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?
I have to admit that if you asked me about the most exciting airline programs, Avios would never come to mind. However, given how easy Avios are to amass along with the ability to move your Avios between several different airline programs in order to take advantage of their respective sweet spots, this program is absolutely a workhorse that belongs in your toolbelt. On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, we talk about why that is true and what you need to know to maximize your use of Avios.
Elsewhere on the blog this week, Greg ponders his future with Delta credit cards, Carrie parses out the key points for a miles beginner, I cover the crushing devaluation to Turkish Miles & Smiles coming this week, and a lot more. Watch or listen to the podcast and read on for more from this week at Frequent Miler.
Frequent Miler on the Air Podcast
00:01:41 – Player Two chimes in (Mailbag)
00:03:37 – Chase British Airways Visa Signature® Card (Card Talk)
00:09:30 – Turkish award search shows random non-partner flights (Crazy Thing)
00:13:30 – Best Western: Stay Twice & Earn Free Night Voucher (Mattress Running the Numbers)
00:17:37 – Turkish devalues (Award Talk)
00:22:03 – SLH ditches Hyatt for Hilton (Award Talk)
00:26:10 – Bilt announces milestone rewards (Award Talk)
00:31:50 – Referral points don’t count towards Bilt status, h/t Chris from All the Hacks (Award Talk)
00:32:58 – Mastering Avios, the rewards currency for BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, Qatar, and (soon) Finnair (Main Event)
00:33:22 – Earning Avios
00:34:30 – Moving Avios between programs
00:40:52 – BA Household Accounts
00:42:40 – Using Avios Read more about using Avios with Jet Blue
01:03:37 – How do you plan activities? (Question of the Week)
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This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
Should I keep or cancel my Delta cards?
It’s interesting that after all these years of having both Delta Platinum and Reserve cards, Greg doesn’t really need them much anymore. I further found his analysis interesting in terms of the value that each card can provide. I imagine some cardholders will value companion certificates more highly than he did, but I’m actually somewhat surprised that he values the 15% award discount enough to make it worth evaluating one of the Delta cards at all. While I know he has lots of Delta miles and the discount makes those miles more valuable, I’d love to know how many Delta SkyMiles he expects to redeem per year — will this discount be a couple thousand miles or 15,000 miles per year or 150,000 miles per year? I’m further not convinced about Greg’s value for the Delta Stays hotel credit. Would I pay 50% of face value for a hotel credit that locks me into paying what is likely a higher price via Delta than my best alternative and making a booking where I can’t earn elite credit or earn hotel points? Greg stays at more boutique hotels than I do, so maybe his valuation makes sense for his situation, but ironically enough I think the Delta cards have become a really questionable value for someone who values hotel elite status and who also has multiple years of high-level Delta elite status already lined up.
Delta’s Enhanced Companion Certificates
Even as a non-Delta flyer, these companion certificates sound pretty hot now that they can be used for travel as far as Hawaii and Alaska. As a family traveler though, the idea of the certificate potentially not being able to be cancelled and reissued is a headache that I don’t really want. That said, a few commenters note getting them reissued in the event of cancellation. Overall, I find these certificates more interesting now than they were before, though I’m still not ready to shell out the annual fee for a Delta card to get them, particularly when it is relatively easy to get a repeatable Southwest Rapid Rewards Companion Pass.
Turkish (might be) demolishing its award chart
If Delta is making changes that are broadly positive, Turkish going in an entirely opposite direction with a major devaluation to their award program coming in a few days. It is particularly disappointing that Turkish gave only one week of advance notice (and then only after multiple blogs had noticed and reported the new award charts). Partner awards will mostly be increasing by 80-90%, which is an epic devaluation that will make the program all but an afterthought for anything except domestic Star Alliance awards. While the long-time sweet spot to Hawaii, Alaska, and other domestic airports will finally increase in price more than 4.5 years after we first reported it, those awards are only increasing by 2,500 miles in both economy and business class, which means that Turkish will still likely be your best bet for flights to/from Alaska and Hawaii (and in at least some cases within the lower 48). Keep in mind that you’ll still need to pray that United actually releases partner availability, but if they do then you’ll still get a great deal via Turkish Miles & Smiles.
JetBlue Mint to the Caribbean for 26,000 Avios: Where and how to find and book it.
Speaking of great deals, Qatar Airways Privilege Club offers an excellent deal on short JetBlue Mint flights to the Caribbean. I am personally pretty tempted by the thought of booking Mint class from New York to Aruba, St Thomas, or Sint Maarten for just 26,000 Avios each way, particularly given the fact that I’ve been in the Caribbean all of this week aboard an MSC cruise ship and asking myself why we haven’t spent a week on one of these islands in the past decade. Qatar may just encourage me to get back to the Caribbean sooner or later!
