Can’t find an Award Deal – Part 3 getting (even more) free travel

This is the final part of the short series on looking at sister airports.  This will discuss how to leverage regional quirks to increase value from travel, and leveraging a blend of mileage programs can create interesting combinations of value.  To quickly recap the posts thus far:

• Part 1 – Can’t find an award ticket, what would Mahomet do?  A look at increasing your award flight options by broadening your home airport and including repositioning flights.
• Part 2 – Taking a Destination approach to award booking – Working backwards from Destination to Origin to create different departure airport options that you might not have first considered, and looking at lesser known, alternative airports.

In this final segment I want to look at how to take these concepts and push them a step further, creating more free travel from a single ticket, and getting award travel at a discounted rate, which can make the difference between opting to use your miles in Economy, Business, or even First Class, and make for an amazing adventure.  I will explore two ways to implement this, both should offer an interesting twist on your vacation plans.  It should also look at two of the most controversial award program changes of the recent weeks – American Airlines dropping its stopover benefit, and US Airways increasing Asia awards to 120K, we don’t let such things ruin our plans!

Finding a Sister Region rather than a Sister Airport

Once we are comfortable with the notion of broadening our horizons for our departure airport, why not take it a step further and seek out airports that are located in lower price point regions?  Thus far in the series I have talked about using British Airways Avios for short hops, and American Airlines AAdvantage for Europe, and now I am going to talk about where I would spend my US Airways Dividend Miles (USDM).  The answer is South and Central Asia(4).

South and Central Asia(4) Region includes: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Chagos, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

If any of these places are on your bucket list, then this post could be interesting to you, a quick glance at the US Airways Partner Award chart will explain why:

What we have here is a value opportunity that can be leveraged nicely.  By opting to fly out on your journey from 2 specific regions; either The Caribbean or   Mexico/Central America you can get a cheaper ticket.  By repositioning you get a bonus.

One of the major issues from my proposing repositioning was if you fly from home to a ‘sister’ airport for departure you add in more risk.  Reader UCIPASS left the following comment that is pertinent here:

AA to/from AA or a oneworld® Carrier
If a customer is holding separate tickets on AA or another oneworld carrier, customers holding separate tickets where travel is on oneworld airlines should be treated as through ticketed passengers. In the event of a disruption on the originating ticket, the carrier responsible for the disruption will be required to reroute the customer to their final destination. The ticket stock of the second ticket must be of a oneworld carrier, eligible under the Endorsement Waiver Agreement. You may contact AA Reservations 1-800-433-7300 (U.S. and Canada) or outside the U.S. and Canada, reference Worldwide Reservations Numbers for additional information if the separate ticket is for travel on a oneworld carrier.

So what that means is that if you use Avios to position to Cabo San Lucas, then use USDM on a different ticket to take you to Thailand – you should be covered throughout the entire trip by the alliance.  However, let’s go one further.  Because I know that even when there is a rule in place to protect me, I still can get stressed out, and Allison and I have a rule where we don’t celebrate being on vacation until we actually are sitting on that plane!

So, let’s look at two strategies that reduce risk and stress and mean we don’t need to lean so heavily on alliance coverage in the event of a miss-step.

Leverage Stopover Rules to make two vacations

What is the best way to reduce stress? Take another vacation! American just killed their stopover rules, but as far as I can gather US Airways still allows one at certain ‘portal airports’ on International routes.  The US portals are:

Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Washington

 

Let’s look at our friend from Salt Lake City again:

• Jan 1st: Salt Lake City – Cabo San Lucas – Delta (miles or paid ticket) [TICKET A]
• Jan 8th Cabo- Los Angeles (Portal Airport – stopover 4 months) [TICKET B]
• Jan 8th Los Angeles – Salt Lake City (TICKET C – 4500 Avios)
• Apr 8th Salt Lake City – Los Angeles (TICKET D – 4500 Avios)
• Apr 8th Los Angeles- Bangkok (TICKET B)
• April 18th Bangkok-Los Angeles (TICKET B)
• April 18th Los Angeles – Cabo (TICKET B) 

Total Charge:

1. 9000 Avios for SLC-LAX round trip (economy)
2. 90000 USDM for Cabo- Bangkok (Business Class)
3. Cost of flight from SLC-Cabo

By leveraging the stopover in the Portal airport of Los Angeles (LAX)  you can create two distinct vacations.  I used to do this a lot with American Airlines until they recently changed their rules, but it seems that US Air still allows this- I may be wrong about that or it may be changing, but the website does state this is still allowed.

