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Earlier this week, United offered business class seats to many parts of the world for 60K miles per ticket. That sounded like an amazing deal on the surface, but was it? Who should have booked it and who should have sat on the sidelines? On the latest installment of Frequent Miler on the Air, Greg and I discuss why one of us booked it and the other didn’t and how we would approach a similar deal in the future.
Elsewhere on the blog this week, read on for more about why Greg is finally dumping Delta Diamond, how to book Qatar Qsuites using Avios that are in your British Airways account (without moving them), Carrie’s latest report from the Himalayas, and more. And don’t forget to mark your calendars: We will be hosting Frequent Miler Live: Ask Us Anything in our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group on Wednesday, April 27th at 9pm Eastern and there will be a few nice prizes — don’t miss it!
1:07 Giant Mailbag: Capital One Venture X travel credit might not be so easy to use on a hotel
4:14 What crazy thing…did Nearside Debit Card do this week?
8:16 Mattress Running the Numbers: Is the Wyndham 5x deal worth a mattress run to earn Vacasa nights?
15:12 Dissecting the deal: 60K awards to New Zealand and beyond
48:00 Question of the Week: How can I leverage the Southwest Companion pass into elite status with other airlines?
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This week at Frequent Miler
(EXPIRED) United Offering 60k Biz Class Awards To Many Locations Worldwide; 4+ Seats In Many Cases
Earlier this week, United offered business class seats from around the United States to New Zealand, Europe, Asia, and more destinations for just 60K miles per passenger (in many cases there was availability for multiple passengers and even from small US cities). On the one hand, this looked like an amazing deal, but it didn’t make sense for everyone. You can read this post for details about the deal and listen to our thoughts about whether it really was a great deal and how to approach similar deals in the future on this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air.
Dumping Delta Diamond [On Greg’s Mind]
Greg has been manufacturing Delta Diamond for years and I’ve long said he was nutty for dedicating so much spend to this endeavor….until I took his Global Upgrade Certificates for a spin last fall. Suddenly, it all made sense to me and part of me wanted to follow in his footsteps for just a hot minute. Then Delta went and devalued those GUC certificates significantly and so Greg was forced to do the math anew on Delta Diamond. I have to agree with his decision to dump it as the incremental benefits just don’t seem worth it over Platinum considering the high cost, particularly given that more Delta miles aren’t very useful for him at this point. I actually thought he was overly generous in saying that he’d continue to buy Delta miles at 0.8c per mile. Sure, it’s kind of like locking in a future discount on Delta flights, but I question whether Greg would continue to buy thousands of dollars worth of Delta gift cards even at 80% off.
What is Delta elite status worth (now that Global Upgrade certs are worth less)?
If you’re trying to do the math and decide where you stand on the value of Delta status, this is the post that Greg updated with his latest valuations for Delta elite status.
[Prize Giveaway Celebration] Frequent Miler Live Wednesday, April 27th at 9pm ET. Ask Us Anything!
Our monthly live Ask Us Anything event got postponed a couple of times because of vacations, but we are back this coming Wednesday, April 27th. This month, we’re going live in our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group and in celebration of reaching 20,000 members, we will be giving away some nice prizes. Stay tuned for more information about the prizes to come, but mark your calendars from Wednesday night at 9pm Eastern.
Finding Qatar availability and booking it without moving Avios
Qatar Qsuites is often considered among the best business class products in the sky. Now that Qatar participates in the Avios program, a reader asked whether Qatar releases more space to its own members. That led to a couple of great reader tips, including how to search for Qatar availability even without enough Avios in your account to book and how you can book through Qatar using your British Airways Avios without even moving Avios to Qatar. Note that a few readers have commented to indicate that your Qatar account can’t have a 0 Avios balance, so you may have to move the minimum number of Avios to Qatar to accomplish this, but these are cool tricks nonetheless.
Kids in business class: Saving miles on child award tickets
Now that I am again booking some future travel, I am staring down the prospect of soon needing to find four business class seats for my family. That led me to discover a couple of helpful tips for family travel: Flying Blue’s discount for child award tickets and discounted child ticket revenue fares that could make it worth booking revenue fares with credit card points over award tickets.
What are IHG points worth?
Greg has continued re-analyzing the value of hotel points to keep our Reasonable Redemption Values up-to-date and data-based. In his latest round with IHG, he found the previous value of 0.6c to hold up. See more data & analysis in the post.
Did You Buy 500 Mile Upgrades? American Airlines Might Compensate You.
I’m including this quick read from Tim because it is a situation that I imagine affects a number of readers. If you bought 500 mile upgrades from American, you may be bale to do better than the (really poor) offer to get 250 Loyalty Points that has been given to those who earned the certificates. I’m glad to see American doing better for people who paid for these, but it’s frustrating that you have to know to ask for it.
Which hotel loyalty program is most rewarding on paid stays?
Are you a regular business traveler? Looking for which hotel program will be the most rewarding for your paid stays? It is a complicated question that isn’t fully answered even by the analysis in this post. I was initially surprised to see Hilton so far down the list by many metrics, but as Greg notes, their frequent promotions often put them on top. More surprising to me was how rewarding Wyndham can be, though that will be tempered for some by a larger budget footprint than mid-tier or high-end properties. My preference would probably be Hyatt, obviously contingent on their footprint matching your needs, and particularly if Hyatt Globalist status is within reach given the numerous benefits of status.
Visiting the Indian Himalayas in Raithal Village
Carrie has been working from the road for a month or two already and she posts this report on what looks like an awesome experience in a small village in the Indian Himalayas. This post took me back to memories of my wife and I traveling much more simply back in the days before miles and points. I’m not sure I see several shared taxi rides to get this far off the beaten path in my future any time soon given my station in life with two young kids, but both Carrie’s vivid description and excellent photos that combine to capture the atmosphere so well certainly did make me feel very nostalgic. I hope to live vicariously through more reports as she and Drew continue to make their way around the other side of the world.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep your eye on this week’s month-ending last chance deals.
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Booking flights to NZ using miles that you KNOW you will cancel (since you booked 2; will pick the one you want later) leaves others w/no availability. 60K is a great deal since the normal is 80K+. So, people like me can’t get the 60K because of spaced booked that will never be used. This is why airlines started charging for change fees. Too many people were booking more than one flight and cancelling leaving seats unused. Besides, this is an introduction price since United is returning to AU/NZ and will not happen in the future.
Was a very good post could have saved me some days taking Bus class.This is all a Game and I booked my last trip (Feb) with 3 different Flits too., They cancel the flt or change the times and some people only have a set time frame..If u go there get travel Ins, saved me $8K+..
Good Luck !!