Questions and Answers

Hi Lucky! Just began this hobby and subscribed to your blog and have already gotten a couple of awesome deals, so thanks!

I am planning a quick weekend trip to Taipei from the Philippines and I was hoping to get your feedback on how you tend to treat these types of trips from the perspective of: a) value of using points for short trips vs b) using them to earn points, since they are *relatively* cheap compared to an aspirational trip. In particular, I can pay $50 more to fly Philippine Airlines who is a partner of ANA vs a budget carrier that does not have any major partner that I would be able to accumulate miles with. Do you think it would be worth it given your experience?

[USER=1862]@Lillian S.[/USER], welcome! It really depends on what your goals are. Are you trying to qualify for elite status? Do you travel enough to warrant spending extra money for that? Do you think you will qualify for segments over flown miles? How much are paid fares and how do you value the miles that you would have to use to pay for the trip? Considering these questions should help you with your decision.

@Guarav
[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 16298, member: 79″][USER=1862]@Lillian S.[/USER], welcome! It really depends on what your goals are. Are you trying to qualify for elite status? Do you travel enough to warrant spending extra money for that? Do you think you will qualify for segments over flown miles? How much are paid fares and how do you value the miles that you would have to use to pay for the trip? Considering these questions should help you with your decision.[/QUOTE]

@Guarav Thanks for the reply! Hm, all good questions. I am not a frequent flyer but I have lived in two overseas countries (relative to the US) in the past 5 years so I tend to fly a Trans-Pacific flight at least once (sometimes twice) a year, and would prefer to spend those 10+ hours in business class rather than economy and sometimes like to have a weekend or two away in a nice hotel (this Taipei trip would count as one these weekends!). I would say that is my profile at this point–I’m not sure if that means I am trying to qualify for elite status? I guess I just want to get as much value as I can out of the money and time I do spend travelling, as I assume most people here do 😉

My itinerary so far:
Hotel: I got a pretty good rate at the San Want in Taipei with free breakfast, upgrade pending availability, and late checkout also pending availability. I’ll be charging that on either my Gold Amex or Hilton Amex (trying to hit the minimum spend to get some points for the newly opening Conrad in Manila!).
Flight: Fly Philippine Airlines and earn miles on ANA Mileage Club, who is a partner. Etihad is also a partner but I don’t fly to the Middle East enough for it to make sense to me, whereas I do often travel to Japan.

Any thoughts?