The best miles for last-minute getaways

I am someone who likes to plan my life way in advance. Others are quite the opposite. If you are someone who decides on Thursday night that you want to go somewhere on Friday, you’re gonna need the right kind of miles to avoid paying exorbitant last-minute ticketing fees and last-minute fares. Here are some options you may not have thought of:

British Airways

British Airways doesn’t charge any last-minute fees for using miles, and they also don’t charge any fuel surcharges or other fees on flights in the U.S. Since British Airways is a part of the Oneworld alliance, this means you can use BA miles, called Avios, to fly on American Airlines. The Avios program is distance-based and leg-based, which means your miles cost for a trip will be based on how far each leg of your flight is. Here’s an example of flights available leaving tonight and coming back Sunday:

As you can see, I can buy flights for later today, and come back on Sunday. Here’s the price:

20,000 Avios and $5 is not a bad deal at all for last-minute flights. It’s actually the exact same price you’d pay if you bought these flights a year in advance. And if you want to cancel you’ll get all 20,000 miles back. You’ll just lose the $5.

Two drawbacks to the BA program. One is that the website is kind of bad at searching for American Airlines flights if there isn’t a nonstop flight to your destination. If you’re flying somewhere that isn’t to or from one of American’s hubs, I recommend using the AA website to search for SAAver-level space and then calling British Airways to make the reservation by feeding them the flight numbers of the flights you want. This brings me to the other drawback, which is that British Airways charges you per segment, not per one-way. This means if you fly one-stop, you pay for each leg separately. Still, flying one-stop a short distance on Avios is cheaper than flying nonstop on another airline. The cheapest one-stop itineraries on Avios cost 18,000 roundtrip versus 25,000 on other airlines.

Credit Cards that Earn British Airways Avios

Another plug for using Avios last-minute is that there a ton of ways to earn these miles. Chase has a British Airways credit card, and Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards also can make immediate transfers to British Airways.

Chase British Airways

50,000 Avios after $1,000 spend in 90 days

$95 annual fee

1.25 points per dollar spent

Chase Sapphire Preferred

40,000 Ultimate Rewards after $3,000 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($95 second year)

1 point per dollar spent (2 points on travel and dining)

1:1 transfer to British Airways

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

25,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($175 second year)

1 point per dollar spent (3 points on airfare, 2 points on gas and groceries)

1:1 transfer to British Airways

Delta Airlines

Delta SkyMiles are the scourge of the points and miles world. This is not without reason. The program consistently releases very few low-level award seats, meaning that you often will pay more miles to fly Delta than with another airline. That being said, the SkyMiles program does have a couple things going for it, one of which is last-minute travel.

Delta doesn’t charge you close-in ticketing fees to book awards at the last minute. That means if you can find seats on flights you want, you can book them for just a couple bucks per segment. Here’s a look at heading somewhere for this weekend:

For 40,000 miles and $5, you could go to Atlanta for the weekend, or a bunch of other places in the country for $5 more. A quick search revealed no destinations from Boston at the 25,000-mile level, but depending on the weekend you might find something. I’ve used Delta miles last-minute to go Saint Louis to Philly for the weekend at the 25,000-mile level, so I can tell you from personal experience that it’s possible!

SkyMiles are almost as easy to earn as Avios, although not quite. Delta has a co-branded card with Amex, and also has immediate transferability from Membership Rewards.

Credit Cards that Earn Delta SkyMiles

American Express Gold Delta Skymiles

30,000 SkyMiles after $500 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($95 starting second year)

1 mile per dollar spent (2 on Delta)

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

25,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($175 second year)

1 point per dollar spent (3 points on airfare, 2 points on gas and groceries)

1:1 transfer to Delta

Air Canada

No, you don’t need to be going to Canada to earn miles or use miles with Air Canada. Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, which includes United and US Airways. Any saver availability that either of these airlines has can be booked with Aeroplan, Air Canada’s mileage program. And the great part is that Air Canada doesn’t have close-in booking fees! Take a look at this itinerary I could book now and fly tonight:

Because United has such amazing low-level award space, you have a lot of options with Aeroplan within the U.S. The Aeroplan website is also particularly impressive when it comes to searching for flights on United and US Air.