How do I know which miles I need? Getting started with earning strategies [Video]
Carrie does an excellent job breaking out our core points from a question of the week that is broadly applicable to beginners in our hobby. At the heart of things is the fact that, in my opinion, a beginner is best off getting a pile of a single type of transferable currency and using an award search tool that enables them to filter to the transfer partners of that currency so they can begin to see which programs hold more value than others. Don’t focus on miles in a specific airline program but rather on transferable points that give you a wealth of options when you’re ready to book.
Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) ditches Hyatt for Hilton
Well, this was some surprising news. I don’t think anyone should be surprised that Hyatt and SLH have ended their partnership given that Hyatt acquired Mr. & Mrs. Smith last year. However, I did not see the partnership with Hilton coming. I’m actually really excited about this. After a couple of wonderful stays at the Grand Hotel Victoria, an SLH property on Lake Como, I had assumed I’d likely never get to stay there again once they left Hyatt (because I’m not paying nearly $2,000 per night no matter how wonderful I think the place is). The partnership with Hilton gives me hope — and it really enhances the value of Hilton free night certificates in my opinion. I’m suddenly very interested in completing $15K spend on my Hilton business card because I see the possibility to get fantastic value out of a free night certificate assuming that SLH properties become bookable with Hilton points and free night certificates (fingers crossed!). In other words, if $15K spend can get me a minimum of 45,000 Hilton points and a free night certificate that I can use at the Grand Hotel Victoria, I am far more likely to meet that spending requirement.
Bilt introduces unrewarding Milestone Rewards
On the podcast, I asked whether the Bilt team could hear my eyes roll over these Bilt Milestone Rewards. Frankly, I’m surprised that they put the time into developing these and building the IT to support them. It’s not that they won’t move the needle, it’s that they won’t touch the needle. They won’t even sneeze in the general direction of the needle. It’s not just the rewards maximizer in me that’s disappointed, I just can’t see how their core customers are going to care about such low-value rewards. Assuming those core customers probably redeem most points for rent (at terrible value!), some of these rewards amount to an extra six bucks. I mean, I like an extra six bucks as much as anyone, but I don’t see it motivating a lot of uptake on incremental spend.
What are the best hotel keeper cards…and more – Ask Us Anything – Ep 64
Ever wonder what questions other people are asking? Once a month on the first Wednesday of the month, the entire Frequent Miler team takes your questions live on Youtube. And this month, by popular demand, we finally decided to release ask us anything as a podcast bonus episode as well — so you can watch on Youtube or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
Quick-Fire Q&A from Feb 2024 Ask Us Anything
We always end up getting far more questions than we get time to answer during our live hour, so Stephen has taken up the task of trying to rapid-fire answer questions that we didn’t get a chance to answer on the air. Read more Q&A here!
American Express adds family language to Green card
Bummer! I’ve been needing to downgrade a couple of consumer Platinum cards in my household and had been dragging my feet on it because my wife and I have never had the Green card and I was hoping that maybe Amex would launch an elevated welcome offer on the Green card and we could both apply and get that card bonus before downgrading our Platinum cards to Green (since downgrading to a Green would make us ineligible for a Green card welcome bonus if we did it before opening the Green card thanks to Amex lifetime language). Not only did they fail to do that, but they have added the dreaded family language that potentially excludes us from earning the welcome bonus at all. That really stinks. Keep in mind that the family language is not ironclad in the sense that it only says that you may not be eligible, but I don’t like our chances at the moment given our collection of Platinum and Gold cards. Argh….
American Express Business Gold Credit Card Review (2024)
The Business Gold card recently increased its annual fee, but the card arguably became more valuable for a wider array of customers last year given its couponization and 4x earning potential. I imagine that there are many folks who will find the 4x categories useful enough to consider this card a keeper after using the monthly coupon benefits.
Amex Blue Business Plus Credit Card Review (2024)
This is one Amex card that belongs in the collection for almost any fan of Amex Membership Rewards points given the way it keeps points alive and transferable with no annual fee. It isn’t the most glamorous card on the market, but the Blue Business Plus is the closest thing to a card that I would universally recommend having.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on this week’s last chance deals to be sure that you don’t miss any set to end this week.
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The podcast says the fee rebates are only for flights to London. Maybe you just phrased it wrong but that’s incorrect. You only need to fly BA metal and use the visa.
