The Delta/Virgin Atlantic partnership is one to keep in mind any time you see low-level award availability on either airline. Last April we flew on Virgin Atlantic Upper Class using Delta SkyMiles. Next April we’re planning to fly DeltaOne using Virgin Atlantic miles. Ironically, it’s almost always better to pay with the partner’s miles rather […]
Breaking Through Peak Vacation Airfare Pricing with Partner Awards
Booking windows are just opening up for the Massachusetts school break in April 2020. And as usual, the opening salvo from carriers like Delta is a bit of a gut punch. But with a Delta partner award, I was able to find great award pricing on direct flights at perfect times. Let’s work through an […]
Using British Airways Avios for Boston-Chicago Flights on AA
I’m in the market for flights from BOS-ORD around the 4th of July break. The route is served by American, United, JetBlue, and Spirit. Plus you can always fly to Midway instead of O’Hare. So it’s a very competitive route with a lot of options. Let’s see how this one shook out… Economy/First Price Compression […]
Tips and Tricks: Booking JAL Premium Cabin Awards for a Family of Four
Have you ever arrived at an event – say a theme park – right when it opened and felt like other people had been there long before you? Disney does this at their parks. People staying at their hotels get in early. And they sell tickets to events before the park opens/after it closes, effectively […]
Unlocking Award Availability with Bank Point Transfers to International Frequent Flyer Programs
Most people realize that you can use US frequent flyer miles (United, American, Delta) for award travel on Star Alliance, OneWorld, and SkyTeam partners. The hard part about this is finding partner award availability. Today, I’d like to talk about transferring bank points to international frequent flyer programs. Many international airlines release award space far […]
Making EU261 Work for You
This is a guest post from a lifelong friend we visited last summer in Germany. Thanks to him for sharing his thoughts on this. -Robert Our story has two parts, each of which caused us to suffer a 24 hour delay returning home on a British Airways flight from Phoenix to Munich. We are currently […]
Dog Catches Car: The AA Etihad Apartment Trick Worked But I Let It Go
I was saying a couple of weeks ago how I did some research on booking Etihad Apartments with AA miles and found that I was unable to do so. See: What I Learned: Booking An Award For Travel On Etihad But after some more exploring, along with guidance from experts, I found that I was able […]
This Week in Bank Points: Booking El Al Business Class Flights
I recently spent some time learning about El Al’s award scheme while helping a family member book roundtrip flights in Business Class. I thought I’d summarize my findings here in case you find yourself interested in visiting Israel and booking El Al Business Class with points. Want: Boston to Tel Aviv round-trip in Business Class […]
What I Learned: Booking an award for travel on Etihad
I ended up going down quite a rabbit hole recently while trying to figure out the best way of booking an award for travel on Etihad – using their miles or that of a partner airline like AA. I was exploring options from Boston -or- New York to Southeast Asia and ultimately decided on Phuket, Thailand […]
You Can Now Earn Airline Miles for Shopping at GiftCards.com
Online purveyor of gift cards GiftCards.com is now appearing in airline shopping portals. Judging from Cashback Monitor‘s handy rate history functionality, this appears to be a new development. Best Options for GiftCards.com Cashback Of late cashback portals rates have hovered in the 1-1.25% range. A couple of portals not listed on Cashback Monitor still pay […]