Credit Cards that Earn Aeroplan Miles

One drawback about Aeroplan is that they don’t have an affiliated credit card that can be applied for as a US citizen. However you can transfer Amex Membership Rewards to Aeroplan and the transfer is immediate.

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

25,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($175 second year)

1 point per dollar spent (3 points on airfare, 2 points on gas and groceries)

1:1 transfer to Aeroplan

Southwest Airlines

Southwest has no late-ticketing fees, change fees, or cancellation fees. You can buy a flight with your miles a year in advance and cancel it the day before you leave and you get all your miles and the $2.50 per leg back. The only problem is that Southwest doesn’t have miles tiers like the other airlines, their miles are each worth an exact amount. So if a last-minute fare on Southwest is cheaper, the miles cost will be cheap too, and vice-versa. This tends to make short-haul flights cheaper with Southwest versus long-haul flights being cheaper with other airlines’ miles. Here’s a look at the cost of flights tonight for a short flight:

This flight to BWI was less than 25,000 miles, and cost only $5. Longer flights would probably cost more, but at least last-minute a number of short flights with Southwest are a good deal.

Credit Cards that Earn Southwest Rapid Rewards Miles

Chase’s partnership with Southwest means there is both a co-branded credit card and also Ultimate Rewards transferability. Ultimate Rewards transfer immediately to Southwest miles.

Chase Southwest

25,000 Rapid Rewards miles after $1,000 spend in 90 days

$99 annual fee

1 point per dollar spent (2 on Southwest)

Chase Sapphire Preferred

40,000 Ultimate Rewards after $3,000 spend in 90 days

$0 annual fee first year ($95 second year)

1 point per dollar spent (2 points on travel and dining)

1:1 transfer to Southwest

The best single credit card for people new to miles and points

I often write about applying for tons of credit cards every few months and playing the intense game of credit card and points churning to unleash tons of miles and points from relatively little actual money spent. But what if you don’t want to spend all that time and thought dealing with credit cards and figuring out what points to get and use? Today I’ll discuss some options for a single credit card to have in your wallet. First, let’s figure out how you classify yourself as a traveler:

1)   International (wo)man of mystery

2)   Short-flight Sam

Which one are you? The reason I ask is because the kind of credit card that’s best for you will depend on what kind of travel you do. Long flights are expensive. Short flights tend to be less so. The more expensive the flight, the more it makes sense to use miles, where their value is greater than their fixed-value counterpart, points. The cheaper the flight, the more it makes sense to use points, since they are fixed-value and fewer of them will be required than if you buy your ticket with miles.

International (wo)man of mystery

If you want to fly somewhere exotic, get a miles card. Here’s why:

DC to Moscow – 6/10-6/20

Fare: $1,124

Points Cost: 112,400

Miles Cost: 60,000

Besides some minor taxes and fees on the miles ticket, you can pretty clearly see the cheaper option is to use miles.

There are many miles cards out there. Pretty much every airline has one. Personally I don’t like airline miles cards. When your miles are stuck with one airline you lack flexibility. I prefer earning points on a card that can transfer to multiple airlines. There are three major options out there:

1)    Chase Sapphire Preferred

2)    American Express Premier Rewards Gold

3)    American Express Starwood

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Pros

·         Immediate transfers to United, Southwest, British Airways, others

·         40,000-point signup bonus

·         Points can also be redeemed for airfare or other travel directly at 1.2 cents each

Cons

·         Never any transfer bonuses to partners

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

Pros

·         Immediate transfers to British Airways, Air Canada, Delta, others

·         25,000-point signup bonus

·         Transfer bonuses happen from time to time

·         Points can be spent on airfare or other travel at 1 cent apiece

Cons

·         Transfer partners aren’t great

·         Hefty annual fee ($175)

American Express Starwood

Pros

·         Transfers to many airlines (very long list)

·         25-000 point signup bonus

·         Transfer 20,000 points to an airline and get an extra 5,000 free

·         Points can be spent directly on air travel at various values

Cons

·         Transfers are not immediate (can take a couple weeks)

Winner: Chase Sapphire Preferred

For me, the immediate transfer is everything. If I want to book travel, I want to book it now. And Chase has better transfer partners than American Express. United is a great option to book pretty much any award flight, and being able to transfer to them from my Sapphire Preferred is key.