A question on the British Airways Visa card – is it possible to use the award fee credit for three tickets traveling together, rather than three separate bookings? I assume you likely could if you did three separate transactions and just make sure to pick seats together, but that has me a little leery of separate PNRs and may not be allowable if some of the travelers are kids.
With a family of 3 I’d be interested in picking up the card if I knew I could max out the credits annually on a single flight for three tickets. Our home airport PHX seems to have almost wide open Premium Economy awards to LHR much of the year with a smattering of Business availability as well. When partner availability is there booking with AA miles is a better deal but BA awards would provide a reliable option of 37000 Avios + $160 fees for PE if I can count on the $100 award rebate per ticket. Business awards are less palatable because of the quite high fees. It’s not the greatest redemption ever but that’s pretty consistently a $1500-$2000 ticket one way for PE. Being able to go direct and have pretty easy pick of dates makes that a tempting option for ease of use.
Thanks for this podcast! We’re using Avios this summer to fly Iberia Biz from Madrid to LAX – our first time together in Biz class.
Very grateful for the points and miles world.
Just a small addition to the podcast: You can transfer points between BA accounts for $50, up to 60,000 points per transaction. So if you and P2 only have AMEX accounts, you could still combine the points for $50.
Do the award search availability results differ between the Avios participating airlines? So, if I searched BA for flights on Aer Lingus, it would be the same availability if I searched on Iberia or Qatar airlines?
Each partner can show different availability. Aer Lingus is not a user friendly website.
Probably not the best place to put this but for the first time I tried using LifeMiles and book two one-way business tickets from ORD-VIE in March.
I hadn’t use LifeMiles and I’ve read some warnings so I was a bit concerned. And Amex told me it might be 3-4 days for the miles to transfer but it was done in about a minute or two. I assumed it might take a while but I did a refresh and the miles were in the account.
The after I created an Austrian Airlines FF account (thought I had one), I entered the number and my tickets were shown and I could select my seats.
Next up is setting up a return flight. We aren’t sure when/where so I might try to find something using AA points as a backup since those awards can be canceled w/o any fees.
I might then try to snag something in first class like Lufthansa once we are in Europe and get closer to when we want to return (probably be there 2-4 weeks).
Good chance to burn my Hilton/Marriott points that have been collecting dust.
My struggle is always trying to find 5 biz class seats for my family. Iberia has great rates, but I only ever see 2 seats available. Are you familiar with which programs tend to release plenty of award space for large families?
The insane surcharges (call them copays) mean I simply don’t fly British Airways. There are values with Avios for other things, but I find the program overall isn’t among my several most important.
Yeah, that’s precisely why we did the episode. You don’t pay those insane surcharges when you use Aer Lingus Avios to fly on Aer Lingus or Iberia Avios to fly on Iberia or Qatar Avios to fly on Qatar or JetBlue. You don’t have to worry about those surcharges when using British Airways Avios to fly on LATAM. You can take advantage of a 25% transfer bonus to British Airways and then move the Avios to Qatar and book JetBlue Mint from JFK to Aruba for effectively less than 22K transferred points each way, etc.
It’s not the program I use most often either, but I find plenty of good ways to use them.
A few comments about the discussion about the BA Avois card and Avois. Miami to London, one way BA surcharge is 450.00 if booked with British Airways. The mileage cost is 100K from my experiences. AA charges 57K and 734.00 in fees and Asia miles is 63K and 534.00 for the same flight when all 3 show flights available. In some cases I have seen space on partners but not on BA directly which is strange. BA charges for you to pick your seats in advance. Depending on your status that may be waived. AA Platinum Pro or higher gets it waived. Otherwise you have to wait until a few days prior to the flight or night before. Virgin Atlantic has higher fuel surcharges for Upper class. Comparing directly to ASIA miles you are spending 37K miles to save 84.00 in cash fees. So the BA cash credits are they worth it? Many years ago I had the card and got everal of the companian award tickets. I think the surcharges were less.
Like most here I usually only use points/miles for international business/first class seats but last year due to a move, we flew a few times nearly coast to coast domestically. The airfare was often high but I was able to use Avios miles to get AA first class seats for around 22,000 which was very good on non-stop flights.
The least valuable points tend to be hotel points where it is hard to get more than 0.5 cents out of them. You look at 250,000 Hilton points and then find out many hotels are 40,000+ points for a night.
That is a good redemption for the AA flights. I have never seen awards available at that rate. I have searched many times.
Just to add detail. The first class awards using AA miles were 25,500 which is still excellent in my opinion. The 22,000 number was using Avios for the AA flights. These were east coast to PHX flights.
Very tough to find any F space overall. I cannot recall when I saw anything like that. Definitely an outlier. I wish I could since I have alot of transferable and some Avois.