Miles And Money
  • Miles And Money Blog
  • What We Do
  • Newbie Lounge
    • How to Get Started
    • FAQ - Miles & Points
    • FAQ - Money & Cashback
  • Travel Destinations
  • Contact Me
  • Miles And Money Blog
  • What We Do
  • Newbie Lounge
    • How to Get Started
    • FAQ - Miles & Points
    • FAQ - Money & Cashback
  • Travel Destinations
  • Contact Me

USING ITA MATRIX TO FIND BEST FLIGHT DEALS

8/31/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
ITA MATRIX is one of the best "free" tool available to search for the flights with variety of options. This is really useful if you are looking to fly a specific airline carrier, or you want to know which near-by airport has the cheapest available fare to your destination, or you are looking for the specific fare class which would still earn full 100% miles. Below is a sample list of things you could do using ITA MATRIX but by no means is exhaustive:
  • Find flight options from a given departure airport to multiple destination airports or vice-versa or both. For example flying from either SJC/SFO to MIA/FLL.
  • Flying on a specific airline carrier such as American Airlines or United Airlines.
  • Routing through a specific airport to your destination.
  • Knowing which "days" would be cheaper to fly by viewing by entire month at a time.
  • Finding a fare for a specific fare class which would be useful if you plan to upgrade to next higher cabin using your miles or elite status.
  • If you are doing a mileage run finding days or combination of source/destination which would yield lowest price per mile for your trip.
  • Using hidden city rule to book your flight for a lower fare compared to destination where you actually want to travel. For more info on "hidden city" check out this article here (by Gary).
  • Search for itinerary with specific flight numbers or connection time.
  • Search for flights within specific alliance.

Although you can search different combination's as mentioned above the "ITA MATRIX" does not allow you to make a final purchase nor directs you to one. But most of the time knowing the fare exists would enable you to book your ticket either through OTA (Online Travel Agent) website such Expedia, Priceline or Orbitz or book through other meta search engine sites such as Skyscanner or Hipmunk. You can also book the tickets through various airlines own websites as well if you so desire.  Also note that the search does not include any OTA or airline specific coupons or discounts which you could use if available.

Q: How to do a basic search with price per mile enabled?
A: To do the search with price per mile enabled you need to add "?showPricePerMile=true" at the end of webpage link of ITA MATRIX or use this link. Let's do a search for a 2 to 3 day roundtrip from SFO to MIA  on any day in the month of September 2013 for Economy Cabin Class.

Picture
Fig 1 - SFO - MIA search for 2-3 night stay starting 09/01/2013
The result of the above search can be seen below in Fig 2. As you can see the rates are different for different dates as well as it shows if it is for 2 or 3 days turn as well. You can modify the highlighted box in "red" for search for different month or days of trip.
Picture
Fig 2 - Search showing entire calender view for Sept 2013
As you can see from Fig. 3, selecting the cheapest trip shown in Fig. 2 loads up variety of flights at different times as well as showing "price per mile" for those trips.
Picture
Fig 3 - Search showing different combination of flights and cost per mile
As mentioned this was a simple search with single source and destination. If you want to depart from either of SJC or SFO and your destination could be either of FLL or MIA, you could put that in the search box as shown in Fig. 4
Picture
Fig 4 - Departing from SJC/SFO and Arriving in FLL/MIA
For searching flights operated by only "American Airlines", you can enable "advance routing codes" field and add "AA+" or change the "Departing from" field to look like "SFO, SJC::AA+"
Picture
Fig 5 - Enable advance routing codes
As you can see there are "tons" of possibility of advance code combinations you can use to make your search more specific, but remember if you put "too many generic" options the ITA MATRIX tool will simply time-out or exit with only "partial" results. So, it is prudent to make your search as specific as possible as well as having broad characteristics of details important to you. Below are some examples of advance routing codes which would be useful. We have assumed the "Departing from" to be SFO, but you have any other airport code for your search. The "two letter" code of each airline can be found here.
  • Direct flight on Delta airlines -- SFO :: DL
  • Connect in ORD airport -- SFO :: ORD
  • Flights on American Airlines with connection in ORD -- SFO :: AA ORD AA
  • Search only for flight number AA68 -- SFO :: AA68
  • Search for any carrier in "One World" alliance -- SFO :: / alliance oneworld
  • Search for specific "Y" class fare -- SFO :: /f bc=Y
  • Specify the total duration of the outbound trip to be 6 hours -- SFO :: / maxdur:360

There are many more such codes which are useful to trim down to the flights you are looking for. more information about these can be found on the flyerguide post here. Hope this would be useful for planning your next trip with cash and knowing what were your options before making the purchase.
0 Comments

RAISING MILES AT WALMART

8/23/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Most of you holding BlueBird Debit Card would be familiar with Walmart for loading it up. Since there is a cost associated with the purchase of Visa / MasterCard, which could range from ~$4 to $6 per card the ideal strategy is to purchase the gift cards with credit cards that earn 2x or more miles/points  per $ spent. But assuming you want to accumulate miles/points on the card which only earns 1x miles/points spending $5 for a purchase of $500 gift card would entail the cost of buying miles at 1 cent/mile or point. If you are on a lookout on how to minimize this cost then there are quite a few strategies available. The most common with least hassle are using Chase Gift Cards or using Plink but they have their own limitation's. In this post I am describing yet another strategy on bringing down the cost to zero without too much of work involved.