Also note that all three of these cards have annual fees starting the second year. Premier Gold had the highest, which is why I noted it above. 

Short-flight Sam

If you’re a city dweller just looking to get away nearby for a weekend, likely a points card is a good option. Here’s why:

DC to Boston – 7/26-7/28

Fare: $184

Points Cost: 18,400

Miles Cost: 25,000

The clear winner here is points, which are set at a fixed value. You can get an even better deal with certain cards, which set the value of your points at higher than 1 cent each. There are two options here which I believe stand out:

1.    Chase Sapphire Preferred

2.    Barclaycard Arrival

I already laid out the benefits to the Sapphire Preferred, so I’ll just discuss the Arrival card.

Barclaycard Arrival

Pros

·         40,000-point signup bonus

·         Earn 2 points per dollar

·         Earn 10% of your points back when you redeem

Cons

·         No airline transfer partners

Basically the choice is flexibility vs. pure earning value. Because the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Barclaycard Arrival have the same signup bonus, but you earn twice as many points with the Arrival card, the Arrival card is a clear winner. But sometimes short flights are expensive, and the ability to transfer points to airline partners on Sapphire Preferred is a great benefit that Arrival doesn’t have.

Winner: Chase Sapphire Preferred

Again I love flexibility here. That’s why I liked Sapphire Preferred for immediate transfers to its partners. That’s why I like it here for the flexibility. The Arrival card has a second-year annual fee like the Sapphire Preferred.

Moral of the story: you can’t go wrong, no matter who you are, with the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Trip Review: Chattanooga and the South

I know this blog is about flying, but hey, variety is the spice of life. This weekend my brother was in town so we decided to take a roadtrip to the South. We did 1,500 miles in ~58 hours, stopping in two cities and quickly visiting four more. Here is a look at our trip:

Roanoke

Our first stop (other than a fillup) was Roanoke, Virginia, a picturesque town set in between some of the hills of Shenandoah National Park. It was a quick dinner stop at Grace’s Place Pizzeria, the fifth-ranked restaurant in Roanoke on Urbanspoon (and it had only two dollar signs!). Grace’s wasn’t in downtown Roanoke, but rather in a small corner of Grandin Village, a somewhat-hipster area just west of the city over the river. And when I say hipster I mean we saw some young people.

Grace’s had pretty darn good pizza, although their chicken bites were a little soft for my liking. I like a nice firm boneless wing, almost on the drier side if you will. Separately, the unlimited soda refills were fantastic!

Grace’s Place Pizzeria

1316 Grandin Rd SW

Roanoke, VA 24015

Food: 8.5

Speed: 9

Price: 9

Parking: Street

Chattanooga

Six hours later, at 230am, we pulled into the Hampton Inn Chattanooga Airport, just a short 10-minute drive from downtown. Given our late arrival, we slept through Hampton’s free breakfast the next morning, and drove into town for brunchlike food. We ended up at Niedlov’s Breadworks, which we couldn’t decide was named after “knead” and “love” or someone of eastern European descent who founded the place. Niedlov’s, like Grace’s, wasn’t downtown, but rather was across the train tracks on a very pretty, if deserted, main street (it was actually on Main Street). Niedlov’s had fantastic bagels and pastries. I felt like I was in New York! I really like small restaurants that make great food and know it, and Niedlov’s was exactly that kind of place. They also had an iPad that swiped credit cards and let you sign on-screen, but it wasn’t the Square app. I could even click “Print Receipt”.

