’ve learned poking around the website (and calling a few agents) award booking wise for the new Delta.

One piece of good news is that there definitely seem to be more lowest level award seats floating around out there. I found what felt like a lot more than I had found in the past. Which brings me to the other good news – it’s been reported elsewhere but I’ve finally seen it firsthand for myself – the award search engine…works now! There are some crazy things I’ve noticed (crazy because they are functional).

For starters, the website is pretty snappy and responsive which was downright shocking to me. But more importantly, it does a much better job of finding routings and displaying available low award space. If you search flexible dates, you get a nice calendar highlighting the miles required on each day. I’m still kind of amazed having used it myself, Delta used to be so broken. Here’s a 5 week search for LAX-LHR in Business class.

What I’ve found to be unfortunate is Delta is now enforcing routing rules which really restrict your ability to use your miles. In the past, as long as there was low level award space, you could pretty much string together any legs you wanted to get to your final destination. This is no longer the case. Let’s say you wanted to go from LAX to CDG, for example. There is a lot of low level space, even over the summer, to LHR from LAX. Like these flights on 7/14:

For one person it's not too hard to get to LHR from LAX in business class this summer — For one person it’s not too hard to get to LHR from LAX in business class this summer

If you take that top flight, a Virgin Atlantic flight, you could theoretically get to Paris with just one more hop. Doing a quick search for LHR-CDG on 7/15 (first leg is a redeye) yields a ton of award space:

There's also award space on LHR-CDG — There’s also award space on LHR-CDG

In the past, you would be able to string these two flights together in a multi-city search and book the award as one ticket, for 62,500 miles total (low level business award space all the way). However, when I was trying to do that, I kept getting an error message:

delta.com won't do the multi-city search — delta.com won’t do the multi-city search

Finally I called a few times to try to get an agent to ticket the award as one itinerary. I was then informed that Delta has changed its routing rules – you can only route through certain cities to get to certain destinations, and LHR is not an acceptable transit city between LAX and CDG. I wasn’t sure if the agent was making up rules or not, so I decided to do some digging. Unfortunately, it does seem like this statement in Delta’s award rules gives them the right to deny you based on routing:

Boo.

If you don’t feel like clicking to enlarge, it says “Valid routings vary based on the operating carriers of the Award Ticket.” Anyway, not that I’m totally surprised, but this is kind of consumer unfriendly. If there is award space and you’re not like stringing together 6+ legs or something exorbitant, I feel like you should be able to put together itineraries that have low level space on them. I mean, Delta already took away stopovers, but this is essentially taking away layovers. So I was really disappointed to discover this. It seems like to London you need to connect through a Delta hub – ATL, MSP, and SEA all worked.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m glad to see that there seems to be more low level space available (even, shockingly, on Delta metal), but losing the ability to create your own routing is pretty big. It’s another instance of Delta giveth and Delta taketh away. Still, I think Delta miles can be very useful, especially to Europe (and especially from Boston – that BOS-AMS flight we took last year seems to have a lot of space). People can keep calling them Skypesos if they’d like, I’ll just keep finding ways to use them. Hopefully my experiences can help some of you out there – let me know in the comments if you’ve found anything else out because I’ve only just started playing with the new system!

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!

Dec 24 2014

Home for the Holidays: Introduction

It’s been a busy travel year for me. After taking it relatively easy in 2013 (newborn baby excuse), I’ve managed to make five international trips this year. Makes me thankful for this hobby and the ability to save money and travel in comfort.

So a happy holidays to all as I begin my final trip of 2014! Though Jess and I were both born in the States, we both have a big attachment to Taiwan and Hong Kong (our respective “home” countries), despite our ABC (American-born Chinese) status. I even lived in Hong Kong for a few years when I was a kid.

As far as M was concerned, we could have stayed in LAX the entire trip

What better time to take M back home than over the holidays? First, it’d be the last time she could fly as a lap infant. Secondly, it wouldn’t be a 100% humidity sauna like it would be in the summer. And third, as an almost 2 year old, she can actually appreciate some of the stuff here (like the fact that everyone is speaking her preferred tongue.

