I make no apologies for valuing and stretching for elite status. It certainly isn’t for everyone, and wouldn’t be worth it if I didn’t travel as much as I do, but I have found that the benefits outweigh the costs for me and my family. That said, in this case, my “loyalty” can be bought for a price. Or rather, it can be lost with a high enough price. Here’s what I mean…

On 99% of my trips I fly United or one of their Star Alliance partners like US Airways. I live at a United hub, so they have the most non-stop flight options, and for the most part I actually do have a good experience on their flights. I have a personal preference for the pre-merger Continental planes and crews, but I have grown to appreciate much of what United has brought to the table as well (like listening to Channel 9!). As a result, I always give preference to United when I am shopping for flights due to having mostly good experiences with them, wanting to use and earn elite benefits (like priority security, free same day changes, free checked bags, and premium seats), and because they generally have the best flight options for where I am heading.

I have a potential short trip to New York coming up in June. While the trip is not finalized, I started looking at airfare so that I could have an idea of what the trip might cost if it does materialize. As I usually do, I headed to ITA Matrix to get see how fares looked for various days that month. I was happy to see that fares were quite reasonable in the range of $200 – $250 most of the time. Great!

Then I started clicking on some of the dates when the trip was most likely to happen, and things got more interesting.  For one date I saw American Airlines with a non-stop flight from Houston to JFK for $215 round trip.  It didn’t shock me that they were under-cutting United by a little since it is a pretty new route and they are competing in a United hub, but it turns out they weren’t under-cutting by a little…they were blowing them out of the water!

For the privilege of sticking to “my” airline, utilizing my elite status benefits, and earning more miles toward re-qualifying for elite status, I would need to shell out over $1,400 for a non-stop flight to New York.  Only 6.5 times what American was charging!  To be fair, if I was willing to take a connection and increase my travel time as a result, I could book with United for just $450 (over double with AA was charging).

I understand that business is business and they are going to charge what they think the customer will be willing to pay, and I actually would pay a little extra to stick with United because that makes sense for my overall travel plan.  I just wonder which customers are really paying $1400+ instead of $215 to stay loyal to a particular airline?  In this case there is no question that the lower fares trump my loyalty and elite status benefits.  If I end up booking the trip on a day where American is substantial cheaper, you can bet I will happily be sitting on their shiny silver planes with a smile on my face.

This is a good reminder (that hopefully none of us need) to not perform searches on just one airline’s website.  Do searches on a site like ITA or Hipmunk that shows fares for many different airlines.

What do you do when booking airfare?  Always book with whoever is the cheapest, or do you give preference to particular airlines?  If so, how much of a price difference is enough for you to ditch your preferences and go with the lower fare?

Thanks to View From the Wing for sharing the info that things are going to return to the days of “household income” on credit card applications in the near future.  As you may or may not know one of the (at least somewhat unintended) outcomes of the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure “CARD” Act was that stay-at-home parents who did not work outside the home were put in a position where they had a very difficult time obtaining credit in their own name. This was due to the shift from credit card applications looking at household income to just considering the individual’s income.  This was bizarre since families generally operate as a unit and “what’s mine is yours, and yours is mine” isn’t just a saying – it is a reality.

Part of the intent of doing away with “household income” was so that college students and others wouldn’t count income that wasn’t really theirs, thus putting themselves in a situation where the could not repay the debt they racked up.  But in the meantime stay-at-home moms and dads were getting shafted as the could not qualify for most offers with zero in the income line.  I did some research on this topic for a portion of my presentation on Family Travel at FTU (since this issue impacted families wanting to rack up points via credit cards for both partners) and I had read that an amendment to this act was being strongly considered, but I hadn’t seen any recent movement until today.

According to this article in the New York Times, the amendment has been submitted for publication in the Federal Register, and becomes effective upon publication (though credit card companies have six months from publication to comply).

I’m very happy for all my friends who have chosen to stay home and take care of the kiddos (seriously the hardest job ever) who can now return to getting the rewards cards and related sign-up bonuses to which the rest of us have access.  When you have a family you need as many points as you can get to book rewards tickets and rooms for multiple people, so this will help make that reality a little easier for those who don’t work outside the home.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the 35% transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards to the British Airways Avios program.  This bonus is automatic (no registration needed) and runs through June 7th.  In that post I discussed some potential uses for those points that don’t involve flying on British Airways.  One of the best uses is on American Airlines flights within the US and other nearby North American destinations.

I got several questions about how to actually book an American Airlines flight via British Airways, so I thought it would be useful to dedicate a post to that topic.

The first important thing to know is that British Airways Avios availability should match up with MileSAAver availability for American Airlines flights.  This does not mean that all options on AA can be booked on BA since, for example, Hawaiian partners with AA but not BA.  Of course that is assuming that all computer systems are in a good mood and communicating effectively – which is an assumption.  So, the easiest way to check for Avios availability for an American Airlines flight is via the American Airlines website.  Search for a reward flight there just as you would if you were planning to use American Airlines miles.  If I’m having trouble finding flights that will work, I like to use their “show full calendar” feature.

Once you see a date with MileSAAver availability, click on it to see the specific flight details.  These details are very important if you want to book with Avios.  Sometimes you will be shown options with really bizarre routings with multiple connections.  Not only are these flights annoying to fly, but with Avios they would also be much more expensive since the price in Avios increases based on the distance and number of segments.  You want the most direct routing possible.

For my example I am showing a flight from NYC to Nassau.  On this random date in February there is availability at the MileSAAver level to fly from Newark (EWR) to Miami and then connect from Miami to Nassau.  This means that I should be able to book these flights via the British Airways site using Avios.

First, I log into my British Airways account and then select “spending Avios”.

Then select “Book flight with Avios” and get to searching.

Not surprisingly the BA website turns up nothing when I put in EWR – NAS on the date that I found the availability for on the American website.  Why is this not surprising?  Well, because it seems to frequently have problems with flights that require connections.

So I change course and individually search for EWR – MIA and then MIA – NAS.  No surprise that it finds that availability to match perfectly what the American website has shown.  It prices out to 7,500 Avios for the first segment and 4,500 Avios for the second for a total of 12,000 for this one-way journey.  That is awesome, especially with the current transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to British Airways.

Back to booking…you could choose to just book the two segments online individually and call it a day, but there are some real drawbacks to that plan since your itineraries would be treated as two individual trips and if there are any delay issues along the way you could get stuck.  I have never been able to find a multi-city tool for Avios bookings, so the safer option is to call in to British Airways and feed them the individual segments you have found to book as one ticket.  This may mean you have to pay the $25 fee to book over the phone (though try explaining that the website was not working properly), but at least you can book the flights you want.  Don’t trust the website if it tells you the flights are not available – dig deeper before giving up.

After your ticket on AA flights is booked via BA, you can then add it to your American account by going to checkmytrip.com to get the AA confirmation number.  You can read more about this and other potential perks of booking an Avios flight on this post.

I wish the website made everything super easy – but sometimes having a little extra work is worth it in the end.  With the 35% Amex/BA transfer bonus that runs until June 7th, some extra work could mean a round trip ticket from New York to somewhere like Nassau in the winter for the equivalent of a little less than 17,000 Membership Reward points each.  With the current Membership Rewards/British Airways transfer bonus, that means that by the time you meet the spending requirement on the current Amex Business Gold Rewards Card offer you would have more than enough points for three of those round trip tickets – that is the kind of math that is great for traveling families on a budget!

Disclosure: I do receive a commission if you are approved for a credit card using one of my affiliate links. Any opinions provided are mine alone and are not necessarily representative of American Express or any other company. As always, thanks for your support.