Niedlov’s Breadworks

215 E Main St

Chattanooga, TN 37408

Food: 9

Speed: 10

Price: 9

Parking: Street

After brunch we headed up to Lookout Mountain, not only the site of a famous Civil War battle, but also the site of one of the greatest views I have ever seen of a city. There is a museum with some information about the battle up there as well as a number of monuments and lookouts (duh). Very cool place.

TripAdvisor’s next-best free thing in Chattanooga  (the Tennessee Aquarium was $25 per person) after Lookout Mountain was the Walnut Street bridge, which we figured we would just drive over and get a nice view. Turns out it is a foot bridge, so we parked across the river from the city (25 cents for 20 minutes, payable via credit card) and walked. Beautiful views of the park below and of the city in front of us were to be had by my brother and me. 

On the other side we arrived at The Ice Cream Show, a great little ice cream shop. You pick one of two flavors (vanilla or chocolate) and then they have a number of toppings you can mix in. The way they mix it in is by actually putting that topping in the ice cream before they dispense it, so you get normal ice cream with your topping actually part of it, versus Coldstone where they mush it all together. It was pretty awesome.

Finally it was time for the game. I am referring, of course, to the Chattanooga Lookouts, the city’s Double-A minor league baseball team. For $10.25 apiece we got some of the best seats in the house. It was a very cute stadium only a couple of blocks off the main drag in the city. The team has a loyal following, with people actually cheering when the Lookouts came back to beat the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in the 9^th inning.

After spending just a day there, I am now in love with this pretty Southeastern Tennessee town, and honestly cannot wait to go back. It is a beautiful city, one which we did not even begin to truly explore, as there was an art museum and aquarium we skipped this time around. The people seemed very nice and they definitely take pride in their city. The whole town is very clean and is eco-friendly, with bike-sharing stations nearly everywhere. Unfortunately for us, after the game it was time to leave. We crossed into Central Time as we made our way to Birmingham, Alabama.

Birmingham

After a free breakfast (we woke up early enough this time!) at the Hampton Inn Colonnade, we had planned on venturing downtown to do one or two activities recommended by TripAdvisor before starting the journey home. Unfortunately, as this was a Sunday in the South, everything was closed. So we decided just to walk around downtown for a bit.

To say there weren’t many people around would be a bit of an understatement. It was a ghost town. The only people we saw were a few in their cars wearing suits (presumably post-church) and a few gathered around the fountains in the city center.

Despite the lack of people, Birmingham is a very pretty city. There is a long line of fountains whose runoff flows down a hill to supply the next fountain. There are also a lot of trees and greenery in the city center. I wish I had more to say, but there wasn’t much to do on a Sunday morning and we didn’t have time to really explore, so suffice it to say, Birmingham was nice.

Atlanta

One bumpy highway (Alabama does not maintain their roads well) and two hours later, we arrived in Atlanta. Having been there a couple of times with the family, and having spent probably a combined week of our lives at the airport, we decided to skip a downtown tour and headed straight to lunch in Midtown (we were very good at choosing hipster areas this weekend). Urbanspoon recommended Woody’s Cheese Steaks, a decided hole in the wall with a spirited cashier/owner (presumably Woody). The place was the size of a bedroom and the line snaked through the tables, but it was worth it. If you want a good cheesesteak outside of Philly, put this place on your list.

Woody’s Famous Philadelphia Cheese Steaks

981 Monroe Dr NE, Atlanta, GA

Food: 9

Speed: 10

Price: 9

Parking: Lot (very tiny)

Greenville, SC

Next stop was South Carolina. I’d always wanted to see the Greenville-Spartanburg region, and I-85 through South Carolina doesn’t connect to any other major city. Our quick drive through revealed a very cute town with lots of people out walking and lots of brick-laid streets. Definitely would go back to see more.

Greensboro, NC

Despite sharing part of a name with the previous city we had passed through, Greensboro was the opposite in terms of beauty. The town was shadowy and empty, and did not look pretty at all. It reminded me of a lot of the old Rust Belt cities up North. Would definitely pass on returning.

