Advanced Award Booking Techniques | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep279 | 11-1-24 | Podcast

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Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?

Follow along here!

If you learn a few advanced tricks, you can book awards for less miles than you’d think, and for better products or flights than you might think as well.

Watch the full episode below, or listen on your favorite podcast platform. You can click the timestamps below to navigate directly to a specific part of the episode within YouTube. For a transcript of this episode, click “Watch on Youtube” on the video below, then click the “…more” link in the video description. This will expand full video details. Scrolling down past the timestamps and chapters, you’ll see a “Show Transcript” button. If you’re an Apple Podcast listener, you can touch and hold a podcast episode to reveal an option to view a transcript.

Main Event: Advanced Award Booking Techniques

Mailbag

(01:07) – About our Coffee Break: Earn miles while saving and paying for college | Coffee Break Ep31 | 10-28-24 | Podcast

See episode 31 of Coffee Break “Earn miles while saving and paying for college” here.

(01:36) – Giftcards dot com added fee – it still seems to be earning GCdotcom rewards, but might not last

(02:14) – One reader says as of 2024, you can rollover 529s into Roth IRAs.

Million Mile Madness Challenge Update

Learn more about our ongoing challenge at https://millionmilemadness.com

(05:44) – Quick recap

SAS Eurobonus allows points pooling (Read more about SAS points pooling here.)

(06:52) – Stephen is all booked!

Read Stephen’s Million Mile Madness journal here.

(08:35) – Read Nick’s Million Mile Madness journal here.

(11:36) – Greg: “Speed and Style”

Read Greg’s Million Mile Madness journal here.

Mattress Running the Numbers

(17:05) – Marriott Homes & Villas promo: Stay 2+ nights & spend $1k+ to earn 30K bonus points

Read more about the Marriott Homes & Villas promo here.

Awards, Points, and More

(18:24) – Choice enhances program in 2025

Read about Choice Privileges improvements coming in 2025 here.

(20:19) – Virgin Atlantic’s dynamic award pricing is live

Read more about Virgin Atlantic’s dynamic award pricing here.

(23:03) – United increasing elite requirements for 2025

(24:41) – DOT Refund Rule

(26:56) – JetBlue’s excellent status match
Find our episode about JetBlue’s status match here.

Main Event: Advanced award booking techniques

(27:39) – Last minute bookings/changes

(29:53) – Same day changes

(32:09) – What is Skiplagging?

(35:37) – Mix cabins for lower prices

(39:25) – Start to End Distance based pricing

(43:37) – Weird pricing

(45:50) – Distance based award tricks…

(51:59) – Avoid sucky programs

Question of the Week

(1:01:33) – How can I time an Amex Platinum consumer card downgrade to gold card in order to get maximum credits from each, and what happens if I upgrade again later… would I get the benefits again?

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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder

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kunal

Hello and @Greg,

Thank you for another great episode. One thing I want to add is that often when booking award tickets for a future date, the airlines tend to change the schedule and provide free change/cancellation for the tickets. Ex: AA frequently changes the flight timing 2-3 months before the flight, so I tend to book the cheapest flight (non-desirable) and then change it to a desirable option when they do a flight schedule change.

One question: On the automatic refunds in the DOT rules, will this apply to award tickets as well?

Last edited 16 days ago by kunal
Eric

One data point I just discovered on the bad partners list. Despite what the terms say, when I made an Etihad booking on AA a couple weeks ago, my expiration date was updated to 18 months from the booking I made.

I’m way less nervous about totally squandering too many miles because I messed up my points transfer for a 5k each way booking this spring.

DaveS

On the automatic refunds in the DOT rules – are we sure an airline won’t just refund a ticket rather than rebook you on another flight, especially in a challenging situation where they’re needing to re-accommodate a lot of people? When my flight is canceled, I almost always want to be put on the next flight, not get my money back. I really don’t want to be stranded somewhere needing to buy a one-way walkup fare to get home, after they cheerfully reimburse my cheap ticket.