Last week I wrote a three part series about how to think about the value of your frequent flyer miles. The entire series could have been boiled down to three points. 1. The awards for which you redeem set an upper bound on your valuation. 2. The time and effort you expend to earn miles…
Continue reading: 3 Tips To Get More Value From Economy Awards
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
In addition, most one-way economy tickets from Europe or Asia to the USA are horribly, punitively expensive compared to a round-trip.
Friends of mine regularly go on repositioning cruises to Europe from the USA, and then burn one-way economy tickets back. The CPM on those is typically very good.
There is a way to get around the $75 close-in booking fee on American and United, depending on what kind of miles you have. I used that trick to help my sister take a last-minute trip
http://www.pointswithacrew.com/how-to-book-united-american-without-75-close-in-booking-fee/
It involves using an alliance partner (like Air Canada or British Airways) that DOESN'T charge the $75 fee
The twist here is that anytime you are subject to fuel surcharges, the value from economy redemptions usually drops to virtually nothing. It pains me dearly when I see people redeem AA miles for BA economy tickets...
Eponymous coward: Very good point and another good use. I've also had friends book one-ways to or from Europe who were doing study abroad or a long-term internship and didn't know their return dates.
Bgriff -- Absolutely agree that fuel surcharges basically kill the economy redemption, particularly on BA to Europe. That's actually one of the reasons that I don't value AA miles as highly as Ben.
Points With A Crew -- That's a helpful post, but just to be aware it actually involves booking the United flight via Aeroplan. For those with United miles, it's not going to work.
Don't forget about Canada, where even advance fares can be very high compared to the more competitive landscape south of the border. With lots of family up there, I've always found great value redeeming UA 12.5k awards on AC (3 CPM or better).
I recently used tips #1 and #3 to book a trip to Southeast Asia for my husband and myself. I knew we wanted to go to Chiang Mai, so that's our first stop instead of the larger and cheaper hub of Bangkok. We're using Chiang Mai as a stopover before ending up in our "final destination" of Hanoi, again passing through but not stopping in Bangkok. We'll pay out-of-pocket for a cheap ticket back to Bangkok from Hanoi (it's looking to be about $250 for two tickets). Then, we used Singapore points (and about $110 cash for fees) to get from BKK to SIN. Then we're flying out of Singapore to get back home to the States. This itinerary cost us 160,000 United points plus about $200 in fees for two tickets. If we would've paid cash, it would've been over $10,000.
I would submit to you that United miles should never be used for a close-in booking in domestic UA Y because of this fee. It's so much easier to collect MR than MP that I would only use MP domestically if it was for a shorthaul award or perversely, to fly AC because Aeroplan charges YQ on those flights but MP doesn't.
Another situation is hub to hub. For example, only United and Frontier fly nonstop between SFO and IAH. (Yes Southwest flies SFO to HOU.) United's fares are often $500+. I've never seen them below $400. I've seen them over $1,000 last minute. I don't feel so bad when I'm getting over 2 CPM, but I'm missing out on the PQM.