I fly to Europe from the US 2x per year, so of course I play the frequent flier miles game. This is useful in keeping my total travel expense down. I typically spend the miles as soon as possible, since the airlines can devalue them at any time. But United still has a fixed award chart, meaning the redemption cost is based on region, not the cash cost of the ticket. So it's worthwhile to check cash ticket prices when oil prices are low; no sense in redeeming 60k miles for a $600 ticket when I can do the same for an $800 ticket in 4 months.
Somewhat surprisingly, round trip tickets are still $800, which is not a great price. Maybe I could use half miles and half cash? I spent a lot of time searching, including changing origin/destination, switching airlines after arriving in Europe, etc. Here are the options I came up with:
All cash roundtrip - $800
All miles roundtrip - 60k miles
Half Miles, Half Cash - 30k miles and $380 (including fees)
Not great. All the extra hassle of switching between low-cost carriers would only save me $20, at best.
I was about to give up and just redeem all those miles when another idea popped into my head: what if I start my itinerary from Europe instead of the US?
Since I know I'll be flying to Europe again in the spring, I'll start my itinerary from Europe, "visit" the US for 160 days, then return to Europe to start my spring trip. And I'll cash in 30k miles for a 1-way to Europe this fall. So now I have:
Oct: US -> Europe
Nov: Europe -> US
Apr: US -> Europe
I'll cover the October flight with 30k miles, then pay cash for the round trip. Cash price for the Europe-US round trip? $450.
I'm pretty pleased with that.
Saving money on flights
Re: Saving money on flights
Is it just me or have airlines started actually calculating round trip costs with one way costs? So one way + one way = round trip? At least for domestic US flights.. This simplifies a lot of planning.
I had a similar hack for a Europe trip. The scheduling required two rounds trip flights, but the combination that ended up being many hundreds of dollars cheaper was having one roundtrip being the earliest and latest date, and another trip being the middle dates; as opposed to strictly chronological trips.
I had a similar hack for a Europe trip. The scheduling required two rounds trip flights, but the combination that ended up being many hundreds of dollars cheaper was having one roundtrip being the earliest and latest date, and another trip being the middle dates; as opposed to strictly chronological trips.
Re: Saving money on flights
When I've checked prices it seems that the cheap airlines will just add the cost of each trip. British Airways have a system where there are several price tiers, and the price of the second flight depends on which day you did the first flight. I haven't found a clear pattern, though. Sometimes the second flight will become cheaper if you select a more expensive first flight, and sometimes it will become more expensive. It does not seem to depend on the day of the week.bryan wrote:I had a similar hack for a Europe trip. The scheduling required two rounds trip flights, but the combination that ended up being many hundreds of dollars cheaper was having one roundtrip being the earliest and latest date, and another trip being the middle dates; as opposed to strictly chronological trips.
Re: Saving money on flights
For transatlantic flights at least, that's not what I've found. Low-cost carriers operate this way, so in places where they operate (within Europe, withing the US), the traditional carriers are more likely to offer competitive one-way fares. But you're right, if individual flight segments didn't have variable pricing, planning would be simplified.bryan wrote:Is it just me or have airlines started actually calculating round trip costs with one way costs? So one way + one way = round trip? At least for domestic US flights.. This simplifies a lot of planning.
Re: Saving money on flights
Your hack for purchasing the tickets starting in Europe is clever.
When I was travelling a lot internationally for work, I still had to research and buy by own tickets (reimbursement was simple, though). We were encouraged to use Kayak to find the cheapest flights regardless of reward program. I quickly learned what airlines shared reward miles (Cathay and AA, for example), and what class of ticket to purchase to get the miles (the cheapest ticket doesn't always qualify). I still ended up earning platinum-level rewards on multiple airlines instead of just one, but didn't have to pay for a personal ticket for a very long time.
My best tip is to browse the international airlines instead of the US ones. Flying to China, for example, Cathay Pacific and EVA are usually cheaper than the American options and always much nicer. As mentioned earlier, the miles may still transfer to local flights depending on what you choose.
When I was travelling a lot internationally for work, I still had to research and buy by own tickets (reimbursement was simple, though). We were encouraged to use Kayak to find the cheapest flights regardless of reward program. I quickly learned what airlines shared reward miles (Cathay and AA, for example), and what class of ticket to purchase to get the miles (the cheapest ticket doesn't always qualify). I still ended up earning platinum-level rewards on multiple airlines instead of just one, but didn't have to pay for a personal ticket for a very long time.
My best tip is to browse the international airlines instead of the US ones. Flying to China, for example, Cathay Pacific and EVA are usually cheaper than the American options and always much nicer. As mentioned earlier, the miles may still transfer to local flights depending on what you choose.
Re: Saving money on flights
There are a couple of things people need to know when looking at buying flight tickets.
First, you need to understand what 'dynamic pricing' is all about. If you understand that, then you will understand that there is no way to ever know when you have the best price for a given flight or when is the best time to buy a ticket.
Second, third party websites are NOT necessarily the best way to find prices. If you give about 2 seconds of thought, common sense should tell you that you are then paying 2 parties for your ticket. The airline and the third party. As the saying goes, 'eliminate the middleman' is just as applicable to this as it has ever been to anything else. Often booking directly with the airline will get you the same or a better price and believe me, if anything goes wrong, dealing directly with the airline will be a lot easier than through that third party booking website. I always book directly with the airline and use sites such as Kayak etc. ONLY to check prices. I've never not been able to get the same or a better price booking directly with the airline.
