Posted by Seth on March 7, 2011 under frequent flyer, points | 
Some folks love the challenge of earning frequent flyer points. To me, that’s just business. I do it and I accrue and I move on to the next flight. But when the time comes for redeeming those points, that’s where the fun begins. Part of it is because the airlines really do make it difficult to book awards. Part of it is because there are quirks and tricks and nuances in every program and understanding the rules of your specific program makes a huge difference. And part of it is that I generally feel triumphant when I can beat the airlines at their own game.
I won HUGE last week.
First up, our annual anniversary trip. Now in its 5th iteration, my wife and I have gone somewhere out of town for our anniversary each year. Ecuador, Philadelphia/Washington, DC Norway and Scotland were the previous four. This year’s goal was the Canadian maritime provinces. Turns out they’re a bit too spread out for us to hit as much as we wanted in the long weekend so we scaled back to just Nova Scotia. Not too disappointed about that at all.
With non-stop flights from New York to both Moncton and Halifax it was actually surprisingly easy to find award seats into the region. Our outbound requires a connection in Toronto but we’re waitlisted for the non-stop flight (shown in red on the map) and I’m betting that it clears. Either way, we get where we want to be on the day we want to get there and at roughly the times we want to fly. No complaints there. Coming back we picked Sydney as the departing airport. No, not that Sydney. There’s another one up in Nova Scotia. Being a tiny town with a tiny airport the prices on revenue tickets can be pretty ridiculous. So even though we’re only going a few hundred miles the cash version of these flights was pretty ridiculous. But award inventory wasn’t a problem at all. Connecting in Halifax and then back into Newark at good times and with no real issues.
As an added bonus, there are flights from Sydney to France (in the form of Saint Pierre & Miquelon, shown in purple on the map) that we just might have to try. If the flight schedules work that is definitely on my radar.
Did I mention that these were a pretty good deal in terms of valuation for the points redeemed? I like that the Continental booking engine gives you the offer to pay cash instead of redeeming miles for the trip. But I couldn’t help but laugh when this was the option it presented me:
Purchase this Reservation in Economy for $4,452.46 without redeeming miles
Instead I cashed in 50,000 points and about $100 in taxes for the two seats. I’d say that’s a damn good deal.
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Tags: Air Canada, award, Continental, Ecuador, France, frequent flyer, Norway, Nova Scotia, Philadelphia, points, Scotland, Sydney, Toronto, Washington DC
Posted by Seth on February 10, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Redeeming points for anything other than the travel awards of the program in which they were earnt is rarely a good value. Rather than giving away product that they own the loyalty program is buying something and selling it back to you so the value generally suffers based on the higher costs. Compounding that issue is the fact that awards with a fixed cash value – gift cards, statement credits and the like – are generally even less of a deal since the fixed costs have very little, if any, margin for the retailers to work with. Combine that with the fact that points.com generally preys on the uninformed to exploit their frustrations and fleece them on trade or redemption costs and you have something resembling a perfect storm: Points.com redemptions for PayPal credit.
I knew going in that the numbers would be bad. I just had no idea they would be this bad. The PayPal redemption option is currently available for three programs, American Airlines AAdvantage, US Airways Dividend Miles and Air Canada Aeroplan. The conversion rates vary as shown in the screen captures below, ranging from bad to terrible to so unbelievably horrible that I ran the check three times because I thought there was a mistake in it. Yeah, it is simply awful.
Aeroplan points hold the highest value in the conversion scheme, with 17,734 points converting to $100 in PayPal credit. At 100,000 points (roughly $600 in PayPal credit) you can get a round-trip first class ticket from North America to Europe. So, yeah, the ratio is pretty bad.
A CDN$250 AmEx dining credit is only 32,500 points, Or just get the regular CDN$250 Aeroplan Ultimate Card for 35,000 points. Basically it is an extra $50 in credit for taking the points as a pre-paid AmEx rather than as cash.
The 24,118 AAdvantage points are nearly enough for a domestic round-trip ticket (and AA has some great off-peak awards where those points go even farther) or $100. A 0.4 cents/mile valuation is well below the penny/point nominal cost valuation of the points and even worse compared to some of the better redemption options out there.
And then there is US Airways. I actually feel like there is a decimal point error in these numbers given how high the redemption costs are. A $100 PayPal credit costs over 120K Dividend Miles points. That is simply ridiculous.
The number of better things to do with 120,000 Dividend Miles is rather lengthy. Thanks to their Star Alliance partnerships the redemption options – both in coach and premium cabins – to nearly anywhere in the world are incredible. All for way better than the $100 you’d get instead. If you’re that desperate for the cash give me a call; I’m sure we can work out a deal.