This trip took quite a bit of planning – but so far it’s been going well. Here’s a quick taste of how we used our points and miles to cut the costs down on this year-end trip.

Outbound Flight: EVA Air Royal Laurel Class via United Miles

We are less than 24 hours off of this flight, but it was pretty great. But I digress.

I booked this flight around 11 months ago. Originally we were routed to take a Hello Kitty jet from Los Angeles. LAX is a terrible airport to transit, especially with kids, but the chance to fly a Hello Kitty Jet with a 2 year old girl (and my daughter too!) felt worth it. Of course, the literal DAY that I read that article EVA announced they’d no longer be flying the Hello Kitty plane from LAX. WHY!? Sadface.

EVA Air trolling us with their boarding video

Our original itinerary called for an 11 PM flight out of LAX – aka 2 AM eastern time. I decided it’d be prudent to switch our flights to the 350 PM EVA flight out of LAX. Like clockwork, this space opened up two weeks out (I’d say the cabin was only 60% full when we actually flew it and award space was available all the way until the day of departure).

Since I had booked before the United Devaluation, the flight cost us 120,000 United miles and around $10 in taxes and fees. Of course, M cost a whopping $515 – 10% of the base cash fare – for the honor of sitting on our laps. Still cheaper and infinitely more comfortable than flying coach with a lap infant, but those international infant taxes and fees are no joke!

Intra-Asia Flight: Cathay Pacific Economy Class via British Airways Avios

This was an easy flight to book. I searched ba.com for award space on Cathay Pacific and booked us two economy seats + lap infant for 9450 Avios and some spare change in taxes and fees. Since the flight is only 501 miles it cost 4500 Avios per person, a steal considering the cash fares were a couple hundred USD when I booked (one way!).

British Airways also has one of the most generous lap infant policies – 10% of the miles instead of 10% of the base cash fare – so M cost us 450 Avios. This would come in quite handy for the return flight.

Return Flight: Cathay Pacific First Class via British Airways Avios

The flight I consider the crown jewel of my trip: Cathay Pacific first home. I wrote about how I obsessively checked award space until it paid off back when I booked the flight. Rereading that post, I still can’t believe two seats opened up that far out – in a six seat cabin no less!

The short version: we booked two CX F seats plus an infant for 220,500 Avios (transferred from AMEX MR mostly). The flights cost us 105,000 Avios each, plus 10,500 for M. I still think this is way better than the probably >$1000 taxes and fees I would have had to pay for M if we had booked through AAdvantage (though it would have only cost us 67.5K each).

I’m beyond excited to try my fourth different first class product this year!

We had to also book a cash ticket home from ORD – M’s first miles earning flight! (I bought her a seat – she’s really way too big to be a lap infant in coach).

Taipei Hotel: Grand Hyatt Taipei King Suite via Points & Cash + Diamond Suite Upgrade

So we’ve already checked into our suite at the Grand Hyatt Taipei and I am pretty impressed. I had leftover diamond suite upgrades from my Hyatt Diamond Challenge (which has been discontinued and which I unfortunately failed).

Most hotel rooms are nicer than my house, but this one... — Most hotel rooms are nicer than my house, but this one…

I booked the room with Hyatt’s Cash and Points rate; ridiculously, this Grand Hyatt is only Category 3. Thus the room costs 6000 points and $75 per night. A pretty awesome deal considering we confirmed the suite upgrade as well. Rooms are currently around $350/night.

Hong Kong Hotel: Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui via Points & Cash + Diamond Suite Upgrade

The Hyatt Regency TST is a category 4 hotel, so this one cost us 7500 points and $100 per night. Again, we confirmed with a suite upgrade and I’m looking forward to the stay after Trevor’s review!

Final Thoughts

This was a pretty exciting trip to put together. I have already had my fill of Taiwanese breakfast delicacies (not even counting the hotel breakfast) and am looking forward to the rest of this trip. Once again, points and miles definitely made things easier – will try to update this trip report as I go!

