If you haven’t had a chance to read Tiffany’s post about booking award flights to Hawaii, stop reading this and click the link. It’s not only an excellent compilation of award options to Hawaii, it’s also an important lesson that is often overlooked when it comes to collecting miles and points. Your points are only…
Continue reading: Getting Creative When Award Space Isn’t Available
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
For your flight to Cabo, could you have cancelled the tix with BA, received Avios back, and only lost the taxes originally paid?
I've done similar with BA tix and only lost taxes paid instead of paying for a change fee.
@Mike: the end of your post is the key to this whole hobby (do you use the word "hobby"? I'm not sure it's right. A whole separate post on that subject, please, by each of you, T, B). You said "And even after you’ve booked your trip, keep an eye out for new space or other options."
My favourite trips are BR YYZ-BKK in J. BR releases J seats to/from Canada 10-14 days out. Sometimes they add more seats at T-24h. Wait until the very last minute? That's hard.
But it gets worse: with all its faults, Aeroplan offers two free stopovers on a roundtrip. That's a big benefit but there's a big catch. One must book homebound flights at the outset to qualify for a stopover. My tactic is to book placeholder UA seats in Y, then change to BR J when seats appear during my journey.
It's funny how different our psychology is about credit cards and flight bookings. By being very promiscuous about cards and very flexible (and confident) about flight availability, we get the goodies. Those who require stability and certainty pay more and/or ride in the back.
@Jason - you are exactly correct and I've done that many times for domestic trips where the taxes were only $6. In this case, taxes for the two of them came to $170, so it was definitely not something I wanted to pay if I could avoid it.
You're going to have a great time in Cabo. My family reports that it's a wonderful place.
But all your beautiful photos for this post are all of Maui. There are some great Haleakala shots. That's a great place, too. Don't let your thwarted Maui love deprive you of the Cabo magic. Maui will be there for you when someday award space opens up.
I recommend spending some time outside the touristy zones at a real Mexican market and eating street food. And my Cabo contacts love renting a vehicle to spend some time at a remote undeveloped beach. But the regular tourist routine is great in itself when the natural environment is so crazy excellent.
could you explain more how you were able to use avios points to fly from phoenix to Cabo? Did you book through ba? aa?
@Logan - We booked using Avios at BA.com. The total for the four of us was 60K Avios and $340 in taxes.