United Archives - Page 2 of 5

Feb 01 2015

Reminder: You can add a free one-way on United awards

The first segment of this award (red) was essentially free (gcmap.com)

My entire family went to Hong Kong for some family stuff last weekend. While I used my miles to get a good last minute flight, my parents paid cash. Luckily, their cash fare allowed a stopover so they pushed a trip to visit us here in Boston back one weekend to this one.

This post is an illustration of how a proper knowledge of the ins and outs of miles programs can save you money.

My parents original plan

I was so busy catching up when I got back from Hong Kong that it didn’t even register with me that my parents were coming to Boston on a one way ticket. It didn’t occur to me until they were at the airport waiting for their flight to Boston to ask: “Wait, how are you getting home?”

They said they had bought Amtrak tickets. At that point I entered one of those “brain puts pieces together in slow motion” type montages in the movies.

– They’re coming on a one way ticket

– They need a one way ticket home

– They have an award flight to Australia coming up

– LIGHTBULB!

Saving money for the flight home

If you’re familiar with how to use free one-ways on United award tickets, this post is just a friendly reminder and I’m sure you can skip the rest. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, read on.

I took advantage of the fact that United allows stopovers on their round trip award tickets to book my parents a flight from Boston to Newark for $3. A stopover is defined as a stay in a transiting city – generally anything more than 24 hours will trigger this (though it can be as little as four depending on the circumstance).

The idea of a “free one-way” is using stopover rules to give you an extra leg to or from your home city in addition to your “main” round-trip.

Their original itinerary was a simple round trip

My parents had booked a roundtrip flight from Newark to Sydney and back for next month. A regular roundtrip flight does not take advantage of a stopover – you just fly to your destination, hang out there, and then come back.

So what I did was I tacked on a flight from Boston to Newark a week before they depart for Australia. That changed their itinerary from this:

Newark => Sydney (destination) => Newark

To this:

Boston => Newark (stopover) => Sydney (destination) => Newark

Thanks to Platinum status and a free one-way, the flight from Boston to Newark (with a stopover of a week) only cost $3 in taxes and fees

Award space from Boston to Newark was plentiful – it’s only a few days from departure so United is trying to get rid of inventory. My dad is lifetime United Platinum so he doesn’t pay any close-in or change fees, so it was a no-brainer. If you don’t have status, it could cost up to $150 per person so you’d have to weight that against the cost of the train tickets.

With United you can get even fancier since they allow and open jaw and a stopover but I want to keep this short so I’ll end here. United is one of the few airlines where you can still get free one-ways: take advantage whenever you’re booking award tickets (even if you don’t have status you can book your original ticket that way).

Final Thoughts

This post is just another illustration of how you can use points and miles to save money on travel (in this case it was only possible with my dad’s status, but you can still use this principle for non last minute travel and save money). The concept of the free one-way was one of the toughest for me to understand when starting out – feel free to ask questions in the comments. What really helped “free my mind” when trying to understand this concept: don’t get locked into thinking of your home airport as your origin or destination.

Jan 21 2015

Using Miles for Last Minute Travel: An Example

Never thought I'd be on Cathay again so soon... — Never thought I’d be on Cathay again so soon…

I mostly use my miles and points for vacation, but they can also really come in handy in a pinch. Long story short, I need to return to Hong Kong this weekend for some last minute family stuff. Trever might have the energy to go to Hong Kong for 43 hours of fun, but I normally wouldn’t do something like this. But I really wanted to go back to be with my family and so I leveraged my miles and points to get me there. I figured it might be a good case study to outline the thought process I go through when booking an award ticket – especially when against the gun.

Step 1: Make a cost/benefit analysis of whether to go or not

For me, I had to weigh a few factors. Yes I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t realistically take more than three days off of work. Including the weekend, that’d be five days away from home. I’m also just getting over the flu, so I eliminated flying coach as an option (tickets were ~$700-$800 in economy FWIW). I just couldn’t handle flying 20 hours back and forth (no direct flights to HKG from BOS until May) in coach and then getting back exhausted – we got said flu after we got back from Hong Kong two weeks ago and it was a disaster.

Then I had to decide whether premium cabin mileage costs were worth it. This was an easy decision for me, I really wanted to go back so if I could find the space I would go. So I came to the conclusion if I could find business class space or above, I’d go.

Step 2: Take an inventory of mileage balances

At this point I loaded up my mental award wallet and the actual Award Wallet to determine what programs I’d be able to use to get where I wanted to go in the class of service I wanted. I calculated that I could fly roundtrip on Oneworld (with AA or US miles), roundtrip on Star Alliance (with United miles + Chase UR transfer), or one way on Skyteam (with Delta Skymiles). I determined I’d prefer using one alliance to go one way and another alliance for the return – just to keep my miles and points diversified.

Step 3: Searching for award space

This part was fairly straightforward. I searched britishairways.com for Oneworld space, united.com for Star Alliance space, and delta.com for Delta space. I quickly threw Delta out – there was no saver space on the dates I wanted. I was shooting for one connection max, so when searching for Oneworld space I searched for Cathay Pacific space out of ORD and JFK. I figured since AA has a ton of flights between BOS and those cities they’d be my best bet. Cathay releases a ton of premium cabin award space close in, so I was pretty confident. And I was right:

Tons of premium cabin space close in on CX

Originally I wanted to go after work, so I put an award on hold that connected a 605 PM BOS-JFK flight to the 910 PM JFK-HKG flight. That flight, incidentally, includes a stop in Vancouver, but I decided I’d rather miss less work.

Since I found award space for the outbound that I could book with AA miles, I decided to search for a return on United. This too yielded results quickly (it’s so easy to book close in sometimes!).

Since it was all on United metal it was only 80,000 miles in Global First, which is the same as business on a partner carrier would cost. So I had found flights that fit my parameters and I had to decide what to book.

Step 4: Making the call on what flights to book

At this point, my lack of status on either airline gave me pause. Both AA and UA would charge me a $75 close in booking fee for booking an award ticket less than 21 days before departure. UA would charge me if I further wanted to change after that, while AA would allow me to change routing and dates if I needed to. I wasn’t sure if I was going to need this flexibility in Hong Kong.

What I did was I called AA to put the outbound flight on a courtesy 5-day hold. Of course since we were only a week out it was just a 1-day hold but that’s all I needed. At that point I had a kind of “duh” moment. If I booked the entire itinerary with AA, I’d only pay one $75 close in booking fee. Taxes and fees would be fairly comparable, so I’d basically save $75 overall. I also realized that if I wanted/needed to change my routing, I’d be able to do that for free on AA.

So ultimately, I decided to give up the one way on UA and book the flight as a roundtrip. I almost always recommend booking flights on airlines that don’t give you stopovers as one ways – you get more flexibility – but in this case the roundtrip flight gave me more flexibility and saved me money. It’s always important to know all your options. Finding award space home was easy, again, Cathay releases a ton of award space.

Step 5: Dealing with a slight issue

There was one issue with my itinerary. My original BOS-JFK flight was slotted to get in at 730 PM, giving me 1 hour and 40 minutes until my 910 PM departure to Hong Kong. One of the agents I spoke to told me this violated the minimum connection time in JFK, which she said was 1 hour and 55 minutes. I basically didn’t believe her, told her to leave the flights on hold, and called back and got another agent to complete the booking. I found this on flyerguide:

Minimum connection times for various AA hubs

Now it’s totally possible I read this wrong. But what this looked like to me was that for a domestic to international flight (DI) the minimum connection time was 40 minutes. Which, frankly, makes a heck of a lot more sense than 1 hour 55 – JFK is bad but it’s not that bad. The problem was, the agent told me she was gonna make a note in my file. I was like…uh oh. But I figured the computer can’t read notes.

Well, I don’t know if the computer completes ticketing or a human does it, but either she was right and I was wrong (totally possible) or somebody read that note. Because a few hours after I booked the ticket I got an “urgent” e-mail from AA telling me to call them about my reservation. I called in – they had put me on the 245 PM departure to JFK – and completed the booking for real. I received my e-ticket early the next morning.

