Tips, Tricks, and Travel with Lucky

Some more thoughts on the Mileage Plus changes…

I’ve received several emails from readers expressing anger at the most recent United changes, so after analyzing the changes a bit further, I figured I’d make another post.
First of all, my responses to a few questions/comments I’ve received via email:
Will there be a co-pay when using systemwide upgrades (SWU’s), confirmed regional upgrades (CR1’s), or 500 [...]

Mileage Plus changes 2009 — the great, the good, the bad, and the really ugly!

Ah, I was hoping it would be just another Monday where I’d have nothing good to write about, but sadly United just couldn’t let it be. Instead we’re seeing “Annual Changes for the 2009 Mileage program.”
To summarize:

The 500 mile minimum is returning for elite members, and will be applied retroactively
Huge change in mileage requirements
Mileage upgrades [...]

Experience using DL miles for an SQ award

My friend Ryan recently redeemed DL miles for an F award on SQ, without a doubt one of the best redemptions using DL miles. Since many people seem to be interested in such an award, he graciously offered to share his experiences:
I’ve had around 100k DL miles sitting around for a few years with no [...]

Data point: ANA awards on Virgin

I posted a couple of weeks ago about some great ANA award redemption options, probably the best of which is using miles for Virgin Upper Class. Since I have enough miles in my ANA account now to book almost any award I’d like (100,000+ miles), I’ve decided to start doing some experimenting. Next week I’ll [...]

Taking advantage of the lack of Starnet blocking

I’ve blogged ad nauseam about the award I recently booked for my mom and brother to Egypt, and although I’m happy with the routing, I felt the need to take advantage of the lack of Starnet blocking that we’re seeing right now.
The return journey they have right now is great, so I didn’t want to touch [...]

Some more great ANA award redemption opportunities

While I’ve had my fair share of frustration directed at the incompetent folks that plague the call center at ANA (at least most of them), I still love some of their redemption options, especially since they’re an American Express Membership Rewards partner, so the miles are pretty easy to come by. Not only do you [...]

When buying points is outright cheaper than paying for a room….

As I’ve mentioned several times before, my brother and mom are traveling to Egypt in less than two months, and since it’s the start of the high season over there, a lot of hotels/tours/cruises are already sold out, so it’s getting down to the wire. Anyway, for the last two days they’re in Cairo they [...]

Finally someone takes on StarNet filtering….

In his weekly travel column, “ON THE FLY,” Nicholas Kralev wrote about StarNet blocking this week. First of all, if you haven’t checked out his column, I suggest doing so. He has a new topic every Monday, and his column is far more ”advanced” than most when it comes to details and the topics he takes on within the travel/airline [...]

Corrupting the minds of others isn’t always a bad thing

A couple of weeks ago I booked a first class award ticket for my brother and mom to Egypt for travel in a couple of months, and had a few problems, although in the end everything was fine. My brother has always wanted to try Singapore Airlines First, especially after hearing me rave about it [...]

United award experience….. wow!

As I promised yesterday, it’s time to talk a bit about my United award experience over the past few days.
On Sunday I finally crossed the 280,000 mile mark on United, which means I had enough miles for two first class award tickets from the US to Egypt for my brother and mom. Since they’re going [...]