Third, air miles are not necessarily the best way to pay for flights either. There is a difference between 'air miles' and 'frequent flyer miles'. Air miles are usually 'earned' by using a credit card that gives you them as a 'reward' for using their card. Frequent flyer miles have nothing to do with credit cards. They are awarded to members of an airline (or airline alliance) frequent flyer program.
While business travellers can accumulate signifigant numbers of frequent flyer miles if they fly often enough, the average consumer cannot. The average consumer talks about air miles based on using their credit card. While you are talking about frequent flyer miles Chris, some readers may be thinking air miles and so I think it is important for them to understand the difference.
Using a credit card that gives you air miles provides someone with some kind of monetary value. As you point out Chris, how much miles are worth varies. Use them for one flight that cost $600 or use them for a flight that costs $800, same miles, different value. For this reason, I do not collect 'air miles' using a credit card. I prefer to collect cash.
I use a credit card for almost all my spending. Simply put and without going into a lot of detailed explanation, it pays me 3% on about half my spending and 2% on the rest of my spending. That's CASH I can use for anything at all, not just flights. So look at the math.
If you collect air miles that will pay for a $600 flight or an $800 flight, how much are your points worth? Well it obviously depends on which flight you take. But here's the thing. What if it is the $600 flight you WANT to take and not the $800 flight? You don't say, 'ok I won't use the points, I'll pay for the flight and save the points for when I want to take an $800 flight'. Not if you are the average person looking to take a vacation to X.
Now consider my cash reward card. It pays me $800 whether I take an $800 flight or a $600 flight. Actually, it pays me $1000 if I spend the same amount using the card as you have to spend to get that $800 flight with air miles. Trust me, I've done the comparisons. The best air miles cards do not equal the best cash reward cards in REAL monetary rewards.
So my point is that frequent flyer points collected by those who travel often are a good thing. Air miles collected using a credit card by the average person who does not do a lot of business travel by air are not necessarily the best thing to use.
First, you need to understand what 'dynamic pricing' is all about. If you understand that, then you will understand that there is no way to ever know when you have the best price for a given flight or when is the best time to buy a ticket.
Second, third party websites are NOT necessarily the best way to find prices. If you give about 2 seconds of thought, common sense should tell you that you are then paying 2 parties for your ticket. The airline and the third party. As the saying goes, 'eliminate the middleman' is just as applicable to this as it has ever been to anything else. Often booking directly with the airline will get you the same or a better price and believe me, if anything goes wrong, dealing directly with the airline will be a lot easier than through that third party booking website. I always book directly with the airline and use sites such as Kayak etc. ONLY to check prices. I've never not been able to get the same or a better price booking directly with the airline.
Third, air miles are not necessarily the best way to pay for flights either. There is a difference between 'air miles' and 'frequent flyer miles'. Air miles are usually 'earned' by using a credit card that gives you them as a 'reward' for using their card. Frequent flyer miles have nothing to do with credit cards. They are awarded to members of an airline (or airline alliance) frequent flyer program.
While business travellers can accumulate signifigant numbers of frequent flyer miles if they fly often enough, the average consumer cannot. The average consumer talks about air miles based on using their credit card. While you are talking about frequent flyer miles Chris, some readers may be thinking air miles and so I think it is important for them to understand the difference.
Using a credit card that gives you air miles provides someone with some kind of monetary value. As you point out Chris, how much miles are worth varies. Use them for one flight that cost $600 or use them for a flight that costs $800, same miles, different value. For this reason, I do not collect 'air miles' using a credit card. I prefer to collect cash.
I use a credit card for almost all my spending. Simply put and without going into a lot of detailed explanation, it pays me 3% on about half my spending and 2% on the rest of my spending. That's CASH I can use for anything at all, not just flights. So look at the math.
If you collect air miles that will pay for a $600 flight or an $800 flight, how much are your points worth? Well it obviously depends on which flight you take. But here's the thing. What if it is the $600 flight you WANT to take and not the $800 flight? You don't say, 'ok I won't use the points, I'll pay for the flight and save the points for when I want to take an $800 flight'. Not if you are the average person looking to take a vacation to X.
Now consider my cash reward card. It pays me $800 whether I take an $800 flight or a $600 flight. Actually, it pays me $1000 if I spend the same amount using the card as you have to spend to get that $800 flight with air miles. Trust me, I've done the comparisons. The best air miles cards do not equal the best cash reward cards in REAL monetary rewards.
So my point is that frequent flyer points collected by those who travel often are a good thing. Air miles collected using a credit card by the average person who does not do a lot of business travel by air are not necessarily the best thing to use.
Re: Saving money on flights
Especially if it's your employer (or customer) paying for the flights! Whoever in the airline world decided that frequent flyer miles should go to the person flying and not to whoever pays is a genius - business travellers very often get to decide which airline and flight to take for their business trips.OldPro wrote:So my point is that frequent flyer points collected by those who travel often are a good thing.
Re: Saving money on flights
It is not unusual for companies to insist that frequent flyer points earned by employees be used for future business trips Henrik. Not all let the employee have the benefit.