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

BOOKING ITA MATRIX ADVANCE SEARCH FARES

4/13/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
ITA matrix is a great tool with variety of advance search features available. This features are useful when you are trying to search for flights with specific criteria and want to quickly look what is available. They also help determine the fare for upgrade-able tickets using upgrade instruments provided to their loyalty program member elites by United Airlines, Delta Airlines or Alaska Airlines. The few of them are listed below:
  • Search specifying price per mile by default by using the link "http://matrix.itasoftware.com/?showPricePerMile=true"
  • Search specifying or restricting Airlines
  • Search specifying alliances
  • Search specifying flight numbers
  • Search specifying or restricting booking class
  • Search specifying minimum/ maximum connect times
Some of these features are described in flyerguide twiki as well as excellent post series by HackMyTrip, the important thing is you cannot book these fares directly on ITA Matrix. You will need to either search the specific flights displayed by ITA matrix on either airlines websites or other OTA. Fortunately, you could use much of the ITA matrix coding language on Hipmunk which would show the bookable flights with a direct link to Airlines Websites or other OTA.

Let's look at an example below for a flight from San Jose (SJC) to Philadelphia (PHL) in Virgin America through some snapshots below on ITA matrix. You could look up the 2 letter IATA code for airlines here. 

Picture
Fig 1: ITA Matrix Search for SJC-PHL on Virgin America with 0 to 2 days length of stay
Picture
Fig 2: ITA Matrix Showing availability for $248 on May 5,6 & 7
As you can see from above that the Virgin America flights are available for $248 on few dates. Now let's see how can we replicate the same using Hipmunk from snapshots below. Hipmunk does not allow wide range of dates, so having a search done on ITA matrix helps us narrow down on potential dates which we feed to Hipmunk. You can see the results in below snapshots.
Picture
Fig 3: Flight search on Hipmunk
Picture
Fig 4: Search results on Hipmunk where you can select the flight desired
Picture
Fig 5: Final selection of flights which can be "book" on Virgin America Website
As you can see from above ITA matrix helps to narrow down the dates for cheaper fares and dates for San Jose (SJC) to Philadelphia (PHL) flight which in turn could be fed to Hipmunk for quick reservation. Of course not all features supported by ITA matrix could be directly used by Hipmunk, as well as there is limitation on how many segments could be fed in Hipmunk, but you could do lot of stuff by plugging in similar "coding language" from ITA matrix to Hipmunk.
0 Comments

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

BEST FLEXIBLE POINTS EARNING PERSONAL CREDIT CARDS

9/4/2012

0 Comments

 
Most of the airlines in US have a co-branded card between themselves and the merchant bank. But there are few credit cards which earn points that can be converted to miles of number of airlines. These cards have advantage of filling out the void of few thousand miles required in specific airline program as well as help in accumulating enough points which can be converted to miles for a reward travel. Lets explore these cards further:

1. American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card: This is one of the go-to card for earning points which can be converted to lot of partner programs, most of them at 1:1 ratio. This card has following features:
  • 25k bonus points after spending $2k in 3 months.
  • $175 annual fee waived for the 1st year.
  • 3x points on airfare.
  • 2x points on gas and groceries.
  • 1x points on everything else.

The best part of this card is the redemption options available. You can redeem your points into miles for following airlines at the time of this writing:
  • AeroMexico
  • Air Canada
  • Alitalia Airlines
  • All Nippon Airways (ANA)
  • Cathay Pacific
  • British Airways
  • Delta
  • Air France
  • Frontier Airlines
  • Hawaiian Airlines
  • Iberia Plus
  • Jetblue
  • Singapore Airlines
  • Virgin America
  • Virgin Atlantic

There are other airlines as partners but for them you can redeem the points only for specific tickets. You can also redeem for various hotel partners but that's not the focus of this article. The complete partner list can be found by going here and selecting "Use Points -> Airlines"

2. Chase Sapphire Preferred: This is one of the favorite personal credit card for lot of people simply because of the ability to earn bonus points on purchases through its "Ultimate Rewards Mall". This card has lot fewer airline partners compared to American Express Premier Rewards card and it transfers the points at 1:1 ratio as well. United and Korean airlines offer great redemption value. This card also has some great features as listed below:
  • 40k bonus points after spending $3k in 3 months.
  • $95 annual fee waived for the 1st year.
  • 2x points on travel and dining. (This include cab, car rental, hotel stay etc)
  • 1x points on everything else.
  • 20% off when you redeem your points through Ultimate Rewards Travel service. That means a $100 redemption would give a value of $120.
  • 7% annual points bonus every year on all new points earned in the year.
  • No foreign transaction fee.

The airline partners are listed below:
  • British Airways
  • United Airlines
  • Southwest Airlines
  • Korean Air
There are other hotel and rail partners which include Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Ritz-Carlton and Amtrak.