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

Finding Peace and Quiet in Hong Kong

Eating in Hong Kong

Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui Regency Suite Review

Cathay Pacific First Class with a Toddler

Conclusion

Dec 22 2014

Preparing for a Long Trip with a Toddler

M is our packing supervisor

I can’t remember where I read it, but I once saw someone suggest that parents should take a “lap baby moon” of sorts, one last trip with an infant in arms before they turn two (if you’re reading this and that was you, message me and I’ll link you). Sounded like an amazing idea at the time, so we booked one last trip with Little M – to Asia. I’d be lying if I said that sounds like an amazing idea to me right now; I have no idea what we’re going to do for 14 hours on a plane.

I thought it might be helpful for some to see the steps I’m taking to prepare for the trip. Full diclosure: I’m just making all this up as I go along!

Confirm Itinerary

I booked this trip almost 11 months ago, and there have been some schedule changes since, so I spent some time confirming my itinerary. Originally we were going to fly on the Eva Air Hello Kitty plane, which was going to be super exciting for Jess and M. Alas, Eva no longer flies Hello Kitty from Los Angeles, so we switched onto a flight that we think will work better for M’s sleep schedule (leaving at 350 PM PST instead of 1100 PM).

I've found myself using Award Wallet's travel plan feature out of convenience — I’ve found myself using Award Wallet’s travel plan feature out of convenience

When I confirm my itinerary, I double check the following:

– Confirmation numbers (PNRs) for ALL flights, including any partner carrier PNRs

– Departure and arrival airports/times

– Hotel rooms and confirmation numbers

In this case it took awhile because we are flying on four separate tickets (award ticket to Taiwan, award ticket from Taiwan to Hong Kong, award ticket from Hong Kong to Chicago, cash ticket home). After I checked all that stuff I loaded it into my travel plans on Award Wallet.

Clean up Travel Details

After making sure I remember which flights I’m taking, I take care of a bunch of travel details. In the past this just meant seat assignments for Jess and me. Now with the toddler, it entails quite a bit more. Of course, I started by making sure I selected seats on all my flights (needed the EVA PNR to do that flight).

The second thing I had to do was add M’s infant in arms ticket on our United award ticket. This took a phone call (and $500!). What worried me was I heard people have had issues on EVA flights with infants in arms when booking through United.

Nice touch by EVA to provide diapers on request

So what I did next (and would have done anyway) was confirm the infant in arms at EVA and on all other flights. When I called EVA, I learned some pretty interesting things. I ordered a children’s meal but what was really cool was I requested diapers for free. We’ll see how those turn out but it is pretty cool that they offer them.

The final thing I did to clean up travel details was to double check baggage allowance on all flights. My only concern was our one economy leg on Cathay from Taipei to Hong Kong but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem.

Oh wait I did one more thing! I’m super anal so I checked to see how full the cabins were on the long haul flights. Less full = better for M = offending less people if she flips out. Looking good so far!

Research Transportation at the Destination – Carseat or No?

Thanks to family, we’re all set in Taiwan for getting picked up from the airport and all that good stuff. However, I’m not used to hitting up Hong Kong without my parents, so I spent some time researching how we were going to get from the airport to the hotel. Turns out the Airport Express is the best way and the Hyatt Regency TST has a free shuttle from the terminus in Kowloon.

Won't need anything complicated this time (Amazon) — Won’t need anything complicated this time (Amazon)

What I spent the most time thinking about though was whether we needed a carseat. If you remember, I’ve debated how to bring our carseat overseas in the past. But since we could borrow/rent in Taiwan, I had to spend some time thinking about whether we would need it in Hong Kong at all. Figuring out we wouldn’t need it to get from the airport to the hotel made a big difference in my thinking.

At that point it was weighing two evils – being confined to public transportation versus lugging that thing around. I ultimately decided that I’d rather risk the stress of public transportation in short amounts than deal with carrying the car seat around. Even if we checked it in, we’d need to get it from the airport to our hotel and that’s just one extra thing to carry. My goal is to have at least one of our four adult hands free whenever possible on this trip. Which leads me to the next step in my preparation.

