Houston-Cabo - What miles to use?

FlyingExplorer

Travel, Tastes, & Tennis
What's the cheapest points/miles currency to use for this route?

IAH-SJD is 1007 miles. United has nonstop flights.

How much would it cost with ANA or SQ miles? I have lots of Chase and SPG points and I don't mind switching planes.

Do you have any ideas or advice?

1. What route are you looking for? IAH-SJD
2. What dates do you want to travel (mention how flexible you are)? Departing April 16/17 and returning April 19/20.
3. Do you want to fly first, business, or coach? (maybe also "are you willing to fly coach for a positioning flight") Economy
4. How many passengers? 1
5. How many points do you have, in which programs? Lots of points in lots of programs including Chase and SPG.
 

taxicabnumber

Level 2 Member
Do you have either (a) US Bank FlexPerks or (b) Citi TYP and a Prestige card (or TYP + a friend with a Prestige card)? Looks like IAH-SJD is pricing at $361 RT on AA/US. This would be ~22,500 Citi TYP or 20k FlexPoints (and that includes taxes/fees) -- and you'd earn a AA/US miles back in the process. You also get more flexibility with time of day you'd like to travel. In terms of other options:

1. Because IAH-SJD is 2012 miles RT (darn that extra 12 miles!) it would be 22K + taxes with ANA.
2. It would be 35k SQ or UA miles + taxes, so definitely not the best deal.

Taxes and fees to Mexico are on the expensive side (about $90-100 RT, as opposed to the mere $11.20 RT you'd pay if it were domestic!).

3. You could consider Avios, but because you'd have to connect, and I only see availability through PHX (don't see any IAH-DFW-SJD availability right now, and IAH-DFW-LAX-SJD isn't gonna save you jack), it would cost you 4*7500 = 30k Avios + taxes.
4. If you instead found availability through DFW, it would still be 24k Avios, aka still not a great deal. If you wanted to drive to DFW and fly nonstop that would still be 15k Avios + $90-100 in taxes + your driving costs/time.
 

FlyingExplorer

Travel, Tastes, & Tennis
taxicabnumber, thank you so much!!!

1. ANA: Bummer. How much would it cost if it were less thank 2000 miles RT? Still 22k would not be too bad if there nonstop flights on United were available. Is there any way these days to set an alert to be notified if these become available. I only now have the expensive AwardNexus service. By the way if I book with partner miles on UA metal, will my UA Silver status get me free Economy Plus on the day of departure?

2. SQ/UA/LM: Yeah, that does not sounds enticing at all, even if I were to use LifeMiles.

3. and 4. BA: Ok, yeah, that doesn't sounds too exciting.

5. WN: I looked at Southwest too. It is weird. From HOU to SJD shows plenty of availability with 1 stop for a total of 10,500 points + $28.30. However, for the return, there is barely any availability and the few days that do, it costs a ridiculous amount. What's going on there? Southwest would have the added benefit that I might be able to add a companion for the cost of the taxes.

6. TYP/FlexPoints: Unfortunately, I have neither ThankYou nor FlexPoints. It sounds like it would have been the way to go. How many ThankYou or FlexPoints would the nonstop on United cost? It costs $608.
 

taxicabnumber

Level 2 Member
With respect to ANA, it'd be 2k miles less if it were under 2000 miles RT. Not a huge difference, so if you can find saver availability on the IAH-SJD n/s that might be your best bet.

I didn't even think of WN! My guess is that the return is during some sort of peak season. You could always use WN one way and 15k Avios pp via PHX to get home (and there's space for that). Unfortunately you'd be out the taxes/fees (or whatever the Avios flight change fee is - $50?) if you wanted to later switch SJD-PHX-IAH to SJD-DFW-IAH...your call on whether it'd be worth $50 to save 3k Avios (I wouldn't, but that's because of the cheap acquisition costs via MS). This is only probably worth it if you take your companion.

In terms of TYP/FlexPoints, 1 TYP = $0.016 when redeemed for AA/US by a Citi Prestige cardholder; 1TYP = $0.0133 if redeemed for any other airline by a Citi Prestige cardholder; 1TYP = $0.0125 if redeemed for airfare by a Citi TY Premier cardholder; and 1 TYP = $0.01 if redeemed by airfare by someone who holds neither Premier nor Prestige. You can freely transfer your TYP to someone else (but they expire within 90 days of doing so, so only do so if they're going to use them immediately!).

FlexPoints can be either great or useless depending on your itinerary: 20k FlexPoints = a ticket up to $400 (so a $100 ticket costs the same as a $399 ticket); 30k FlexPoints for a ticket between $400 and $600; 40k if between $600 and $800; 50k if between $800 and $1000; then the intervals get less frequent (70k for $1400, 100k for $2000, and it keeps going but I can't imagine redeeming for something that high). In your case, since the revenue ticket is $361, you'd be getting 1.8 cents per point; the $608 n/s would cost you 40k points though, a slightly lower valuation. I've had good luck redeeming these for $370-390ish tickets (think cheap but non-fire-sale-level transcons, or anything to Canada since the average fare to Canada seems to consist of a $50 base fare with $300 in Canadian airport taxes :p )
 
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