Bring on Raise!
Raise is a website for gift card buy and sale. This site is interesting because they regularly have Walmart e-gift card for sale at 2% to 3% discount. On top of it they do provide $5 off first purchase of $125 for new customer as well as do have promotion's now and then for $5 off discounts on $75 or more. The best part is you could make a purchase through cash back site such as Topcashback which regularly offers 2% to 3% of the card value as cash back. 

Let's assume the hypothetical purchase scenario where you make a purchase of $200 Walmart gift card without considering any special promotion or $5 discount. Assuming you are making a purchase at 2% discount and Topcashback provides another 2%, thus your out of pocket expense to purchase $200 Walmart gift card would be "$200 - $4 (2%) - $3.92 (2% of $196) = $192.08. Saving of $7.92.. That's not much of a saving unless you read next..

Bring on Walmart!
Walmart sells visa gift cards of $200 for $206.88 ($6.88 is the fee for $200 visa gift card). The important thing to note is currently you can use Walmart e-gift card to make the purchase of these visa gift cards. You can combine 4 such e-gift cards for single purchase. There is no shipping fee for this and the transaction would go through without any issues as you are using Walmart's currency.

Combine the above two..
So, now if you combine Raise and Walmart together you will notice that your out of pocket fee is (-$1.04) for generating 200 points/miles using a credit card which gives only 1x. You can then use your favorite BlueBird Debit card to unload the $200 Visa gift card using your favorite Walmart again and thus generate free miles/points easily.

Note: If you use the Raise or TopCashBack link above I would get a small commission which I greatly appreciate. Thanks for reading!

0 Comments

CAR RENTAL DEALS SEARCH SITES

8/11/2013

3 Comments

 
Picture
Most often than not on your trip you rent a car and its good to know what all the available options are as well as which websites would fetch you the cheapest car rental cost.

To start with there are two kind of rentals you could book:
  1. Opaque booking where you select the "type" of the car (Economy, Mid-size etc) you want to rent and make your best bid, but have no clue on which car company you would end up renting.
  2. Transparent booking where you know which car rental agency you are renting from and have an option to either "pay at the counter" or do a "prepaid rate" which is slightly lower than the "pay at the counter"

Opaque Booking:
When you book the car rental using this kind of service you are typically renting through 3rd party travel agency site. Below are the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of rental:
Advantages:
  • You can generally get a car rental at a lower rate than the transparent rate available (if you are good a bidding a right price).
  • It tends to favor if you are looking to rent full-size or premium cars as bidding for them could give you best bang for your buck.
Disadvantages:
  • You pay up immediately for the rental cost and there is no way to change the "dates" or "type of car" at a later date.
  • You cannot use any discount codes for available rentals.
  • You do not earn any "airline miles" nor "car rental points credit" for these kind of reservations.
There are two primary companies in this space and they are "Hotwire" and "Priceline". 

Transparent Booking:
This is how typically you would book you car rental using either 3rd party OTA websites or the car rental agency website. The only disadvantage if you might end up paying a higher price then otherwise you would pay using the "Opaque booking", but the advantages are many as listed below:
Advantages:
  • Selecting "pay at the counter" is better as you have a option of cancelling the reservation if you find a lower price with some other car rental agency (or the same car rental agency) and usually there is no fee for cancellation.
  • You can use the promotion codes as well as discount codes to lower the price. Also if there are special promotions for "airline miles" you could participate in them to offset some of your cost of car rental.

With that being said for "transparent booking", below are some of the websites which you would find useful for finding promotion / discount codes before you would go ahead and make your car rental reservation or could help you in getting the best available price for your next car rental.

Promo Codes / Discount Codes Websites:
  • Frequentflyerbonuses - The place where you will find most of the on-going promos for car rentals.
  • Zalyn - A place where you can get to chose different car rental promo/discount codes.
  • AvisDiscountCodes - This FT thread would give you all the info for AVIS promo codes.
  • HertzDiscountCodes - This FT thread would give you all the info for Hertz promo codes.

Car Rental Booking Websites (OTA):
Below is the list of websites which generally tend to give good discounted rates for car rentals. Some of them are limited to access for "members only", but if you have access to them it would be really useful. You would want to try at-least 3 of them before concluding the best available price.
  • CarRentalSavers - This is a great website which does not require membership. You could also add promotion/discount codes to get a better rate search for your specific rental. 
  • CostcoTravel - This is a member-only website for all the Costco Membership holders (although the search is free to make). There is no advance cancellation fee.
  • UltimateRewardsTravel - This is a member-only site for the holders of chase credit cards which earn Ultimate Reward points (Chase Freedom/Sapphire/Sapphire Preferred Cards etc). Car rental booking through this portal is cheaper lot of time compared to other sites. You can either pay with UltimateRewards points or a credit card. There is no cancellation fee if you cancel the rental before 2 days in advance of your car rental pick-up.
  • CitiThankYouTravel - This is a member-only site for the holders of Citi Checking account or Citi ThankYou points earning credit cards.You will need to select "Book Travel --> Cars" for booking the car rental of your choice. Again the prices are comparable to what you see through Chase Ultimate Rewards mall, but there is a cancellation fees of $15 even if you cancel 2 days before your car rental pick-up. You can pay using ThankYou points or a credit card.

Note: None of the above links are referral links or earns me any commission. Thanks for reading!

3 Comments

    Author

    I love traveling / backpacking. This blog focuses on below 3 aspects of travel:
    1. Maximizing your travel experience .
    2. Sharing how to travel with miles in premium class or at discount in economy class.
    3. Great cash-back deals in travel.

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    NEWBIE LOUNGE

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email:

    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    16000 Points
    50% Bonus
    Aadvantage
    Aeroplan
    Air France
    Airline Incidental Credit
    AirlineRouteMaps
    Airlines
    Airline Status
    Alamo
    Alaska Airlines
    Altitude Reserve Credit Card
    Amazon
    American Airlines
    American Express
    Amex For Target
    Amex Offers
    Amex Premier Rewards Gold
    Amex Sync
    ANA
    Asia Miles
    Asiana Airlines
    AT&T
    Audience Rewards
    AutoSlash
    Avianca
    Avios
    Avis
    Award Ticket
    Awardwallet
    Award Wallet
    Bank Of America
    Bluebird
    Blue Cash Preferred
    British Airways
    British Avios
    Cardpool
    Car Rental
    Carrentalsavers
    Car Ride Services
    Car Sharing
    Cashback
    Cathay Pacific
    Chase
    Chase Freedom
    Chase Sapphire Preferred
    Chime
    Chime Card
    Choice Privilege
    Choice Privileges
    CITI
    Citi Thankyou
    City National Bank
    Club Carlson
    Companion Fare
    Costco
    Costco Travel
    Credit Approval
    Credit Cards
    Credit Denial
    Credit Karma
    Credit Score
    Credit Sesame
    Daily Getaway
    Daily Getaways
    Data Breach
    Delta
    Delta Airlines
    Delta Skymiles
    Discover More
    Dollar Tree
    Doordash
    Drop
    Ebates
    Ebay
    E-miles
    Emirates
    E-rewards
    Etihad
    Exchange
    Expedia
    Faq
    Finnair
    Flightconnections
    Flight Deals
    Flyertalk
    Flying Blue
    Free Credit Score
    Free Travel
    Frontier
    GetAround
    Giftcard
    Gift Cards
    Gift Card Swap
    Google Flights
    Gowallet
    Greatfunonline
    Groupon
    Grubhub
    Hawaiian
    Hertz
    HHonors
    Hidden Award
    Hidden City
    Hilton
    Hilton Honors
    Hotels
    Hotwire
    Hyatt
    Ihg
    Ihg Big Win
    Instacart
    Ita Matrix
    Japan
    Japan Airlines
    Jet Airways
    Jetblue
    KLM
    La Quinta Returns
    Lifemiles
    Lufthansa
    Lyft
    Marriott
    Mastercard
    Membership Reward Points
    Mileage Credit
    Milesandmoney
    Miles And Money
    MILESLIFE
    Miles & More
    Mile Tracker
    Moneypak
    National
    Newbie
    Newbie Lounge
    Officemax
    OpenFlights
    Opinion Place
    Payless
    Platinum Select Visa
    Pointbreaks
    Points
    Points.com
    Points To Miles
    Priceline
    Priority Club
    Qatar
    Qatar Airways
    QuickTrip
    Radio Shack
    Radisson Rewards
    Raise
    Reconsideration
    RelayRides
    Retention Offer
    Rewards
    Roadside Assistance
    Schedule Change
    Sears
    Serve
    Simplymiles
    Singapore Airlines
    Skyscanner
    Southwest Airlines
    Spg
    Staples
    Starwood Preferred Guest
    Stay 1 Get 1
    Swagbucks
    SYWR
    Target
    Thanksgiving
    TheFlightDeal
    TIMITAC
    Topcashback
    Track Your Miles
    Transfer Bonus
    Travel
    Turkish Airlines
    TURO
    Twitter
    Uber
    Ultimate Rewards
    United Airlines
    United Mileageplus
    United Mileage Plus
    Upside
    Us Airways Dividend Miles
    U.S. Bank
    Usingmiles
    Virgin America
    Virgin Atlantic
    Visa
    Visa Gift
    Visa Gift Card
    Visa Infinite Travel Discount
    Walmart
    Wells Fargo Rewards
    Wildcard
    Wyndham
    Wyndham Rewards
    Zalyn

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.