Evaluate Luggage Needs

On our last long haul flight we had the luxury of grandparents packing diapers for us, but not this time around. We also are bringing a few gifts for relatives, so it took awhile for us to determine what types of luggage we needed to bring.

In the end, I decided that what is most important is that at least one of us has a hand free at the airport. My thinking is that we need the flexibility to hold M’s hand if she wants to walk. I think this is what we’re going to end up bringing:

– Large spinner suitcase (American Tourister purchased from Amazon last week). Before then we had nothing larger than carry-on size suitcases

– Carry-on sized roller

– Stroller (the Uppababy G-lite which comes with a shoulder strap if necessary)

– 2 Backpacks

– Diaper bag

– Toy backpack

– Purse

The last four are what I’m planning to bring on the plane (gate checking the stroller). This way when we’re loaded for bear we’ll still have a hand free for M – and I’m gonna make her wear the backpack with the toys.

One thing we considered for awhile was procuring diapers on site. I decided against this for two reasons. First, packing diapers will prevent us from overpacking on clothes (I already find myself taking an extra garment here or there because I “have the space” now). Secondly, we rarely get to go to Asia, and we rarely buy souvenirs, but I figure the diaper space will empty out and we can buy things. In Asia there are a lot of fun things you can buy that are harder or more expensive to get here. Worst case scenario we stock up on Hello Kitty stuff for M (read: Jess).

Prepare for the Long Road Ahead (entertain the baby)

I’m more concerned about our flight to Los Angeles than I am about the 13 hour flight to Taipei for a couple of reasons. We’re leaving super early in the morning and that flight is just going to be tight – it’s pretty full and it’s not like we can like the seats flat or have her sit on an ottoman or anything.

Toddler headphones, hopefully these come in handy (Amazon)

To that end I’ve been preparing for doomsday scenarios. Will Little M finally get her first real taste of cartoon programming? Quite possibly.

I’ve been stocking up on crackers, goldfish, cheerios. I’ve downloaded a million mp3s to our tablet, Alphabet Aquarium, and a few videos. Our friend generously gave us a pair of toddler headphones. We are ready – I hope.

Find Ways to Save Money

This has plummeted to the bottom of my priority list – convenience over money at this point, so I haven’t even gotten a chance to do this yet. Taiwan is also quite inexpensive in general. BUT, if I end up having time, I really want to look up some ways on admission tickets and the like while we’re over there.

Get Excited!

It’s so easy to get caught up in the details and stresses of a trip that I can forget to get excited. But this should be a great trip. Taiwanese breakfast, Taipei’s zoo, Xiao Ren Guo, relatives, food, food, food, food, food, Hong Kong Disneyland, two confirmed suite upgrades, two new sets of pajamas – gonna be a blast.

Final Thoughts

Guess I’ve made up for my lack of posting with a ton of words here. But there are a lot of steps that go into taking a trip, and the work almost doubles when worrying about a toddler. These are the steps I’ve taken to keep myself sane – would love to hear some brilliant ideas in the comments if you’ve got them!

Nov 02 2014

Act Quickly on Hot Deals that Fit YOU Best

If you are in the miles and points game for any period of time greater than, say, one month – eventually you’ll start to notice a lot of all caps and exclamation marks on Twitter or on blogs – “Hot deals! Act quickly! Won’t last! AMAZING!” But like big signs in retail stores – not all the advertised deals are truly that amazing (though some definitely are). To further confuse things, as any regular reader of the Saverocity family of blogs knows, sometimes these “deals” are advertised with conflicts of interest. I generally give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but when I have an affiliate link I’m always tempted to make it sound a little better than it is so I assume others are at the very least the same.