Step 6: I garden my flights even if I’m leaving in less than 48 hours

I woke up the next day and decided that leaving at 245 PM was pointless. The whole reason for leaving at 605 PM originally was to go to work and to see my daughter. Leaving at 245 PM would allow me to do neither of those things. So I called AA yet again, and switched to an early flight. This is why AA is probably the best frequent flyer program out there right now – changes to times and routings are free. So I’m now leaving in the morning, but I’ll get into Hong Kong earlier and I won’t have to connect through Vancouver. Score.

Final Thoughts

I wrote this post for two reasons: to illustrate how points and miles are giving me the chance to support my family overseas, and to show my thought process in making this happen in as short a time as possible. If I was buying a cash ticket to go to Hong Kong for the weekend, it’d be a lot easier. When dealing with points and miles, it pays to know your stuff. I agree with Matt, there’s no reason to hoard miles, but having a decent balance lying around really helps out in emergency situations like mine.

Dec 26 2014

Home for the Holidays: 26 Hours to Taiwan with a Toddler Part I – United Domestic First and LAX Star Alliance Lounge

Toddlers. Insisting on pushing stroller through terminal in PJs at 530 AM... — Toddlers. Insisting on pushing stroller through terminal in PJs at 530 AM…

We’re still recovering. A few days ago we set a family record by traveling for 26 hours straight – really 28 hours if you’re counting door to door. It was quite the journey, one I don’t know how we would have survived were it not for points and miles.

A caveat to everything I write here. A gigantic amount of respect and props need to go to parents who take their almost 2 year olds to Asia as lap infants in coach. It amazes me that entire planes home to Asia during the holidays are gigantic screaming nurseries in the sky. I think the <1 year olds are no problem lapwise, but once you have a running, super curious toddler: man, I’m not totally sure why airlines don’t lower that lap age to 18 months.

Obviously in business class we had it a lot easier and the rules worked for us! Here’s how the marathon trip went. It was such a marathon, I’ve split it into two (still too long) posts.

United Domestic First BOS-LAX

As I’ve noted elsewhere, we switched flights after losing out on the Hello Kitty plane (think I’m going to try to mention that in every single post in this series :)). We also decided not to bring a car seat, which meant we need to somehow get to the airport for 4:45 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight.

I opted to call a car service which came with a car seat, it came out to about double a normal taxi ride (~$60) but that was obviously still cheaper than parking at the airport. The hidden costs of having a child!

A child who has watched very little TV was quite into the safety video — This child who has watched very little TV was quite into the safety video

I was actually most worried about this flight, it’s about six hours and although there is more space in first class, I knew it was still going to be pretty tight. M was pretty agreeable waking up early, going through security, etc., and we even had time to go to the United Club to change her (pretty decent in BOS FWIW).

Breakfast was actually pretty good. This is a double portion though

The flight ended up going alright, after sleeping the first 45 minutes or so she woke up and we all ate breakfast together (thank goodness for hot food in first). After all that there were over four hours left so it was about killing off an hour at a time.

There would be a lot of this the rest of the way

Introducing her to her new headphones, that took about an hour (and were a real hit). Reading some books, another hour. Playing with the seatbelts, another hour (though requiring my displacement). I even got her one of those demonstration seatbelts to play with. Walking up and down the aisle? Another great activity.

Delirium setting in... — Delirium setting in…

Between all that and periodic snacks, we avoided any major meltdowns though she got close at the end. For some reason she started insisting on lying on the floor, so we just let her do that until the very end. In the end, though the flight was stressful, I thought it ended up going better than expected (though to be fair I had very low expectations).

Long LAX Layover & Star Alliance Lounge

We ended up at LAX quite a bit earlier than scheduled, leaving us with a whopping seven hour layover. The benefit of this was a lack of stress getting between terminals. The downside was…pretty much everything else.

