Well, I still don’t pay for flights. But I’ve made a massive change to my frequent flyer miles bank, and joined 3 new programs. Amusingly, I think most, if not all 3 are frequently disparaged by the ‘points experts’, so maybe I’m just going doolally due to lack of sleep around these here parts.
The programs I joined and think are really superb are:
- Delta
- JetBlue
- SouthWest
Stop the madness I hear you cry! But there’s a good reason. His name is Dylan, and he’s a cutie, but I don’t want to be on a plane with the little tearaway for more than 8hrs, and ideally no more than half of that. As such, I have new priorities for the next couple of years:
- More domestic travel.
- More options for alternative airports so I spend less time getting to and from the airport and more time on vacation.
Interestingly, I’ve found my mindset isn’t just for when the kiddo is around. For my upcoming flight to Orange County for TravelCon I had the opportunity to fly the flagship JFK-LAX A321 First again, but instead I opted for a crummy old flight, via O’Hare, the first 2hrs of which are in an Economy only plane (and I’m paying domestic F rates). The reason? I just want to get there easily, and JFK adds at least another 1hr to my travel time.
I’m still taking Business/First class flights when I can, but the most important factor is overall comfort/stress levels than bragging rights.
Back to why I picked these three:
Delta – I still haven’t got a ticket back from Orange County – the fastest route back is on Delta… it’s 32.5K in Economy, 55K in First. When earning miles at something between $0 and $0.70 per 1000 via the old SunTrust card, that’s a bargain. I also like them for some fruity partner awards, so I’m just building up a bit of stash, and using them whenever it seems good. That gives me the option to fly back sooner, and get into Whiteplains airport at a reasonable hour.
JetBlue- I just transferred in Membership rewards to load up JetBlue. I’ve had them sitting there for a while with no need of them, but my flight from Cancun in July was looking hopeless. Nothing on AA or UA in saver awards. I actually considered buying 2 (or maybe 3) seats on US Airways at $237 each. After some further hunting I found JetBlue had space non-stop for 12,700 miles each. I transferred enough for 3 seats, but at the last moment elected to hold off on buying one for Dylan as the cheapo in me just won’t rest. I’m monitoring the flight, if it fills up I’ll snag another seat so he has his own.
The ratio for JetBlue is 250MR:200 JetBlue currently (they have periodic bonuses) so I parted with about 50K Membership Rewards. It was actually a tough thing to do, as I am strangely averse to spending them, but I’m happy with the result.
Southwest – companion pass. Hopefully you all know about it (buy one ticket, get one free, even for awards) and the rates are so low on some itineraries that it’s a real steal. You need 110K miles to gain the pass, but I could see me struggling to burn through that in a year if we picked well.
Hotels are changing too
I see me going more upscale in hotels. Typically we would stay in 4-5 star properties, I see that trending upwards as we just need ‘something nice’. The whole parenting thing is quite a drain so we want, nice, neat, easy vacations for a little while in order to get some rest.
Conclusion
When life changes, points strategies, finances and lifestyle all should change with it. We aim to continue to travel as much as possible, but we really are focusing on what is important to us and what we need from the experience with the additional ‘carry on’ that we now have.
Hope to see you guys in TravelCon on Saturday 2/28, i’ll be giving a presentation on some of the things that i’m working on right now, including pushing miles and points beyond travel. There are still some tickets available here.
Having traveled with a little one quite often, I cannot highly recommend enough getting Dylan his own seat, from a safety and sanity standpoint it is a no-brainer, especially considering the extra seat is hardly going to break the bank(mileage or monetary)
Agreed. I actually was planning to today but the fligjt was 90% empty and there were 4 others on JB that day alone.
If it hits 50% or more capacity soon ill pull the trigger, but if it seems empty then im thinking to risk nobody picks the middle seat on an mostly empty flight.
I flew to CUN mid-week in July. It was half empty on DL from ATL. Definitely low season.
Wow- I’d have not thought so (but I don’t really understand seasons) that would be great!
If you just hope for an empty middle seat, you’ll have to figure out how to convince the flight attendants to let you bring on a car seat (if he uses one) when you don’t have a ticket for a seat. When he gets beyond a certain age, you’re going to want to put him down and he won’t just got to sleep.
With a new kid, our hotel strategy is moving toward HI Expresses, Staybridge Suites, Hyatt Places, and airbnb: big, spacious rooms where we can put some space between the infant and her parents without ponying up for a suite.
Embassy Suites are great for family travel.
We play by ear parenting, and I’m sure you know better from having been there. Right now, its a 3hr 45min flight at 11am, so I think we could swing it – but in July he will be 13 months and will be very different…. so I guess we will monitor his behavior prior.
