Just Wasted $100

[TromboneAl]

Just booked an airline ticket using my reward points from the credit card. But since their "fly anywhere in 48 states free" has a limit of $400, and their tickets are more expensive, it turns out I would have saved money if I'd gone through Priceline, and just turned in my reward points for cash. Should have said "let me think about it and call back later."

Definitely over my cheapness threshold. Nonrefundable tickets are another example of the decline in customer service.

 

[sailor]

Al,
What credit card it was?

I'm pretty happy with Amex Delta Skymiles (except for the yearly fee)
Just yesterday I used "miles" to book tickets to Alaska for DW & myself to visit my RVing ERed in-laws.
The cheapest tickets I was able to find were about $700 (most cheap fares were sold out during summer season) but I was able to get "award tickets" for 25000 miles per person.

 

[TromboneAl]

It was an MBNA Mastercard. I get one "point" per dollar I spent. 25,000 points converts to $400 of airline travel or $250 in cash.

Essentially I get 1% off all purchases made with the card.

 

[Nords]

I get one "point" per dollar I spent.  25,000 points converts to $400 of airline travel or $250 in cash.

As I've long suspected, this deal makes it sound like the airlines value their services at only 62.5% of their cost. 

Or maybe that's just outside of weekends, holidays, and other blackout periods...

 

[JB]

It was an MBNA Mastercard. I get one "point" per dollar I spent. 25,000 points converts to $400 of airline travel or $250 in cash.

Essentially I get 1% off all purchases made with the card.

A 1% back with many restrictions on how/when you spend it.
I got tired of black-out dates, saver/supersaver specials, and no seats available. I opted for the free penfed card that pays 1.25% back in cash each month.

 

[sailor]

Essentially I get 1% off all purchases made with the card.

In theory we have the same deal (about 1%), but we try to use more leverage with our "miles spending".
For example last spring we used 50k miles for a following plane ticket:
Atlanta -> NY -> Paris -> Warsaw -> Milan -> Cairo -> Prague -> Amsterdam -> Atlanta.
Try to buy such ticket for $500

 

[JB]

Wow sailor, how did you get a deal like that!
Whenever I try to use miles to fly it's nearly impossible. Did you book through an airline or the credit card co?

 

[Caroline]

For example last spring we used 50k miles for a following plane ticket:
Atlanta -> NY  -> Paris -> Warsaw -> Milan -> Cairo -> Prague -> Amsterdam -> Atlanta.

Drool... Add me to those who would really appreciate knowing how you pulled this off!


Many thanks,
Caroline

 

[sailor]

Wow sailor, how did you get a deal like that!
Whenever I try to use miles to fly it's nearly impossible. Did you book through an airline or the credit card co?

I booked directly with Delta travel desk.
The key is to know the rules of the tariff.
Typical round trip tariff (like mentioned 50k miles to Europe) has one allowable stop over.
You call the Delta award desk and get transferred to international desk (they can give you also flights on partner airlines). If it's really an "exotic" itinerary and planes are full be prepared to spend a long time on the phone (like 2 hours).
In the example above we asked for a roundtrip ticket to Cairo with stopover in Warsaw.
There are no direct flights to Cairo neither to Warsaw from Atlanta so you will have to get connecting flights. The planes were relatively busy (near Easter week) so we also mentioned that it's no problem for us to do an overnight stay on the connecting flights.


sailor