How is TBIT so nice and the rest of LAX so...not — How is TBIT so nice and the rest of LAX so…not

Things started out nicely as we met up with a buddy of mine for lunch after a long walk from one end of the airport to the other. By “lunch” I mean some bagels bought from an Einstein Bagel Brothers stand because as nice as Tom Bradley International Terminal is on the planeside, it is equally as crappy on the landside.

Thankfully we found a little sitting area where we could hang out for awhile, M was sufficiently amused by running around in the open space. Oh, and protip: it’s never Smarte to pay for a carte at LAX. While there are some stacks of carts that will charge you five bucks, there are loads of other carts lying around for free if you walk around a bit. I don’t mean like carts people left behind, it’s like carts with the Smarte Carte sign and just no money needed. Makes no sense, but don’t pay the money. I digress.

It's not smarte to get your carte from one of these (smartecarte.com) — It’s not smarte to get your carte from one of these (smartecarte.com)

After getting our EVA business class boarding passes, we went through security (“Hey people, this is TSA precheck, don’t take anything out, I’m not trying to trick you, this is supposed to be faster, DON’T TAKE ANYTHING OUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND TRUE”) and went straight to the Star Alliance Lounge.

I had read some nice reviews of the lounge beforehand and I think they are spot on – it’s very well designed, peaceful, and the outdoor seating area with a view of the runway is great. Well, it’s peaceful when you don’t have a delirious 2-year old bashing her head on corners because she is so tired she can’t stand up straight and bawling in response (seriously, she drew blood).

I'm a fan of the decor — I’m a fan of the decor

So yes, although she had taken a short nap after lunch, M needed some rest pretty badly. She was not going to get it. Ultimately we survived the lounge without disturbing everyone by hanging on the outdoor patio and watching the planes land.

It's a nice outdoor patio, although some people were oblivious to the non-smoking signs on every single table — It’s a nice outdoor patio, although some people were oblivious to the non-smoking signs on every single table

The food at the buffet table was okay, the highlight was quesadillas that some magical lounge attendant was passing around (magical because I never saw said attendant and quesadillas just would appear at my table). There is also a DIY noodle station which is good when the broth is hot (protip: you can ask the kitchen when they are refilling it or even for some hot broth).

The first of many bowls of noodles that have been consumed over the past few days

What really saved our ridiculous layover was being able to take a shower at the Star Alliance lounge. Though the lounge was pretty full, there was no line at all at the showers (though there are 8 stalls I think so it should move quickly even if there is high demand). After all three of us had showered and changed, we all felt better and ready to tackle our 14 hour onward flight to Taipei. Especially after M met her hero at the Sanrio store before we boarded.

It was great to take a shower, but the water pressure in Room 2 was seriously lacking

Final Thoughts

As I hinted at the top, I now think it is nearly impossible to take a child who’s almost 2 as a lap infant on a long flight in coach. For me, I don’t even think it’s worth the stress. Your child may vary, obviously. But the most stressful part of this trip was the long layover in LAX, which really is kinda sucky as an airport. The planeside beauty of Tom Bradley just kind of highlights what a stressful airport the rest of LAX is. But the Star Alliance Lounge is pretty great if you can get in there, so at least LAX has that going for it!

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

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

Sep 02 2014

Know Your Pin Number BEFORE You Book Awards

I had nightmares about this webpage - literally — I had nightmares about this webpage – literally

Here is something simple that can save you a lot of time. If an airline’s frequent flyer program has a pin number for you to set – set it and don’t forget. You can store your pin in Award Wallet or wherever you like, just don’t forget it! If you’re saying to me, “duh”, that’s great – but even with all the awards I’ve booked, I still forget this. Here are two examples and how I dealt with them recently.

If you don’t care (I wouldn’t blame you), just remember – set your pin numbers and don’t forget them! I do think these anecdotes should give regular award bookers some ideas of how to troubleshoot, which is why I’m sharing them.

Pin Fail 1: British Airways

There was, erm, a bit of a hubbub the other week involving British Airways Avios. While it turned out to be much ado about nothing, I went into full on fire-drill mode and took my own advice, booking an award trip to Ireland for my parents.

