This week at Frequent Miler, we shared some award booking tips on the podcast that might help you book that elusive trip. Meanwhile, Greg, Stephen, and I have been furiously trip-planning with an eye toward the elusive perfect answer to the Million Mile Madness challenge. Around the award space, we’ve seen some big time changing tides: Avios is out as a good way of booking American Airlines awards and Choice Privileges is soon to expand its award booking window to 50 weeks in advance. All that and more in this week in review.
This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
Advanced Award Booking Techniques | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep279 | 11-1-24 | Podcast
On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, Greg and I discuss some of the more advanced techniques we use to book awards. Sometimes, getting a great award is as simple as tweaking the final destination of your search…..sometimes you can save miles by flying more. Those concepts and more on this week’s show.
How to use Google Flights to find great deals [Video]
Google Flights is an incredibly powerful tool that can do so much more than just searching a simple round trip. I love that you can do things like search for flights to an entire country / continent / region and filter by alliance or specific airline. This week’s new “How to” video on Youtube is is particularly timely and relevant for anyone looking to take up the SAS EuroBonus offer to earn 1,000,000 miles by flying 15 qualifying SkyTeam airlines by the end of the year. I know that my eyes have spent more time on Google flights this week than my eye doctor would recommend as we flex it to plan the best Million Mile Madness trip….
Now competing with both Speed & Style (Greg’s Million Mile Madness planning journal)
As you likely know by now, Greg, Stephen, and I are taking up that SAS EuroBonus promotion and seeing who can complete it with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style. In Greg’s case, he’s thrown “affordability” out the window and he is now hoping to dominate on both speed and style. I was pretty confident that I must have had Greg beaten on Speed, but I’m now second-guessing that confidence because I realize that there were probably some great flight options that I just didn’t consider because of price. I think Stephen and I are going to have to make it our mission not to let him win the “Style” category or we might be in trouble! That said, if Greg doesn’t spend significantly less than the million miles are worth, I think the lack of affordability could come back to haunt him . . .
Update: All Booked! Stephen’s Million Mile Madness planning journal
Stephen is also hoping that two out of three ain’t bad, but he’s going for Speed & Affordability — he seems to be conceding Style in favor of nailing the other two. I think we all expected from the get-go that Stephen would get us on Affordability, but it’s been funny to see that we’re all confident on Speed! I’m still pretty sure that Stephen is going to be highly competitive on Speed — as long as all of his flights go according to plan. Those tight connections could come back to bite him — or they could go on to haunt those of us who sit watching the clock tick, waiting for the next flight while Stephen stays three steps ahead.
Nick’s Million Mile Madness planning journal
Unlike Stephen and Greg, I haven’t given up on the idea of having it all: Speed, Affordability, and Style. However, I’ve adopted the old philosophy that says, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you“. That is to say that I don’t need to finish first in every category — so long as I don’t finish last in any category, I can make this thing come down to the wire. I’m confident that I’ll have Greg beat on Affordability, so I won’t be last there. And I’m pretty sure I’ll have Stephen beat on style since he doesn’t intend to compete too strongly there. Speed is a concern for me at this point since I’m pretty sure that Stephen has got me on speed and now I’ve realized that Greg had flight options that I probably didn’t even realize existed since my eyes stopped scrolling at a certain price point. I am afraid that I could be last here — and at this point, there’s nothing I can do about that. That means that I need to think more about affordability on the lodging side and I think I need to do everything I can to walk away with a top finish in Style. If I can trounce Greg on Style and stay at least somewhat competitive with Stephen on Affordability, I can hope that my speed (or lack thereof) won’t hurt me too much. Thankfully, I have some Style up my sleeve.
Virgin Atlantic dynamic award pricing is live and it’s pretty good….for now
Switching gears to a different SkyTeam program, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has now gone fully dynamic with award pricing. As predicted, there have been some really good deals to be found at launch. Shockingly, Virgin has even reduced carrier-imposed surcharges (substantially in some cases). However, I’m still pretty lukewarm on this change since I don’t expect the best deals to last for long before dynamic pricing makes everything more expensive with less notice.
Choice Privileges improvements coming in 2025 – award bookings available 50 weeks out
One change that does excite me is that Choice Privileges will finally expand its award booking window to 50 weeks in advance. As of the time of writing, Choice still only allows award booking up to 100 days in advance, which means that it’s always a last-minute-booking option for me rather than something I plan a trip around. I’m very much looking forward to being able to book farther ahead even if that comes at the cost of those suite bookings at standard rates.
Adios, Avios: Finnair Plus latest program to nerf domestic AA awards
Sadly, Finnair Avios has tanked the last good use of Avios for domestic American Airlines flights. While Avios used to be the go-to currency for booking American Airlines domestic award tickets, Alaska may now be the final frontier in terms of getting a great deal on an American Airlines award using partner miles.
Earn miles while saving and paying for college | Coffee Break Ep31 | 10-28-24 | Podcast
If you want to beef up your balance of miles and you have a kid in college or you have college loans to pay off, you should check out this week’s Coffee Break, where we discuss Gift of College Gift Cards and how you might turn them into a multi-layered stack to earn a nice haul of miles while paying for education. Unfortunately, the GiftCards.com no-activation-fee deal died after we recorded but even before we published, but the techniques for stacking can nonetheless still turn this expense into a nice pile of miles.
Current point transfer bonuses for November 2024
A bunch of new transfer bonuses hit at the beginning of the month. Bookmark this resource page to stay up to date with the latest bonuses — we always add the newest ones and you can even search old / expired bonuses to get a sense for patterns.
List of Current Hotel Promotions for November 2024
Another resource to bookmark is the list of current hotel promotions. This is always a good place to check in before you check in. You don’t want to miss out on an opportunity for easy points because you forgot to register for a promotion, so keep an eye on this post throughout the year.
American Express Membership Rewards Complete Guide (2024)
Everything you need to know about the American Express Membership Rewards program, updated and refreshed for the latest in late 2024.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on this week’s last chance deals and be sure to grab the ones you want before they’re gone.
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