In the past week alone, there have been a couple of “deals” out there. AA released a bunch of award space on their new routes, while Aeroplan had a HUGE glitch where flights were pricing wrong – yikes for them. There was also a $1400 business class “deal” from LA to Europe. Now I put the word deal in quotes for all three of these because none of them were particularly well suited for my needs. I therefore skipped all three of these and didn’t bat an eyelash – but when I first got into this game I would have felt differently. The urgency with which these kinds of deals are presented can very easily lead one to feel like they missed out or to act hastily without carefully thinking things through. In a worst case scenario they can cause someone to lose money. I’m not immune to writing about them either.

I love deals and cannot wait to reap the benefits of BA First - but I thought about it for awhile before pulling the trigger — I love deals and cannot wait to reap the benefits of BA First – but I thought about it for awhile before pulling the trigger

The goal of this post is not to get you to ignore these deals – I jump on them all the time. For example, I booked the wife and myself into British Airways first class during that window of time when US Airways wasn’t charging fuel surcharges. What I’m hoping to accomplish in this post is to help you establish a framework for yourself through which you can view these deals. It’s about pulling the trigger on deals that best suit YOUR needs – not just acting due to FOMO. Here’s how I’d recommend approaching deals.

For starters, have an objective evaluation of your assets in your head at all times

I don’t think I can assess whether a given “deal” is good for me without an objective idea of my assets. I say assets because sometimes these deals that come around are award deals (miles as an asset), sometimes they are cash flights (cash as an asset), sometimes they are big discounts like Stop and Shop gas rewards (cash and time as an asset), while sometimes they are credit card sign up bonuses (cash, time, and miles opportunity cost).

So you need to know your assets, objectively, before you decide whether a deal is good for you or not. If you are really trying to travel for pennies due to budgetary constraints and/or a desire to be financially independent faster, $1400 business class flights to Europe or $1700 first class fares to Asia might not be the best deal for you. It’s an even worse deal if you’re going to end up in debt because of it.

If you can only put $1000/month on your credit cards and thus are generally only applying for one card at a time, then you want the BEST sign up bonuses out there. If snagging those flights on British Airways with no fuel surcharges depletes your entire US Air account – is that okay with you? And if you find a new manufactured spending deal, are you spending too much of your time doing it?

If you don’t know what your assets are and have an objective take on their worth you’re risking not making the best decisions when it comes to these deals.

Buying US Air miles can get you onto these partners - but is the price right for you? — Buying US Air miles can get you onto these partners – but is the price right for you?

A classic example is the good old “buy US Airways miles at 1.8 cents a piece”. Using myself as an example, here’s how I evaluated my assets for that deal (every single time it came up).

Do I have enough cash to purchase 100,000 miles at 1.8 cents a piece? If so, do I have enough miles for a business class flight overseas already? If yes, do I really need to buy more, giving me enough for two overseas trips? And if I buy miles so I have enough for two overseas trips, do I have enough time to take those trips in a timeframe that wouldn’t worry me about a devaluation? And, oh yeah, is it really worth it to me to pay $1800 to fly business class overseas; could that money be spent more wisely elsewhere?

For me, it’s important to ask these questions just to make sure I don’t get caught up in the hype of a “deal”. Everyone’s answers are going to come out differently (heck, everyone’s QUESTIONS should be different), but it’s the best way to avoid unnecessary waste.

Next, make sure you are clear about what your travel goals are

I’ve written about this as it pertains to signing up for credit cards, but it’s really important you know what your travel goals are. I have two goals for my family – to take at least one international trip a year (preferably two, one with child one without) and to take it in as much comfort as possible without breaking the bank. Goal 1 is more important to me than goal 2, we’d pay for coach if we had to. But if I can leverage miles and points to fly in a higher class of service, I’m always going to choose that. For me, 1 international business class trip is greater than 2 in coach. That’s just me.

When deals come along, I force myself to question whether that deal helps me meet my travel goals or not. Did I want to jump on the AA deal earlier today? Certainly, I have the miles and it’d get us to Europe. But getting in on that deal would also have broken my “as much comfort as possible” rule. I don’t mind an extra connection with Little M if it’s gonna get me in a higher class of service, but Boston to Los Angeles to London is going way beyond that. So I let that one go with absolutely no reservations.

