Business class travel
Dec 26th, 2011, 09:13 AM
#1
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Business class travel
My wife and I are planning a a trip to Venice. I have 300k miles with star alliance. Can anyone give me advice as whether it would be better to book coach and upgrade, use the miles for the travel in total, or simply pay the entire cost ? I am also booking a culinary tour with a private guide for a group of ten people. The tour is by Dawn Bause, has anyone ever had any experience with her tours ? She comes highly recommended by a friend.
Dec 26th, 2011, 08:11 PM
#2
I'm not Star Alliance, but most ff programs seem to require you book an upgradeable fare class(not all fares are upgradeable). Aren't two biz class fares on AA less than 300k? Is it you aren't finding biz class for your dates/cities?
Dec 27th, 2011, 10:07 AM
#3
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In general, if you buy the ticket, or buy a ticket and upgrade with miles, you earn miles for the flight; if you use miles only for the flight, you don't earn miles. So if earning miles is important to you, buy or upgrade.
My experience is that it is not always easy to find a flight that you can buy with miles, or upgrade with miles. It is easy to find a flight if you are paying cash; it is harder, but not impossible, to find a sale on business class tickets. Continental recently had a one day sale on business class to three European destinations; one was on our list, and I got the email notice early enough to respond, so now we are going to Berlin $2200 each; not the greatest price ever, but still a decent deal.
My experience is that it is not always easy to find a flight that you can buy with miles, or upgrade with miles. It is easy to find a flight if you are paying cash; it is harder, but not impossible, to find a sale on business class tickets. Continental recently had a one day sale on business class to three European destinations; one was on our list, and I got the email notice early enough to respond, so now we are going to Berlin $2200 each; not the greatest price ever, but still a decent deal.
Dec 27th, 2011, 12:13 PM
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Which program are you in? I am a DM member so would use the ANA tool to find *A flights in first or business, as the redemption ( single tiered) is a better deal than redeeming My miles for a flight on US (which has a 3 tiered redemption system.)
Dec 31st, 2011, 07:16 AM
#5
MLTimes does DM = Delta miles? If so could you say a bit more about your system (ANA, A flights, etc.) ? I have > 300k skymiles but despite using some approaches mentioned on flyertalk forum have not found a good deal (in terms of miles required).
I just bought a couple of BC tix on Lufthansa during a fare sale but would like to know for future reference.
Vanthanas I have found what's said above to be true -- it's been hard to score all BC tix directly but have in the past bought the upgradable coach and used miles to bump up.
We're switching to United/Star Alliance for mileage programs -- seems easier and "cheaper" in terms of miles to use them.
I just bought a couple of BC tix on Lufthansa during a fare sale but would like to know for future reference.
Vanthanas I have found what's said above to be true -- it's been hard to score all BC tix directly but have in the past bought the upgradable coach and used miles to bump up.
We're switching to United/Star Alliance for mileage programs -- seems easier and "cheaper" in terms of miles to use them.
Dec 31st, 2011, 08:50 AM
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DM is USAir's dividend miles program. US does not allow you to search for partner awars flights so I use the ANA website to search for Star Alliance flights then call US to book those flights using my US miles. (There is a long thread on FT about the ANA tool and how to use it. You need to register for ANA's ff program first and do a dummy search for an actual ANA route before it lets you search partner award flights, etc.) Because the Star Alliance flights cannot be booked on line, US waives the telephone booking fee. On US, the miles needed for awards are often lower if you fly partner airlines instead of US, and there are a lot of people usng their US miles for low mileage, free flights in first to Asia on SQ.
I dont know what delta's system is or how sky team booking works, nor can i comment about united-co's access to Partner award seats. However i am consistently pleased with US, availability of award seats, mileage promotions (grand slam, buy-share bonuses).
I dont know what delta's system is or how sky team booking works, nor can i comment about united-co's access to Partner award seats. However i am consistently pleased with US, availability of award seats, mileage promotions (grand slam, buy-share bonuses).
Dec 31st, 2011, 09:17 AM
#7
Unless you need to earn status miles to achieve or maintain status (gold or higher) then, IMHO, it is best to use the miles to pay for the tix in total - fly for free.
Vanathanas, which *A carrier's program? If you have United or Continental miles then use the Continental online search. If you have a United account then open a Continental OnePass account. Link the two accounts.
I think that you can use the CO OnePass award search even if you don't have an account.
MLTimes, do you still have to use the workaround to use the ANA tool if you have no miles in ANA Mileage Club? It used to be that you could search in the standard way even if you had zero miles. Then they changed it to prohibit a search if you didn't have any miles but there was/is a workaround (described at flyertalk) so that you could still search.
In order to use the ANA tool without the workaround I put my ANA MC number on a car rental and earned 100 miles.
Vanathanas, which *A carrier's program? If you have United or Continental miles then use the Continental online search. If you have a United account then open a Continental OnePass account. Link the two accounts.
I think that you can use the CO OnePass award search even if you don't have an account.
MLTimes, do you still have to use the workaround to use the ANA tool if you have no miles in ANA Mileage Club? It used to be that you could search in the standard way even if you had zero miles. Then they changed it to prohibit a search if you didn't have any miles but there was/is a workaround (described at flyertalk) so that you could still search.
In order to use the ANA tool without the workaround I put my ANA MC number on a car rental and earned 100 miles.
Dec 31st, 2011, 09:44 AM
#8
I am a big fan of using miles to fly for free.
Here is my perspective on the sound advice given by clevelandbrown:
If earning miles to reach *Gold status is important to you then consider buying or upgrading. Silver status (at 25,000 miles) is not worth chasing.
My thinking is that if you would be going for silver status with this one long-haul then that means that you don't fly a lot but earn the redeemable award miles elsewhere - on a credit card.
If the bulk of those 300K miles were NOT earned by flying in the last three years then I suggest not getting the upgradeable fare if an free award ticket is available.
But, I like to keep my options open. So the question for the OP is when do they want to travel? We might be able to give advice on revenue tickets with that info.
Here is my perspective on the sound advice given by clevelandbrown:
If earning miles to reach *Gold status is important to you then consider buying or upgrading. Silver status (at 25,000 miles) is not worth chasing.
My thinking is that if you would be going for silver status with this one long-haul then that means that you don't fly a lot but earn the redeemable award miles elsewhere - on a credit card.
If the bulk of those 300K miles were NOT earned by flying in the last three years then I suggest not getting the upgradeable fare if an free award ticket is available.
But, I like to keep my options open. So the question for the OP is when do they want to travel? We might be able to give advice on revenue tickets with that info.
Dec 31st, 2011, 10:00 AM
#9
Rather than "keep my options open" (which I do like to do), in this case I should say "explore all the options".
My advice is based on using miles for a "saver" award. That would be 100K miles for roundtrip for one person N.America to/from Europe. I would not book an award at the "standard" level.
You could use the miles to go in first class.
My advice is based on using miles for a "saver" award. That would be 100K miles for roundtrip for one person N.America to/from Europe. I would not book an award at the "standard" level.
You could use the miles to go in first class.