So, yeah, the rates are horrible. And the US Airways option is quite possibly the worst value I’ve ever seen for points. EVER. Just don’t do it.
Posted by Seth on January 3, 2011 under Trip Reports |
It is now the new year, with new goals and new milestones on the horizon. But not too late to take a quick look back at 2010 and the travel milestones I hit during the year. Not surprisingly, the more I travel the harder it is to reach new and different accomplishments. Indeed, 2010 had many fewer than 2009, though in a couple categories it surpassed the previous year.
Perhaps the most significant numbers of the year are the total amount of time in the air:
- 151 segments
- 208378 miles
- 18 days 13:31
Those numbers are “butt-in-seat” and based on the distances between the starting and ending airport as calculated on www.openflights.org. They do not include 500 mile minimums or the like. In most cases the durations are based on wheels up to wheels down as tracked by the appropriate authorities, not the block time of the flight or estimates. The 208K miles is the most ever for me in a calendar year as is the 151 segments.
Of the 151 segments flown, more than half (86, to be precise) were routes I had not flown previously. It is certainly becoming more and more difficult to find new ways to get to different places but I continue to try. New lines and new dots are still of value to me and I’m finding that I’m paying a bit more to get them.
I also passed through 77 airports during the year located in 18 different countries. I actually Immigrated 31 different times, including the various times I returned to the United States. On four of my trips there were multiple foreign countries involved.
I visited 15 distinct countries, plus the USA. Eight of those countries (St. Maarten, Sint Martin, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Togo, Guyana, Morocco and Tunisia) were new to me. Two of the crossings (into Togo and back into Ghana were on foot while the Sint Martin/St. Maarten crossing were by car; The others were all by plane. I also added a new state visited – Idaho – to my list even though I drove over from Spokane to get there rather than flying in.
My travels included flying on 24 different airlines (possibly a few more if regional/express carriers are included by I’m not great at tracking those). Of those 24, 13 were airlines I had not previously flown on (AC, AT, BA, BD, BE, HA, LC, RW, SN, TGY, VS, YV & YX). Again, it is getting much harder to find new ones at reasonable prices but I’m doing my best, including a couple booked for the early part of 2011.
None of my milestones north, south, east or west were new extremes for me this year. Nor was my longest flight (SYD-SFO) longer than previous records. I did get a new shortest flight for my list, one that will almost certainly never be broken.
Somewhat amazingly, of the 151 flights I only had three instances where I was struck by operations so irregular that they caused a missed flight. One of them – during my JetBlue AYCJ adventures wasn’t a big deal and I got back on track without really missing anything along the way. Two others – a US Airways delay out of Belgium and a Royal Air Maroc fiasco in Casablanca – caused me to overnight unexpectedly. The US Air incident wasn’t so bad but the Air Maroc one was pretty awful.
Finally, I managed to pick up five new aircraft types during the year. My favorite was probably the smallest, the Cessna 208 Caravan I, though the
| Saab SF340 was fun, too, and the Embraer 175LR was the best ride of them all.
And I got robbed once where the guy took money directly from my hands and probably a couple more times due to bad negotiating skills in markets. At least I robbed the guy who physically took the cash out of my hand back. |
And while I sit on the airplane now, enjoying a flight from Lufthansa into Frankfurt and on to Munich, I realize that I may only be three days into the new year but I’ve already got a new line for my map and tomorrow will bring another one, along with a rubber duckie souvenir. Not a bad way to start the year.
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Tags: Air Canada, bmi, British Airways, Brussels, Dominican Republic, Embraer, FlyBE, Flying, Ghana, Guyana, LoganAir, Lufthansa, Morocco, Togo, Tunisia, Virgin Atlantic
Posted by Seth on December 24, 2010 under frequent flyer, News |
First there was the announcement that Air Canada’s Aeroplan program would require flights on AC metal to earn elite status. Now there are rumors floating around that booking options for award flights – particularly on partner airlines – are being artificially limited by the company.
Previously one was always able to check for the award inventory directly via a number of different tools (AwardNexus or www.ana.co.jp are the most popular and comprehensive for Star Alliance) and then feed the flights to an agent segment by segment. Now the agents are apparently limited to only being able to sell the seats they see on their search screens. Among other things this restricts some carriers, including Asiana and Swiss, from being displayed at all. Not very helpful.
Currently partner bookings are still being processed by managers but it is not clear how willing they will be to process such requests going forward. Either way, it is a rather unfortunate devaluation of the Aeroplan program. Coming on the heels of their wins at the Frequent Traveler Awards program this past November these devaluations are especially unfortunate.
More discussion on this recent development here.