In terms of the car seat, I gate checked it on our last flight when it was chock full.
To me, 13 months is just entering that difficult travel age between 1 year and 2 years, where they are no longer sleeping most of the time and/or content to just sit in your lap… but they are not old enough to watch a movie or play a game or look at a book for very long either. This is the walking up and down the aisles age, which works much better on foreign carriers where the FAs don’t consider the presence of passengers on their airplanes to be a nuisance to them.
You’ll be fine, though. It’s less than 4 hours, which can feel like an eternity, but it just means that neither of you will get to relax much, because you’ll be entertaining your child. Pretty much the life of a parent. Then you’ll get to cancun and realize that sand and beaches are like magic for children, and that they can play all day and all you have to do is sit in a chair and watch them to be sure they don’t wander into the water on their own.
We found Italy to be VERY child friendly. I haven’t been to Spain, but nice to hear that it’s similar in that regard.
I agree that it is just entering that age between 1 and 2 🙂
We’re fine with walking around and entertaining, we are very conscious of the disruption they can make and want to minimize. I do like the length of flight and time of day too, fingers are crossed!
For slightly longer flights, if you don’t want to spring for first/biz, scope out which airline will be most likely to give you a bulkhead seat w/bassinet. I mentioned this in some thread in the forum: DD and her husband found that the best bet for a coach seat from VCE to MSP was Air France. They got one bulkhead and the bassinet both ways. And the seat companion was willing to trade seats with my SIL, out of kindness and/or avoidance of a trans-Atlantic flight with an 8 month old, who knows?
At that age, the bassinet was a safety concern for an awake baby, but at least when he was asleep, one of them could also sleep.
Good info thanks – I’ll have to boost up the Delta miles before considering Air France I think.. but it sounds good.
I think a lot of Europeans are just more kid friendly – the guys on Iberia were amazing (and so was everyone in Spain) regarding having the baby with us.
Welcome to the club, dad. M was never a problem as a lap baby until at least 1. Really wasn’t a problem until she was 23 months 😛 That was a major screwup…
Uh oh.. yeah I think i’m not ready for those years yet 🙂
I’ll offer a couple of tips from a parent in a similar situation. Travelling with the little one gets easier with practice. I think both the parents and the baby learn a little bit on each trip to makes future trips smoother. We had our baby last March. We are NYC-based and had a plan for bringing our little guy into our travelling circle. We knew from the start it would take effort and attention to keep the little guy occupied and pleasant, so we travel with that mindset and the appropriate tools (ie: toys and food). At 4 months we took him as a lap infant in coach on a short flight to Montreal. We better learned how to manage takeoff and landing. At 7 months, we also headed to Cancun. Here we got better managing the little guy for a longer time, still as a lap infant in coach. At 9 months, we took the leap over to London, this time with a seat for him (still in coach) so he could sleep (which he did a bit) on the overnight flight. Probably our best flight was our return trip (Brussels to JFK in business with lap infant again). The little guy quite enjoyed the 8 hour flight because wife and I put our seat in lie-flat mode for most of the trip which gave him plenty of room to sit, stand, or play with his toys. Actually, the hardest part was trying to have our meals and juggle multiple courses and a baby! Next step is a flight with a connection.
Also, I’d be cautious about bringing the car seat on board without a reserved seat. For both legs of our Montreal trip I asked the gate agent if there was room to bring the car seat on board. Both times I was informed the flight was full and I must gate check the car seat. Both times, there was an empty seat next to us (though the flights looked to be about 90% full). Frustrating. This was on American.
After a few hotel stays, my feeling is that things like having a suite or a fridge would be more useful than staying at nicer properties. These days we usually end up back at the room earlier and some extra space is nice to put the baby to sleep and allow us the peace of mind of not worrying about waking him if we move. The fridge is also good for baby food (and adult food and beverage for an early night in).
One more thing, then I’ll stop, I promise. I’ve been sitting on a pile of Amex MR without finding a great use for them. Then I had a baby and found aeroplan and their flat-priced lap infant fees. We booked our BRU-JFK flight through aeroplan for 45k miles and $70 in taxes per seat, plus a flat $100CAD to add a lap infant. Aeroplan’s $50 coach/$100 biz/$150 first class lap infant pricing can work out much better than other some of the other options out there.
Cheers!
One nice thing about young kids (at least my kids): they just love staying in ANY hotel. We could drive 10 minutes to stay at a Holiday Inn Express and they would be thrilled.
Not bad choices for domestic and near int’l travel. Question – where did you change your banking relationships from and to?