My goal is to get this one to at least one new country a year - this was Italy 2013 — My goal is to get this one to at least one new country a year – this was Italy 2013

I do the same thing when great credit card bonuses come along. I’ve always thought the Southwest Companion Pass would be a great thing to have – but we don’t travel enough to make it useful. I’m starting to rethink my travel goals in general since Little M might force us to travel more domestically, but every time I’d have been able to get it via credit card sign ups it didn’t make sense with my travel goals at the time. And forget about earning via reselling – time is the asset I have the least of. You go though, Big Habitat.

A corollary to evaluating your travel goals is evaluating your earning streams – if you’re a big MSer or reseller deals are going to look better/worse to you than they would to me, but that’s a whole other post in and of itself. Hopefully you get the concept.

Equip yourself with as much knowledge of the miles and points game as possible

This one’s important. It’s impossible to know what a great deal is if you don’t know what the good ones are. Take a look at Matt’s list of the Top 10 best credit card offers historically. It’s important to know what has been offered in the past and more importantly, have a feeling for whether it will be offered in the future or not. For example, I have absolutely no proof but my guess is we’ll see another 75K Amex PRG offer again. That means a 50K offer might not be the best deal, no matter how many exclamation marks you see (no guarantees of course). Worse situations are when you see a lot of exclamation marks around cards like the US Airways Mastercard – 40K after first purchase is great – if you have miles in US Air. Otherwise, they could quite possibly be totally useless to you.

Another thing to make sure you have a good handle of is how much awards cost regularly, what airlines charge fuel surcharges, how much award space various airlines release, etc. etc. That’s how you find “sweet spots”, recognize when something is a big deal (like avoiding fuel surcharges on BA), or realize that an award space glitch is a major deal (like Lufthansa releasing first class space more than two weeks out). The only way to learn these things is through practice, reading, and more practice. No one knows the ins and outs of everything, but there are a lot of guides out there like at Travel is Free or my own DIY Guide (which releases at the rate of one article per year at this point :P).

Ultimately, it’s about opportunity costs

Hot deals are great, but while they seem cheap, you’re always giving up something to get them. Understanding your assets, clarifying your travel goals, and equipping yourself with knowledge of the game should help you answer the single most important question when a deal comes up: What am I giving up if I pull the trigger? Or, to put it another way, is getting in on this deal going to prevent me from getting in on another one that fits myself and/or my family better? You can’t really answer that question without an understanding of the three things above.

Everyone is going to highlight a deal with some level of bias. I sometimes point out good value fares to Europe because I love Europe. Just because I think something is a great deal doesn’t mean it’s a great deal for you. I really would consider shelling out $1500 for a business class flight to Europe (assuming I haven’t blown too much money on my travels elsewhere) – but if you aren’t even sure if you LIKE Europe, why should you? That sounds silly but it’s really not – if you read blogs enough you kind of start hearing very similar views and opinions about things. You’ll hear counterpoints, but they can be rare.

I'm sure tons of you could care less about Sound of Music tours — I’m sure tons of you could care less about Sound of Music tours

You might be less susceptible to peer pressure than me, but generally, if you hear that “Bali is amazing” a million times you might just put it on your list of places to go. Then if an amazing fare to Bali drops, you might pull the trigger. That’s not a bad thing by the way, add me to the chorus of people who think Bali is amazing – just make sure you know what you’re giving up to get there.

Final Thoughts

Apologies for the super long post – I haven’t posted for awhile and have just had all these thoughts in my head for awhile. The reality is, I’m sure many of you think about these things already. But writing helps me clarify my thoughts, and this is a good reminder to me that if I miss a big deal that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m missing out. One of the best things about the miles and points game is great deals are always there to be had. It’s like whack-a-mole: they always pop up! Unlike whack-a-mole, you only need to nail one to win. Sure, you’ll sometimes miss a deal that you might regret, but that’s better than regretting wasting assets on a deal! I’d love to hear people’s thought processes about this topic, so feel free to leave equally loquacious comments!