Business Class Airfare tips and tricks?

[braumeister]

We live near a hub airport. Some years ago, the cost to go from here to another hub was $XXX. But I could drive to a smaller airport about 60 miles away and get on the same plane I would have taken from here for about 70% of that $XXX fare.

The plane made its only stop here at this hub, where more passengers got on (the stop was so short that I didn't even have to get off the plane) and continued on to the other hub.

The cost of driving to and from the smaller airport was so trivial compared to what you saved that I did it routinely.

Needless to say, so many people learned that trick that the airline eventually rationalized the fares, but it was a great mystery to all of us.

 

[audreyh1]

OP, I know you said you didn't want to be a reward chaser, but one trick that might work for you is to pay cash for a coach seat and then use miles to upgrade to business class. I'm told this is a more efficient use of miles than just buying the business class seat completely with miles, and may be a good compromise for you.

This simply doesn’t work unless you have very high status, which is unlikely if you aren’t a business traveler. The virtual queue to upgrade with points is usually quite long, and higher status individuals are moved ahead you in the line. It is not first come first serve. On international flights you usually have to pay several hundred dollars in addition to the points if you are lucky enough to get upgraded. And two people traveling together - even tougher.

 

[FIYes]

This simply doesn’t work unless you have very high status, unlikely if you aren’t a business traveler. The line to upgrade with points is usually quite long, and higher status individuals are moved ahead you you in the line. It is not first come first serve. On international flights you usually have to pay several hundred dollars in addition to the points if you are lucky enough to get upgraded. And two people traveling together - even tougher.

This is exactly what I found when I tried to use miles to upgrade.

 

[braumeister]

But some airlines will let you pay for the tickets, including business class, with a combination of dollars and miles. I do that routinely, just like I pay for hotel rooms with a combination of dollars and points. I've saved an enormous amount of money over the years doing it that way.

Back when I was a gummint employee, there was a rule that when we traveled on official business we were allowed to keep our frequent flyer miles, but not allowed to use them to buy tickets. So I always used them for upgrades, which was a lot easier to do then. Today it's pretty difficult, as audreyh1 points out.

 

[CardsFan]

Back when I was a gummint employee, there was a rule that when we traveled on official business we were allowed to keep our frequent flyer miles, but not allowed to use them to buy tickets. So I always used them for upgrades, which was a lot easier to do then. Today it's pretty difficult, as audreyh1 points out.

Bold by me.

Even tickets for private use? How would they even know? I assume you mean you could not buy a business travel ticket and then pocket avoided cost?

 

[braumeister]

Even tickets for private use? How would they even know? I assume you mean you could not buy a business travel ticket and then pocket avoided cost?

No, I meant exactly what I said. No idea if anyone ever did this, whether they would be caught or not, but that was the rule. Since Uncle Sam was paying for your official travel, they were technically entitled to any associated benefits (such as frequent flyer miles). But they were being generous (at least in their view) by allowing you to keep those FF miles. We could use them for upgrades but that's all.

Believe me, when you're in the military with top security clearances, you follow the rules.

FWIW, that was in the 80s. I have no idea what the policy might be today.

 

[NW-Bound]

One reason it may possibly compute is because Airline #2 offers a direct flight from A to C for $2100. Or Airline #2 has flights from A to D to C for $2100. And no other airline offers a competing flight from A to B.

The above scenarios would make sense.

However, at the time I checked, the $2100 was the lowest airfare for going from A to C, no matter what layover (there was never a direct flight).

There were many competing flights from A to B, and they were very close in price.

Two days later, I checked again, and the ridiculously cheap A-B-C airfare was gone!

Could it be their computer hiccupped? A gross error by a programmer?

 

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

This simply doesn’t work unless you have very high status, which is unlikely if you aren’t a business traveler. The virtual queue to upgrade with points is usually quite long, and higher status individuals are moved ahead you in the line. It is not first come first serve. On international flights you usually have to pay several hundred dollars in addition to the points if you are lucky enough to get upgraded. And two people traveling together - even tougher.

Audreyh1 is spot on. The only way you can hope to make this work is to be first to call the minute the flight opens up - for American that’s 330 days in advance. Call on 329 days and you are probably on a waitlist that will never clear. It is most definitely not first come first served. They will let the grand poo-bahs ahead of you every time.