We passed by Richmond quickly on the way back and made it in before 1am on Monday morning. Not a bad weekend at all!

What the heck is: an open jaw?

Open jaws are an important concept in the miles world. They are a break in your trip, essentially meaning that you stop in one place and start again from another. Here’s an example:

If I start in Washington and go to Toronto, the open jaw would be from Toronto to Montreal, because I am not actually flying between those cities, but rather just coming back to Washington from Montreal instead of Toronto.

Why is this important? There are a few reasons:

1. If you want to do any one-way traveling in your destination area, an open jaw will allow you to do so. If I want to fly to London but take the train to Paris, I can use an open jaw to fly home from Paris instead of having to go back to London first.
2. If the airline you’re on doesn’t allow stopovers, an open jaw would allow you to see two cities and just purchase a ticket between the two outside of your miles ticket.
3. If you want to fly home to a different city than where you started, an open jaw allows you to do this on one ticket.

There are many uses for open jaws, and the nice thing is that many airlines let you do them.  I’ve outlined each airlines’ open jaw rules for miles tickets below:

American Airlines, British Airways, United Airlines

Since all three of these airlines allow one-way bookings with your miles, they inherently allow open jaws because you can simply book two separate one-way tickets.

Delta Airlines

Delta doesn’t allow one-way bookings, but you can do an open jaw and get a roundtrip price for your ticket. This means doing A-B,C-A, or A-B-C. All allowed. You can also do A-B, C-D (two open jaws) for the price of a roundtrip, as if you were booking two separate one-ways.

US Airways

As has been noted by many other blogs, US Airways is consistently a mess when it comes to award ticket rules. It seems that as long as you’re convincing about what you want to do, and it’s within even the vaguest reason, you can get an agent to book a ticket. Technically though, US Airways allows one open jaw on an itinerary (though not an open jaw and a stopover). Their rule is that the open jaw cannot be larger than the distance of the outbound or return leg. 

Want to know more or need help booking travel? WenneTravel can help you for free at www.wennecorp.com.

Moscow for less than $75

WenneTravel received a question today about using miles to go to Moscow. Unfortunately Moscow is a very difficult place to get to on most airline miles. Take a look at British Airways, for instance:

Just for a one-way ticket it costs over $300 alone in fees to get to Moscow from the U.S. Same with Air France, which Delta miles can be used on:

Here you’re spending nearly $200 in fees going one-way. Same with Air Canada, a partner of United’s:

As we often do, we’re going to recommend using United miles to get over there. Here is our itinerary:

NYC to Moscow

Moscow to NYC

And the credit cards we’ll be signing up for:

Chase Sapphire Preferred

40,000 points after $3,000 spend in 3 months

No annual fee first year

Chase Ink Bold

50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 3 months

No annual fee first year

Total General Points: 98,000

Total Cost: $0

Flights

As you know, Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer to United at a 1:1 ratio. The flight to Moscow costs 60,000 United miles, so we will transfer that many miles from Chase to United. And thanks to Star Alliance’s large European presence, there are plenty of options to fly using United miles. Availability looks pretty good in July:

On July 9 we’ll pick the following flight:

The return doesn’t look quite as promising:

But a little searching around reveals a good flight on the 17^th:

This brings us to a total price of:

Given the costs I showed above for other carriers, I cannot stress enough how great it is to have United miles. This is consistently one of the best airlines to earn miles with, given their partnership with Chase, and also to redeem miles with, because of their low taxes/fees as well as easy-to-use website.

Total Miles Used: 60,000

Total Cost: $74.90

Here’s a look at the actual price for flights on the same days:

Flights

Total Savings: $875

Need help thinking about the right credit cards for you, or how to book this kind of trip? Head over to WenneTravel at www.wennecorp.com and we’d be happy to chat with you.

Credit Card Links

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Chase Ink Bold

American AAdvantage miles: Some of the best around!

