Today I’ll expand on a site that everyone needs to get familiar with for booking award travel. Great Circle Mapper (www.gcmap.com) is a site so embedded in award travel searches that I can’t think of a blog that doesn’t use. Today I’ll go over how to use GCmap to find flight distances between routes, and discuss […]
You (and I) Have Probably Been Valuing Miles All Wrong.
Quick recap: Miles are dead, yadda, yadda, yadda… — What’s the value you earned from using your miles instead of buying a ticket in cash? This is an important metric to use; it helps us to decide when to use our miles, it also lets us put a value on the miles we earn. Yesterday we discussed […]
Over the River and Through the Woods–To Grandmother’s House (With Avios) We Go
I’ve been told I sometimes fall into fits of hyperbole, so I’ll be cautious when I say this: By far, the absolute biggest news of 2014 has been the birth of Mini-Milenomics. She’s perfect in every sense of the word, from the top of her head the the tips of her tic-tac-toes: The #1 question […]
Using Delta’s New Search Engine to Find Holiday Awards
Last week a reader, Ray, wrote me to ask for help. He wanted to take his sons on a trip this upcoming holiday with Delta miles, but didn’t care where they went. He’s got total flexibility in destination, but not much as far as dates. Knowing that frequent flyer miles are really “flexible flyer miles” Reader […]
Eliminate Specific Carriers With Restrictive Award Searches on AA.com
Today we’re going back to the basics, and reviewing how to search for award tickets. I’ll be highlighing AA with this post and showing two ways to search for award flights while specifically excluding carriers you don’t want to fly on. In today’s example we’ll go with one of the toughest AA awards out there; […]
The Shortest Distance Between Two Points is Not Always a Straight Line
Yesterday we discussed a complex and risky strategy to earn miles while paying an American Express card. Today we’ll look at a way to drive our costs down in a similar nonstandard way. I’ve discussed the following in bits and pieces before on the blog, and elsewhere. One of the keys to a successful personal […]
How to Use flightconnections.com to Find Award Routes
Today we’re continuing our Milenomics basics series. We’ll be talking about airline routes, and how to find/figure out who flies where. We’ve talked about routes before here on Milenomics; Unfortunately the software I prefer to use is no longer being updated/maintained by its origianl author. The last post in this series had extensive information on partners and alliances. […]
How Delta Tried to Turn Car Trouble into Highway Robbery
I’ll be the first to admit the story that follows is mostly my fault. I’m sharing it to 1) Serve as a cautionary tale, and 2) Tell Delta that I will not give into their attempts at extortion. — When you travel enough eventually Murphy’s law catches up with you. Last Tuesday was my turn apparently. As I detailed here on the blog […]
How to Book Low Level Delta Awards (without going crazy)
Today we’ll use some of the tools we’ve been covering in our back to basics series. What follows is a real booking I’ve made, from LAX-CUN and back with Delta miles. I’ll go over how I handled the search, and tips to book low level Delta awards and get them to price out correctly. My wife and […]
Rookie Booking–How to Book Award Flights on United.com
Note: Today’s post is targeted to #101 level Milenomics. There may be cheaper and easier ways to book some of the flights discussed below if you’re a more advanced mile collector or spender. Today’s post is simply meant to introduce the idea of booking with United miles. Today’s post is another in the “Rookie Booking” […]