3. Starwood Preferred Guest: The value of this credit card lies in points+cash redemption in its brand hotels as well as 1:1.25 points to miles transfer ratio to most of its partner airlines. So for every transfer of 20k points you end up getting 25k miles. Also the long list of partner airlines makes this credit card a good to keep. Below are the features of this card:
  • 10k bonus points on first purchase.
  • 15k additional bonus points after spending $5k in 6 months.
  • $65 annual fee waived for the first year.
  • 2x points only on SPG hotel stays.
  • 1x points on everything else.
  • 25% bonus miles on transfer of every 20k points block

The amazing airlines partners list can be found here although few of them are listed below
  • Air Canada
  • Air New Zealand
  • Alitalia
  • All Nippon Airways (ANA)
  • British Airways
  • Delta
  • Etihad Airways
  • Iberia Plus
  • Japan Airlines
  • Lufthansa Airlines
  • Qatar Airways
  • Singapore Airlines
  • US Airways
  • United Mileage plus (Its 2:1 ratio though, so not a good value)
  • LAN
  • Virgin Atlantic

So if you are looking for flexibility of getting miles in the program you wish to fly then I would highly recommend to pick at-least 2 of above 3 cards for flexibility.

Note: I do not earn any referral credit from the links above. Also I advise to look for best available offer before applying for the credit cards.
 
0 Comments

EXCHANGE, BUY OR TRADE @ POINTS.COM

8/14/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Your Problem: Imagine the situation that you have earned miles for flying one of your less favorite airlines last summer and accumulated few thousand miles but have no use for them. Or you stayed in that wonderful and expensive hotel and earned some of their loyalty program points but do not know what to do of those?

If you have face one of the above situation and want to get some value out of otherwise "wasteful" miles and points than you have "points.com" at your rescue.

If you have never heard about points.com or have heard bad things about points.com than stay with me as I would take you through some hidden gems of this program while avoiding the popular mistakes. Below are few features listed:

Key features:
1. The program is free to join.
2. It allows to exchange, buy or trade miles and points between various participating airline and hotel programs albeit at some cost.
3. You can redeem the unused miles or points for either Paypal cash or gift cards.

Analysis of Points.com: Since points.com is free to join and you can potentially exchange, buy or trade your miles/points, it has some great value to offer if you use it correctly. Remember airlines and hotels do not want you to exchange or trade your otherwise useless miles and points as they know exactly that they are "useless". Points.com comes to rescue by getting some value out of those "useless" miles/points. Below are few hypothetical but could be real scenarios which would give you great value out of this program.

Scenario A: You have 2000 Elevate miles accumulated in Virgin America from the last flight you took for which you have no use of. You are planning to just forget about those miles and move on...
Solution: Hold on.. below I have listed few of many options available using points.com. You can trade 2000 Elevate points for:
1. 1580 US Airways Dividend miles
2. 878 United Mileage plus miles or American Airlines AAdvantage miles
3. 1700 Cathay Pacific Asia miles
4. 1700 Priority club points
You can check the complete list of available options here.

Scenario B: You are short by 43 miles for United Airlines Mileage plus reward level of 12500 points. You want to book the reward within next few days but do not know the cheapest way of getting those 43 miles quickly. Ideally if you want to buy from United Airlines you will need to buy in multiples of 1000 points at a cost of $35/1000 points without any ongoing promotion. 
Solution: You realize that you are member of US Airways Dividend miles and you have about 250 dividend miles accumulated from the new member promotion they had some time back. You quickly log-on to points.com and you find that you can get 43 United Mileage plus miles in exchange of 200 US Air Dividend miles. Although looks like a poor conversion ratio, but hey mind you are saving $35! The complete list of option's for US Airways can be found here.

Scenario C: You have accumulated 6500 points on your flight with Cathay Pacific Asia miles more than 2 years ago. These points are going to expire soon and you do not want to transfer to any other airline partner
Solution: You can redeem 6353 points for $27 in Amazon credits good towards any purchase on Amazon.com

You can also trade miles from one program to another, but these are generally based on availability and usually costs almost the same as buying points from the Airlines directly. Your specific situation might vary depending on trade available etc

As you can see from above scenarios, that points.com best value lies in exchange where you have few thousand "useless" miles and sometimes in redemption of soon to expire miles. Also programs like Frontier Airlines do not allow you to redeem their miles for anything except flight reward or magazines, so you could potentially extract more value by using points.com for Frontier Airline transaction.

Below is the list of few popular points.com participating airlines and hotels:
  • Aeroplan®
  • Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
  • American Airlines AAdvantage®
  • Asia Miles™
  • British Airways Executive Club
  • Delta SkyMiles®
  • Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns®
  • Hawaiian Airlines® HawaiianMiles®
  • Icelandair Award Points
  • Lufthansa Miles & More®
  • US Airways® Dividend Miles®
  • Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
  • Amtrak Guest Rewards Program
  • Choice Hotels
  • Marriott
  • Priority Club® Rewards
  • Starwood Preferred Guest®
  • Trident Hotels, India-Trident Privilege Programme
  • Wyndham Rewards




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.