American Airlines was the first airline to come out with a loyalty program. In fact, they are known for having invented the concept of airline miles. Their mileage program is AAdvantage, which has over 45 million members. It also happens to be one of my favorite programs, and if used correctly, can be one of the more lucrative programs around in terms of ease of earning and ease of burning points.

The Good

1. Nice website

American's website makes it incredibly easy to search for and book flights not just on American, but also on oneworld partner airlines. The site shows nearly all availability, and is my first stop when I'm searching for flights on oneworld airlines, even if I'm not going to use AAdvantage to redeem. 

2. Off-peak awards

American normally has two redemption levels: SAAver (25,000 domestic) and AAnytime (50,000 domestic). During off-peak seasons though, which vary by region, they also have a third level called SAAver Off Peak. Take a look at some of the comparisons to normal SAAver prices:

U.S. to Caribbean

SAAver - 35,000 roundtrip
Off-Peak - 25,000 roundtrip

U.S. to Hawaii

SAAver - 45,000
Off-Peak - 35,000

U.S. to Europe

SAAver - 60,000
Off-Peak - 40,000

As you can see you can get some pretty amazing deals if you're willing to fly during off-peak seasons (i.e. Europe in winter or Caribbean in fall). Here is a link to American's whole award chart.

3. One-way tickets

This may seem like a given, but I like that American lets you buy one-way tickets. This is not always the case. US Airways and Delta do not allow this. Well let me rephrase, they allow this, but only at the same price as a roundtrip ticket. 

4. Lucrative credit card signup bonuses

American has multiple credit cards from Citi, almost all with very high unpublished signup bonuses. There are links out there for 50,000 points on their Citi Visa and Amex personal cards. The same is true for the business version of their Visa card, except at 30,000 miles. Citi will allow you to get both of these cards 65 days apart, plus another less lucrative card, the Gold card, within this timeframe as well. You can end up with 110,000 AAdvantage miles in the span of less than three months. Million Mile Secrets has a great post detailing how to do this here (note his links are dead, use the links I provide below). Unfortunately, the offers you'll see on other blogs for 50K and multiple signups at once no longer are valid. The links I've provided below do work (the 50K offer is unpublished but is reported to work) as of today's posting.

The Bad

It isn't all good with American, although in my opinion the bad outweighs the good..

1. Late booking fees

American charges $75 to book award flights within 21 days of departure. This annoys me. However I can almost always get around this, if I'm flying direct, by using British Airways Avios instead, because Avios do not have a late-booking fee and they can be used to fly on any American flight with SAAver availability.

2. No transferability from Amex and Chase

Unlike the other big airlines (Delta, Southwest, United), American does not have a partnership agreement with Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards. Therefore you can't earn American miles using points credit cards like Chase Sapphire Preferred or Amex Premier Gold, making them slightly more difficult to earn than miles for other airlines. Still though, British Airways Avios is a partner of both Chase and Amex, so this can make up for the lack of AA transferability, at least on short-haul direct flights.

3. Bad stopover rules

While United, Delta and US Airways are pretty liberal with where you stopover on international tickets, American only allows you to stopover in your U.S. gateway city, meaning the city from which you leave the U.S. This poses a problem for seeing multiple international destinations on one roundtrip ticket. Well, it more than poses a problem. It stops you from doing it. Fortunately Avios can make up for it by providing cheap tickets on oneworld partner short flights within Europe, Asia, or the Caribbean.

Wenneker Stamp of Approval?

YES

American is a great airline, hands-down. Their airplanes are relatively nice on the inside (if old on the outside), and they are working hard to upgrade their entire fleet. Their mileage program, while it does have some weak spots, is a very easy program to earn and use miles in, which makes it a great product for any casual traveler and many frequent flyers as well. 

Credit Card Links

Citi Personal Visa
50,000 miles after $2,500 spend in 4 months
No annual fee first year

Citi Personal MasterCard
30,000 miles after $750 spend in 4 months
No annual fee first year

Citi Business MasterCard

30,000 miles after $1,000 spend in 3 months
No annual fee first year