Note:I added this post to the series on BYOE. This post doesn’t exactly “fit” with the others, but I really enjoyed writing it so I wanted to throw it in here.
Can All Your Flights Be Award Flights?
It hadn’t come to my attention until I wrote the earlier post, “Sunk costs and Adverse Selection,” that this might be the first year I ever fly 100% award flights. I’m close to the end of the year–and unless I decide to go somewhere for Christmas (and can’t use miles) it seems like I’ll clock in 0 total miles from paid flights this year. To me this is the travel equivalent of “Inbox Zero,” and something I like to call EQM-Zero. In trying to reach EQM-Zero we’ll step through an average example, and also use some techniques to save on domestic flights.
EQM Zero-the Hunt for No Paid Flights
Can you get to EQM Zero? Maybe. When I look back on my year it is clear that the main reason I was able to do so is because my dates of travel are incredibly flexible. If you have flexibility, in dates, destinations, or class of travel then your only other hurdle is the number of miles you’ll need. Let’s look at how many miles it would take an average flyer to reach EQM-Zero
Average cost per flight vs. Average Miles per flight
Using the number that Delta and United seem to love, $.10 per mile flown I’ll estimate that if you fly 50,000 miles a year you’re looking at spending $5,000 in flights. I’m very sure you can do better than this. Services like Fare Magnet, and the Flight Deal offer under $.05 CPM flights all the time. In fact, one day last month I even Declared Miles were dead, long live cash fares! (I quickly returned to my senses)
Assuming 15 trips a year, our average number of miles flown will be 3,333 miles per trip. Average cost per trip would then be $350. We’ll use these numbers for the rest of this post.
How Many Miles Are Needed to Reach EQM-Zero
This one is a little harder to pin down. Sure you could just assume 25,000 miles per round trip ticket x 15 flights per year = 375,000 Frequent Flyer Miles needed. If you travel with a spouse this number can double. Digging deeper, can you get the average miles used per flight down lower? I think you absolutely can, and have outlined 5 ways in which you can do so:
- – Southwest:
- Note: This is changing as of March 31, 2014. Please see Frugal Travel Lawyer’s post about the devaluation.
- – Avios: With an average flight distance of 3,333 miles you’d only use 10,000 Avios each way. Shorter flights would use less, and longer flights could use more, but we’ll go with the mathematical average for this. An Average of 20,000 avios per R/t
- – Hybrid System: If you live in a DL hub and can use the hybrid system to your advantage you can shave half a flight off of 2 flights. That could mean as little as 25,000 DL miles + 7500 avios or less WN RR points. Total 32,500 miles for 2 flights–Average of 16,250 Miles per round trip.
- – American Airlines: American offers reduced mileage awards to certain locations in the United states and Canada for credit card holders. These are 17,500 miles per redemption versus the 25,000 at full price. Furthermore, you would receive a 10% rebate in those miles up to your first 100,000 miles redeemed each year. I don’t recommend using AA miles domestically since they’re very valuable for international trips, but I wanted to include them here. Average cost 15,750 AA miles round trip.
Using any/all of these tricks whenever possible could bring your total miles used to reach EQM-Zero down much lower. Assuming an equal usage of all these tricks, as well as booking full 25,000 mile tickets whenever none of the above tricks help, you’d be using an average of 19,500. Is this a realistic number? That depends on your demand schedule, and where you’re flying. For some of us, I’m sure it is, for others I don’t think it will be.
Reaching EQM-Zero with the Above Tricks
Given the same 15 flights above, and using the average of 19,500 miles per we’re looking at needing 292,500 on the low end, and 375,000 miles on the high end to make EQM-Zero happen. This could mean a savings of 82,500 miles. Of course this is theoretical–but it gives you an example to shoot for yourself.
375,000 miles is just over 1,000 miles per day, a pretty good goal to give yourself. That doesn’t mean you should attempt to earn 1,000 miles a day for 365 days. The costs to do so will eat up any benefit you will see. Instead try to group things together, earning as many miles as possible. If you’ve followed the Credit card Calendar you’re well on your way to this 300,000 number just off of our first round of applications.
Plan out your trips, book the ones with firm dates using the tips here, and the low level hedge in case there are no low level awards. Set seat alerts, and be ready to book when those seats come open.
Putting it all Together
The biggest benefit to reaching EQM Zero is in the money you’ll save. In our test case we looked at spending $5,000 for our tickets. If we took that same $5,000 and used it all to generate 375,000 miles it would mean an average cost of $.0133 cents per mile. Using the Credit Card Calendar, and some shrewd Milenomics Mileage Runs(MMRs) you should be able to get your actual Cost Per Mile much lower than this. The 196,000 miles we earned on the first round of CCC applications had almost no real cost to them. Assuming you still needed to earn the next 158,000 miles (to get to the full 375,00 miles), even at 1.3 CPM you’d only be spending $2,060 to do so. In reality you might need fewer miles, most of your cost should be your time at your T-Rate, and your cost per mile should be much less than 1.3 CPM.
By reaching EQM Zero you keep more of your hard earned money in your pocket. Lets all focus on getting as close to it as we can, and use the savings to our advantage.
Up next: “The airline equivalent of the free cup of coffee”
Everything below this line is Automatically inserted into this post and is not necessarily endorsed by Milenomics: