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

AWARD TICKETS HIDDEN CITY TICKETING

8/30/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the previous installment we talked about how Hidden City Revenue Ticket can be booked. Let's see how we can apply the same to book award tickets with hidden city which can either reduced the "fuel surcharges" or the "number of miles" required for the award. Below are the traits of booking such an award:
  • Certain cities which "cap" fuel surcharge (think Hong Kong) when you are flying in to them.
  • Certain regions that prohibit fuel surcharges on the revenue tickets (think S. America) and thus "remove fuel surcharge" from award tickets.
  • Routing which requires flying through the airline "hub" where the "hub" lies in the different region then the "source/destination" pair region.

Lets see the usage of above with few examples:

Going from South Asia to Central Asia using United Miles:
United typically charges 35k/60k/110k miles in Economy/Business/First respectively for travel between South Asia region and Central Asia region yet it only charges 20k/35k/45k miles for travel wholly within "South Asia" region. As you can see from below a trip from Kathmandu (KTM) to Bangkok (BKK) requires 35k miles in Economy and 60k

Picture
KTM-BKK cost is 35k/60k miles in Economy/Business
Now, lets try one of the "hidden city" concept to see if we can reduce the price. Let's see what happens if we change our destination to Colombo (CMB) which is in South Asia region.
Picture
KTM-BKK-(CMB) cost is 20k/35k miles in Economy/Business
As you can see from above the mileage cost has reduced from 35k/60k to 20k/35k and you are still travelling via Bangkok (BKK). The idea here is you can book the flight from Kathmandu to Colombo via Bangkok and can get down at Bangkok as long as you do not have any checked-in Bags and have "visa" for Colombo (you will need Colombo visa to board the flight from Kathmandu).

Going from North America to South Pacific using Delta Skymiles:
Most of you would consider Delta Skymiles to be useless but one of the sweet redemption is travelling to Australia on Virgin Australia using Delta Skymiles. You can only book Delta flights round trip but can have one-stop  over and one open-jaw in the route. Ideally Delta would charge 100k/160k in Economy/Business to fly Australia as shown below:
Picture
LAX-SYD-LAX would cost 100k miles in Economy using Delta Skymiles
Lets now change to destination in some other region where Virgin Australia flies. How about some another vacation spot? If you change the destination to Bali (DPS) which is in Southeast Asia you can reduce the mileage cost to 80k/140k in Economy/Business as shown below:
Picture
LAX-SYD-DPS-SYD-LAX would cost 80k miles in Economy using Delta Skymiles with free stop-over in Sydney
As you can see there are quite a few opportunities which reduces the mileage cost with the help of "Hidden City Ticketing". On similar lines changing the destination to something which has "low fuel surcharge" when booking through mileage currency from programs such as ANA or Aeroplan which typically levies fuel surchage can provide good amount of savings. 

So, look around for such opportunities before you book your next vacation.
0 Comments

HIDDEN CITY TICKETING? HOW DOES IT WORK?

8/17/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Either you are occasional traveler or a regular traveler looking to travel on the high demand route, knowing hidden city ticketing could help you save $$ for your next trip or reduce the cost to some extent. So what does the "Hidden City Ticketing Mean"?
The idea of Hidden City ticketing is knowing the cheaper or "low fare" markets around the "high demand / high cost" market and using it to our advantage on saving the cost. Let's see few examples:
San Francisco (SFO) to Los Angeles (LAX) for close in Thursday Evening ticket (08/21)
A quick search on ITA Matrix gives the below results. As you can see the price is pretty much standard across the board to be $210 (whoops!!). I have purposefully shown details of one of the flight and soon you will see why?

Picture
SFO - LAX -- 08/21/2014
Now let's check out some of the so called "low demand" markets around LAX and see if that gives any better pricing. The way to do this is, enter "LAX" in advance routing code field as highlighted below and let's change the destination to San Diego (SAN). Check out the below screenshot for pricing..
Picture
SFO - SAN via LAX -- 08/21/2014
Picture
SFO - SAN via LAX -- 08/21/2014
As you can see from above, the direct flight from SFO to LAX on AA1143 was costing $210, but now the same flight is available for $152, if you decide to booked SFO - LAX - SAN route. There are few important things you should remember before you decide to fly SFO - LAX only for $152.
  • Make sure you have NO CHECK IN bags, this is because you do not plan to take the flight from LAX-SAN and as such ideally the check-in bags are checked to final destination only.
  • DO NOT use your primary frequent flyer number (i.e. AA), you could credit this to any of the other partners, as you do not want to get flagged (If you do this regularly and have your Frequent Flyer (FF) number in there you are inviting trouble). 

As you can see you saved almost 33% flying the same Airlines you wanted, but with the help of hidden city ticketing. The concept could be applied to other routes and destinations as well. Also if you fly "hub-to-hub" you might want to check the "non-hub" location for savings (as the routing would be always through hub! ).
0 Comments

AIRLINE ROUTE MAPS SEARCH?

8/9/2014

0 Comments

 
Ever wondered, which airline flies which route and what are the flight options for the given city? Would that not be much easier if there was single source or page listing all the flights departing a airport? or showing flight details between two city pair?. Although no single website exists which could satisfy this needs there are several resources which could help you find that info. Below are some of the useful websites which can help you get that info, which would help you finalize that missing puzzle of your successful award or revenue travel. 

Flightconnections.com
Currently in beta flightconnections will help you find what are the "destinations" served from the airport of your desire and if you key in source/destination pair the available airline/flight options between those two airport/city pair. Of-course you could click on one of those airlines and go to one of their "affiliate" booking web-page, but at least you get the info you need.
Picture
Sample flight routes from SFO-LAX on flightconnections.com
OpenFlights.org
Open Flights is like a wikipedia of flights. As it is open-source it is maintained by community of volunteers, and thus would have good info albeit some of the info might be wrong. The interesting part is you could view or list flights from a given "airport" or "city" and the data could be either seen as a map or read as a list. You can even sort the data as well as filter per the "airlines". As seen from below snapshots!
Picture
Sample search for departures from San Francisco Airport on openflights.org
Picture
All routes from SFO listed on openflights.org
Picture
Routes shortlisted to the one on American Airlines on openflights.org
QuickTrip.com
This tool would be useful if you know the source and destination as well as the dates of your travel and want to know all the available flight options. So, although limited compared to open flights or flightconnection it is still useful as it can quickly list all the options on various airlines as can be seen from below search.
Picture
QuickTrip.com flight options from SFO-LAX
AirlineRouteMaps.com
This website requires a little more info before spitting out the route-map but it is useful if you are looking for a route map by "region" or "airline". You could plug in your short-listing criteria and get set of route-maps which are available. You can see a simple search for American Airlines below yields links to various route maps by region as well detailed info on the "hubs".
Picture
Airline Route Maps for American Airlines various destinations
Airline Route Mapper
Airline route mapper is another tool which was created by flyertalk member cockpitvisit. You need to download this tool but it does list a fairly comprehensive and updated route map. So, if you are one of those who do lot of search and do not mind installing this tool on your laptop/desktop then this is for you.


Apart from above there is a route map (which might be a little limited in its usage but still useful) for One World Alliance routes which can be found here and Star Alliance routes which can be found here.
0 Comments

GOOD CATEGORY BONUS CREDIT CARDS TO HAVE?

8/3/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the miles/points collection one of the important ingredients is having credit cards which provide category spend bonuses. This would help speed up the collection time as well as reduces the overall cost for earning points/miles. Some of these might be limited time offer while others would be limited to $dollar amount cap you could earn in a given year or  a quarter. Still having these cards would get you going faster then not having them in your arsenal. Below is the list of few cards which has great potential in maximizing your miles/points earnings! (I have purposefully omitted the cards which have 5% rotating category bonus which changes every quarter. Some of them are Chase Freedom, Citi Dividend, Discover It. 

Old Blue Cash:
This card gives 5% category bonus at U.S. Supermarkets, U.S. Stand alone Gas stations and Select U.S. Drug Stores which are classified as "Everyday Purchases" after you hit initial spend of $6500 on the card. This card is not available for application directly from the American Express Website, but you could still get to working application. Below are some interesting details:
  • 1% cashback for "Everyday Purchases" and 0.5% on all other purchases till you hit $6500 total spend on the card.
  • 5% cashback for "Everyday Purchases" and 1% on all other purchases after you hit $6500. total spend on the card (Note: You earn 5% on gas purchases at Gas station only up to purchase of $400).
  • There is no annual fee for this card.

You need to click on the "link" in Chrome Incognito mode to load the application. Similarly you could use "private browsing mode of other browsers". You can get more detailed information on this flyertalk thread.

Blue Cash Preferred:
This card is newer version of "Old Blue Cash" and gives 6% cash back at U.S. Supermarkets up to $6000 of spend per year (after that only 1% cashback), 3% cash back at stand alone U.S. gas stations, and certain department stores without any cap limits (details about different stores and Supermarkets eligible can be found here).
  • Sign up bonus which could be as high as $250.
  • 6% of $6000 which is $360 cash back for purchases at U.S. Supermarkets.
  • 3% without cap for purchase at gas stations and department stores.
  • $75 annual fee which is not waived.
Here is the application link available from American Express website (might not have best sign-up bonus).

Wells Fargo Rewards Card:
This card gives 5 rewards points/$ spend or 5% cash back for gas, groceries and drugstore purchases without any cap for the first 6 months you have this card. After that the cash back goes to 1% only. Also note that the folks who had any credit card from Wells Fargo earlier are excluded from getting this bonus. Since there is no spend cap, it is real good for folks who are heavy on spending and can maximize this limited time promotion. You can redeem the reward points for travel and get good value based on your redemption. For more discussion about this card check out this flyertalk thread.
  • Use for travel with no black out dates.
  • $0 annual fee.
Citizens Bank Platinum MasterCard:
This is another limited time promotional card which gives 10% cash back on gas purchases (maximum $1000 purchase) and after that 5% unlimited cash back on gas, groceries and drug store purchases for the first 90 days of keeping this card. After first 90 days you earn 1% cash back on all the purchases regardless of category. In my personal view having this bonus available for first 90 days only is a limiting factor but still would be useful for some folks who would have niche for high spending within the 5% category for the 90 days of promotion period. 
  • 10% cash back on gas purchase for first 90 days (limit of $1,000 purchase) and 5% cash back after that.
  • 5% cash back on groceries and drug store purchases.
  • $0 annual fee.

Ink Bold and Ink Plus Business Card:
Given that both Ink Bold (Charge Card where you need to pay your card balance in full) and Ink Plus (Credit Card) are Business Cards, this might not be something available to all the folks. But given that these cards provide "5% cash back at office supply stores and on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV services each account anniversary year" up to first $50,000 spend each year makes them a "must-have" cards for lot of folks. Also these points can be transferred to lot of Ultimate Rewards partner airlines & hotels or can be redeemed as statement credit for 1:1 basis or can be used to book travel through Ultimate Rewards Travel for 1:1.25 ratio makes them really valuable.
  • 5x Ultimate Reward points or 5% cash back at office supply stores or on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV.
  • 2x Ultimate Reward points or 2% cash back at gas stations and hotel accommodations.
  • $95 annual fee (waived off first year of card membership).

Also currently (as of 08/03/2014) there is 70,000 points bonus offer after $5k spend in 3 months available at chase branches for the Ink Plus Credit Card Application for new applicants. So, if this is something you are looking for it would be a good time to get this card.


Disclosure - None of the above links provide me with any referral credit or bonus. Some of the links might not give the best sign-on bonus available. Credit Card application requires your own due diligence and is worth only if you pay your bills on time and in full. Thanks for reading!

0 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.