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Posted by Seth on December 22, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Three more airlines have joined the Star Alliance upgrade program this month, bringing the total number or participating carriers up to 19. The new entrants to the program include Air Canada (December 3), US Airways (December 14) and TAM Airlines (December 17).
Upgrades using the program are still expensive – per segment rather than per direction and they require the purchase of the highest fare buckets – but having the options available is always a good thing, particularly if you’ve got someone else footing the bill for your flexible international itinerary but where they won’t pay for premium cabin service. As always, call the airline where you have points accumulated to redeem for the upgrade awards.
Posted by Seth on December 3, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Aeroplan, the frequent flyer program associated with Air Canada announced a change today for their 2012 program and qualifying for status in the loyalty scheme. Most notable is that customers will actually have to fly on Air Canada in 2011 to qualify for status in 2012. A minimum of 10,000 elite qualifying miles (EQMs) or 5 segments on Air Canada metal will be required to receive any status. This requirement is in addition to the regular tier qualification levels.
Aeroplan has generally been an attractive program to park Star Alliance points in for many passengers, even if they never fly on the carrier. The primary reasons are twofold:
- First, the program is pretty useful for redemptions, particularly if you are not flying on Air Canada as part of the redemption. Their fees are generally low and the routing rules generally quite generous. With rates for premium redemption often better than the other North American Star Alliance programs it is easy to see why Aeroplan is attractive.
- Second, reaching status to permit lounge access is relatively easy. Middle-tier is reached at either 35K EQMs or 50 segments. This is the lowest requirement of any North American-based Star Alliance program and it comes with the full complement of Star Alliance Gold benefits, including lounge access on all itineraries. Unlike Star Gold on Continental, US Airways or United Airlines where lounge access to their own lounges is only permitted on international itineraries, a Star Gold from Air Canada gets access to all Star Gold lounges on any itinerary.
So number two is pretty much going away unless customers actually fly on Air Canada. While it is unfortunate to see yet another program limiting the value of its program it is also somewhat understandable. If the airline is generally receiving minimal revenue from a customer and paying out great benefits there isn’t much motivation to keep the status quo. Losing money on every customer but making it up in volume is not a recipe for long-term success in any industry.
That said, customers who are almost never flying on Air Canada and who are parking the points in the program just for the lounge access benefit might be wasting money with that approach. Lounge access can be had for a few hundred dollars annually. Parking 35,000 EQMs – likely the equivalent of 70,000 award miles – into an account where they’re orphaned is throwing away more money in point value than is being saved in lounge access costs. Then again, the quality of Aeroplan’s redemption scheme means that the points aren’t really being completely orphaned.
It is worth noting that other carriers, including American Airlines and British Airways have a similar policy of requiring some flights on their own metal for status. So Air Canada is not alone in this policy but it is still very much in the minority.
More discussion of the announcement can be found here.
Posted by Seth on November 25, 2010 under Trip Reports |
It turns out that I really prefer travelling on the holiday rather than the day before. The roads and the airport were quiet this morning and the plane is only a third full, meaning we started boarding 15 minutes late and still pushed back early. No complaints there at all.
Today is my first trip ever (or at least in a long time, but I’m pretty sure ever) on Air Canada: Newark – Calgary – Yellowknife. The first flight is 4:18 on an Embraer E190. I’m a huge fan of the aircraft type – generally quite comfortable – but the only food in coach is BoB, so I decided to raid the lounges in the airport for breakfast supplies instead.
Due to some rather poor planning on my part I needed to stop by the Continental Presidents Club in Newark as well as the United Airlines Red Carpet Club. They’re in different security areas in the A terminal which means I got to clear security twice today. At least no Nude-o-Scopes in service in these terminals yet. On the plus side, it slowed me down enough that I got to se the awesome sunrise rather than already being holed up in a lounge.
It also means I got to pick up my favorite breakfast supplies from both clubs rather than having to choose. A lot of folks are pretty die-hard about whether they like the snack options at one lounge or the other better. For me, however, a solid airport breakfast is a combination from the two: yogurt from the RCC and a granola bar (or three) from the PClub. Yummeh!
I suppose now is as good a time as any to offer up a brief review of the Air Canada product, at least first impressions. When the plane is only a third full it is easy to feel like it is incredibly comfortable. Plenty of room for bags, easy boarding and plenty of space on board as well. I think it would be the same even if the plane was full based on my experience on other E190s though overhead space would be a bit harder, particularly with all the heavy coats headed north this morning. Even with the light load, however, the crew was pretty phenomenal. A flight attendant passed through the aisle every 20-30 minutes offering water throughout the flight; a nice touch.
