Literally every day, I get emails about booking flights. The blog is about earning, but these questions about burning miles come in all the time. The problem is, I just don’t have time to do some of these complicated bookings. Then again, I probably don’t have the brainpower either. There’s an art to it for sure…
Of all the choices out there, I always refer people to Shrewd Travel. It’s run by my friend Andrew. He has volunteered to pay me for people I send over, but instead, I asked him to charge less and give that money to you guys. I think it’s only fair…I wouldn’t want my recommendation to be influenced by any financial gain. He and I talked about him doing a guest post last year. Life is busy, so it’s just happening now. I wanted him to share an example of what someone like him does. The first of those posts is below. I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know what you think. Love it or hate it, I’d love to hear those opinions. Ok, I’ll get out of his way now. Enjoy your weekend, nerds!
Hi, I’m Andrew, and I’m the President of Shrewd Travel LLC. Paul asked me to write a little bit about a recent award booking to show you how I think through a booking. If, after reading this you have any questions, feel free to let me know.
Over the weekend, a customer inquired about booking a trip to South America. She had a destination picked out and an array of miles but none of them were enough for two round-trip tickets in business class. Here’s what she had:
- 127,000 American Airlines AAdvantage
- 25,000 Starwood Preferred Guest
- 147,000 United MileagePlus
- 120,000 British Airways Avios
She wanted to go to Punta Arenas (PUQ) in Chile, departing from Chicago sometime between November 15th and February 15th. She wanted to spend 10 days out of the country.
With the average price between North America and South America in business class being approximately 100,000 miles per person, she clearly didn’t have enough to book 2 people on the same airline with her stash. However, she definitely had enough to book 4 one-ways in business class, which meant we would be able to book them together on the way down and back.
I knew the airport at her desired destination of Punta Arenas didn’t have much service. A quick look confirmed that only 3 airlines operate there and only one is bookable with miles (LAN). I went over to British Airways to search for availability on LAN between Santiago (major international airport in Chile) and PUQ. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a date with 2 seats open. That meant that she’d have to buy 2 tickets from SCL-PUQ-SCL. No big deal. I had warned her early on in the process this may be the case, and the prices weren’t too high.
Punta Arenas, Chile
So now it was time to pick the miles to use. It was clear we’d have to use Oneworld for at least one direction, so my first instinct was to look for LAN space to all of their US Destinations. I couldn’t find any dates that had 2 seats using the British Airways search engine so I moved on. Next, I tried to find American Airlines availability.
The client had specifically asked for a lie-flat seat for her trip so I had to look for availability in first class on an American 777-200. Why? Because they have angled seats in business on that plane and that’s the only aircraft they operate to Santiago. If they flew the 777-300ER, we would have been fine in business since it has flat-bed seats. Unfortunately, that isn’t true on the 777-200. FYI, within the next year or two, all of the 777-200s will be converted flat-beds in business class and they’ll eliminate the first class cabin entirely.
American Airlines 777-200 First Class
I was able to find first class availability on December 6th but it required a double connection (Miami and St. Louis). Fortunately, the connection in St. Louis was short and the entire trip was in first class. I put it on hold with American and then went to book the flights to Santiago with United. Why? I knew there would be good availability around Thanksgiving for international flights departing the United States (July 4th is another holiday with similar great availability exiting the US).
I first went to United’s website because it’s the easiest site to use. Also, because she was going to South America, I knew United would show all availability. If she was flying to any other continent I’d likely use United along with another search engine because United doesn’t show all partners. However, for trips between the US and South America it shows everything. All partners. I first looked to see if there was space from Houston (on United) or Toronto (on Air Canada). Both options were available so now I wanted to see which would provide the best connection. It turns out the United flight allowed for a much more efficient use of time thanks to the frequency of Chicago to Houston flights. Once I found the best connection option, I put the award on hold. I knew business class would be fine on United. Why? Because on all of their long-haul international destinations (operated by Boeing 747, 757, 767, 777, and 787 aircraft) United has flat-bed seats in business class.
United BusinessFirst Bed on Planes Without First Class
After putting everything on hold, I went to search for flights that allowed a safe connection time above the 1.5 hour minimum connect time from international to domestic at Santiago. Once I picked flight times that offered the most direct choices (1-stop, no plane change) I included those in my email to the client.
The client confirmed the itinerary was exactly what she was looking for. I then sent her instructions for pay for the flights online and confirm them. In this case, neither she nor I had to call the airline (though this isn’t true in more complex booking situations).
Less than 3 days after she contacted me, she was booked in flat-beds between Chicago and Santiago, Chile. The times were within her availability, for her desired time period, at a total mileage cost of 235,000 miles (and just under $120 in taxes). When you include the ticket from Santiago to Punta Arenas, total flight cost is 235,000 miles and around $920 in taxes and final leg costs. Now when you include our fee and compare this to the cheapest revenue ticket available for those dates in a flat-bed business class product (Air Canada), the total savings was over $7000. That’s a lot of money and we’re glad to be a part of the savings equation.
Why was this booking so successful and why is the client so happy?
- First, she contacted us with plenty of time before her desired travel time (almost a year in advance).
- Second, she was flexible and understood that some places may be inaccessible with miles (and could require purchasing a revenue flight).
- Third, she acted quickly and booked the flights. By acting quickly, she was able to grab the space while still on hold and not risk losing it.
- Finally, her points were spread out which allowed for a variety of options in making the trip a reality.
Please remember that all readers of MileNerd get $50 off each person in their itinerary. Feel free to contact me today if you need help getting a trip booked. You can start the process by going to here. For the discounted rates, please make sure to mention MileNerd sent you in the “Any other info you’d like us to know” field.
If you have any questions about this trip feel free to reach out by the form on the site or e-mail Paul and I’m sure he’ll forward it to me. Hope you enjoyed this first guest post. Happy miles burning!