I ran into a bit of a problem – my mom was in Brazil for a conference and unreachable and I didn’t know her British Airways pin. I HAD to use miles from her account because my dad didn’t have enough. I came up with what I thought to be an elegant solution – I created a household account for my parents, meaning their miles would pool together and I’d only need my dad’s pin to book the tickets.

Aer Lingus' new business class looks pretty sweet and BOS-Ireland is one of the best values in the entire miles game — Aer Lingus’ new business class looks pretty sweet and BOS-Ireland is one of the best values in the entire miles game

Household accounts with British Airways are great – you can share miles; whenever a ticket is booked an equal number of miles are taken out of each account. The only drawback is that you can’t redeem miles for a ticket for someone NOT in the household (which you can do with individual accounts).

Of course, I ran into another snafu with the household account – I needed my mom to confirm her entry into the household account through her e-mail. Of course, I don’t have my mom’s e-mail password so I thought we were done for again until I thought of how to Macgyver out of the situation.

I knew my mom’s BA password (stored on Award Wallet), just not her pin. But since I could get into her account, I changed her e-mail address on file to one I knew the password to and then had BA send her another household account invitation.

British Airways household accounts are GREAT.

Boom! I accepted it, my mom and dad were a household (in BA’s eyes), and we got the ticket booking done. I managed to do all this while the patient rep was on the phone – but it all could have been avoided if I had just known the pin number. Why there is a separate pin number and password is beyond me, but there you go.

Pin Fail 2: United Airlines

As you may have gathered from my post/Twitter/Instagram, I was in Los Angeles for a wedding this past weekend. I had helped the bride and groom book their honeymoon tickets awhile back. Even though I got them onto Lufthansa first class pre-devaluation, I wasn’t too happy with the flights – two redeyes and a few long layovers (over 3 hours). My plan had always been to change their flights as part of their wedding gift a week out, but the busyness of life caused me to not search for award space until…5 hours after they tied the knot.

My original plan was to change the flights without even asking them and then just “presenting” them with their new flights. But, of course, I didn’t know their pin numbers. Fail again. Now, if United had let me change the flights online, it would have been no problem since I had their account passwords, but they did not and thus there was a problem.

So, instead of enjoying the after party with everyone else (though I’m old and exhausted so I probably wouldn’t have anyway), I walked right past the twenty McDonald’s cheeseburgers displayed on the table and grabbed the groom to try to figure out both of their pins. This also blew the surprise. We managed to figure out the bride’s pin in 10 seconds, but we tried all of the groom’s go-to pins and only managed to get ourselves locked out of his account.

This is the kind of cabin you want to fly on your honeymoon

At this point the whole thing almost blew up in my face – a friendly but not super competent United agent had already changed the flights on the groom’s itinerary but not the bride. But since we didn’t have his pin, we couldn’t confirm the flights and I was deathly afraid that I was going to screw things up and they were going to have to fly separately. ALL BECAUSE WE DIDN’T KNOW THE PINS.

Compounding the matter was the fact that the department that resets pins wasn’t even open. So what I did was just leave the groom’s flights in limbo (but with the flights held) and confirmed the bride onto the same flights. I just had to cross my fingers that United wouldn’t release his seats in the next six hours. The next morning I woke up, we called and got everything squared away immediately, but I’d be lying to say if I wasn’t a little nervous.

In the end, everything ended well and the only one who was stressed was me – but it’s my job to be stressed for the people I’m making award bookings for. I thrive off of it and now I can happily send my buddy and his new wife to Italy in style AND without annoying connections! But it would have been so much easier if I had known their pin numbers. Though in this case, he didn’t even know, I guess…

Final Thoughts

Hopefully I’ve impressed upon you the importance of knowing your pin number or securing it somewhere where you can access it easily. Off the top of my head, I remember United, British Airways, and Delta asking me for a pin in the past. If any of you know other airlines which insist you have your pin before you book an award (over the phone), please chime in. And please, airlines, make it so we can book everything online so I don’t have to deal with this madness anymore!