Problem with this concept there is a line in the terms and conditions as follows:

Open jaw travel (flying to one city and returning from another) is not permitted when an en route stopover is included in the award itinerary. The distance between the 2 open jaw cities cannot exceed the distance of the outbound or return trip. Itinerary restrictions may apply.

So, by selecting the stopover in LAX you trigger the rule that means you must keep the same Origin Airport.  So, you are going to be booked all the way back to Cabo at the end of the trip.  If you love Cabo there is nothing stopping you bolting on a few more days at the end of your trip to Bangkok (BKK), since you haven’t seen the place in months, but it might not be ideal.  There wouldn’t be a non stop flight from BKK so you would be deplaning in LAX.  Some people might pack hand luggage only and just throwaway the final leg to Cabo.

If you consider that a roundtrip from SLC-BKK using USDM would cost 120,000 USDM points, by adding in a second vacation you have reduced your overall cost considerably.

Pre-gaming a big vacation

Another way to build this discounted trip would be to eliminate the stopover and therefore trigger the Open-Jaw rules.

An Open Jaw ticket is one that allows your final airport to be different from your origin airport.

If we consider the Bangkok journey in Business Class to be the bucket list trip, why not reduce the cost of the flight by flying into Cabo and then out again without the stopover in LAX?  Because the flight from SLC-Cabo is a separate ticket, you can build in a stopover of your choice without triggering any US Airways terms and conditions, so the following itinerary would work:

• Jan 1st: Salt Lake City – Cabo San Lucas – Delta (miles or paid ticket) [TICKET A]
• Jan 4th Cabo- Los Angeles-Bangkok (change planes and head to BKK) [TICKET B]
• Jan 12th Bangkok-Salt Lake City (Open Jaw TICKET B)

Total Charge:

1. 90000 USDM for Cabo- Bangkok – Salt Lake City (Business Class)
2. Cost of flight from SLC-Cabo

In this case you can control how many days you want to be in Cabo before you depart, it could be the next day (reducing the stress of a same day connection) or you could even spend a few days  on the beach before heading off to Thailand.  Personally, I would find such a detour fun, not so much if I was doing it all in one day, but over a few days the vacation starts early.

Conclusion

For two tickets in International Business Class the savings would be 60,000 USDM for doing this.  If you can find a way to reach the sister airport in these lower regions you capture massive savings on your trip, there would be some additional cost attached with getting from your ‘normal’ airport to the ‘sister region’ airport, but there are unique perks to each approach outlined here:

• Method 1 Take a free vacation: You draw a distinct line between two trips and end up with a discounted flight. LAX-BKK RT should cost 120K USDM but you get it for 90K and you get to fly Cabo-LAX included in that 90K (and back to Cabo if you want to vacation there at the end)
• Method 2 – Pregame: You add on another destination to your vacation for an overall discount in airmiles, and are allowed to return all the way to your true home airport on that ticket as an open-jaw.

Cabo is a great example as it is a lovely location and convenient for the LAX ‘Portal’ but it is hardly alone.  People on the east coast could find a number of interesting blends of this concept, such as:

• NYC-St Thomas – NYC (Stopover) 6 months
• NYC-BKK-NYC
• Cost 90K USDM plus the flight to St Thomas

Booking like this will require you to call in as the US Airways website won’t allow you to construct in this manner.  I believe this benefit will end soon as the Award programs of AA and US continue to merge, so if you have a bucket list, get working on it!