The IFE system – enRoute – is pretty slick. A roughly 10 inch touch screen in the seat back offering movies, TV, music and games on demand is always a good thing. Sadly, the map feature was not working this morning but the other stuff seems to be pretty solid. The XM music appears to be a recorded loop, not the live feed but there are also about 100 CDs available to choose from. The movie selection was pretty current (Salt and Inception were both options on this morning’s flight) and there are a few older films on offer as well. The Classics were a bit older than I was hoping for but a solid representation of the era. A few dozen TV episodes available, too. Truly, if you cannot find something to pass an hour or two of the flight on the AVOD system you’re probably doing it wrong.
Finally, the seats. They’re pretty nice. My only (small) complaint is the lack of an adjustable headrest on the seats.When I’m sitting upright the bottom of the headrest is in my shoulder blades rather than supporting my head and neck. But I don’t sit up all that often so not the end of the world.
Overall a rather comfortable way to fly. I’m now pretty confident that I’ll be quite comfortable on my trip to Munich and Salzburg with Air Canada in January.
Posted by Seth on October 28, 2010 under Trip Reports |
A few months ago I was ecstatic after securing an award ticket to New Zealand for this coming December. It wasn’t just that I got seats on the dates I wanted. And it wasn’t just that they were in premium cabins almost the entire way. And it wasn’t just that I was able to get one of the longest possible routings along the way to maximize my time in the big comfy seats (and lounges). OK, maybe it was that last one.
Unfortunately, however, the reason I was going to New Zealand changed around a bit. And it looks like we’re going to be spending a couple weeks in India at the end of December, No reason I cannot combine the two trips, right? Apparently Continental felt that was actually going to be a problem.
It seems there are two ways for the airline to issue award tickets and mine was originally set up with the method that requires the agents working on the ticket to manually verify the details. Based on what the agent I spoke with today explained, it seems that a small detail was missed during the original, manual booking of my award. It wasn’t a legal routing according to their system. Oopsie.
Of course, I wasn’t really ready to give up on what was an absolutely awesome award trip, despite their suggestions that they could convert it to an Around the World award for only 120,000 extra points (75% more than the 160K I originally redeemed). Ummmm, no thanks. After a bit of discussion we agreed that, while it might not actually be valid in their system, I shouldn’t be penalized because someone misunderstood the rules a couple months ago when issuing it. So I was permitted to make my change – and I was still able to find seats on flights I wanted within a couple days of my ideal – and to keep the ticket.
So I ended up with this little bit of awesomeness:
![map[1]](http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thewanderingaramean/files/2010/10/map1.png)
I get a new carrier (Swiss) as well as my first experiences in the Lufthansa and Thai Airways first class cabins. Only the segment between Auckland and Melbourne is in coach; the rest are all in the highest class of service available on the flight. I tried to mix Air Canada in for one of the transatlantic segments but couldn’t make that work. And I gave up the chance at a first class suite on the Turkish 77W, but those are apparently less consistent these days anyways so it wasn’t a sure think even if I did keep that route.
I am not complaining one bit, even if I did have to trade a boondoggle in Singapore for an overnight in Bangkok.
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Tags: Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Auckland, Australia, award, Bangkok, Continental, India, Lufthansa, Munich, Thai Air, Thailand
Posted by Seth on June 24, 2010 under News |
The Toronto Port Authority has come up with a new allocation of landing slots at the City Centre airport. While the airport currently only sees service from Porter Air, Air Canada and Continental have expressed interest in operations at the facility and both will get their wish should the allocations hold.
Air Canada was allotted 30 slots at the airport and Continental received 16. Porter Air received 44. The two new entrants will need to negotiate with the Port Authority for gate and terminal space and other formal details prior to starting operations at the field. Additionally, Porter Air is likely to protest the assignments, having already noted in one response that historic usage should present them with 112 slots, more than the three now assignments combined. Considering that Porter Air uses the airport as a hub and serves several destinations, the 44 daily slots is quite unlikely to be sufficient for their needs.
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Posted by Seth on March 11, 2010 under News |
Good reasons for flight delays are very few and far between. Still, it seems that Air Canada discovered a pretty decent one, albeit by accident. Call it a passenger revolt that was successful.
Apparently the passengers on a scheduled Vancouver – Montreal flight a couple weeks ago simply refused to board the plane and the flight was delayed waiting for them. The flight was scheduled to depart right around the time that the Olympics gold medal match for men’s hockey went into overtime. Passengers watching on the televisions in the airport terminal refused to get on the plane, choosing to watch the end of the game instead.
Good for them, I say. Every now and then the airlines need to be reminded that the customers are the reason they are flying.
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