 

[braumeister]

Two days later, I checked again, and the ridiculously cheap A-B-C airfare was gone!

Could it be their computer hiccupped? A gross error by a programmer?

The important thing to remember is that airfares are being constantly repriced, often on a minute-by-minute basis. They put a huge amount of effort into that programming, but it's so complex that unusual events like that happen all the time.

Timing is everything!

 

[NW-Bound]

Here's how I stumbled across the unusual pricing above.

I was checking out the airfare LAX-AMS. Then, I happened to see LAX-HAM being quite a bit lower. And spotted that the flight had a layover in LHR. Out of curiosity, I checked LAX-LHR and saw that LAX-LHR-HAM was so much lower. Same day, same airline, same flight. Son of a gun!

I told my wife that perhaps we could go to HAM instead of AMS. We have not been to HAM, but have been to AMS. Well, while we were debating, that rare airfare went poof.

 

[Perryinva]

Were I single, I wouldn’t mind paying for Business most times. As others said, it’s a perk of having LBYM and working all those years. It helps to look at the difference in price, not the price. A BC ticket might be $3500, but a CC could be $700, so the premium is $2800. It eases the pain. DW refuses to allow both of us to pay for BC tickets, as she just cannot see $7000 even once a year as being “worth it” for sitting down for 24 hrs of travel, so we basically only travel First or Business International on British Air, with their Companion Ticket program. Basically, spend $30k/yr on their credit card, and you get a voucher for a companion good for 2 years. But the gotcha is the original ticket must be paid for with points, and the VAT & Fuel charge must be paid for both tickets, and you basically always have to fly through Heathrow. When the British Pound tanked after Brexit announcement, and fuel was cheaper due to the glut, both tickets were only $2400, plus 100,000 points. Compared to $7000 for two BC seats, that was an amazing bargain. Today, the Pound is up again, and fuel costs are high so its more like $3800.

Still a hefty discount (for two) and when you pay for the fees with the BA card, it is worth 5X points, so you get an added 19,000 points back on your account. They are always offering 100k point sigh up bonus, (the first time we did it, years ago, it was a 200,000 point bonus and we had taken advantage of an AMEX deal of 3 BA points for every AMEX point, so we started the whole thing with about 450,000 points. AMEX deals are dead now) so in the first year it is easy to gather 150,000 points. We typically spend 40-50k/yr on the CC (even pay property & RE taxes with it, and get bonus double points for fuel, groceries and dining out). We’ve flown First & Business each twice, over the last 8 years, so it has worked out great for us until C19.

 

[FIYes]

Well, cr*p! I didn’t notice the July 17 deadline. I will check tomorrow and see if the offer is still available. If not, I will be looking for another option. I have some big bills this fall and want to use them for an initial spend on a credit card bonus. After a year and a half of staying at home and not even looking for travel deals/hacks, I am out of practice.

 

[NoEZmoney]

AVOID AIRLINE DYNAMIC PROFILING -- I haven't scrolled through the other postings so someone may have already mentioned this but have you considered searching for fares via a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and instead of listing your U.S. address/location -- use a foreign location instead? I've not tried this but I've seen a number of travel bloggers on YouTube who have used this as a way to track down cheaper ticket prices -- the itinerary was the same but the supposed VPN location was different. If your browser doesn't allow you to surf "anonymously", everytime you search fares your "cookies" get saved and you wind up getting tracked dynamically based on your ISP I.D. #.

If the airlines use dynamic profiling, you can fight back by using a VPN to change your location. Your server location can affect your price results. The VPN helps you to alter that a bit so you wind up becoming more or less "anonymous".

One caveat however -- using a VPN doesn't always guarantee you'll find cheaper flights but it can help with giving you more discreet search options. I would use Googleflights and keep anonymous and was amazed at how many times I scored a lower cost flight.
I did a test with my wife's PC and mine (at anonymous) and sitting 5 feet apart on the same wireless -- I scored same itinerary / same carrier but about 40% less. Crazy.

Here's an article to check out:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/insanely-cheap-flights-vpn/

 

[audreyh1]

I do my initial searches using Google flights. How could that play into dynamic profiling directly by the airline?

Oh, I see later you use that.

I use Google flights initially anyway because I want to see my options across multiple airlines. And they make it easy to play around with dates.