Airfare Deal for China

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Not sure if anyone can take advantage of this for ABD but there are some amazing deals to China right now. http://thepointsguy.com/2016/07/us-to-asia-from-381/ I think the best are for RT but I was able to get a very cheap ticket to HKG (one way), and then upgrade all four of us to business using miles on United. I also scored first class award tickets returning from Shanghai so I'm feeling pretty thrilled. Thanks to Calypso for cluing me into miles hacking. I don't do half of what she does, but we've been able to upgrade and/or get free flights for almost all of our trips lately.

 

[Theta]

Miles hacking??

How many points would you need to upgrade your flight to Asia?

 

[calypso726]

Not sure if anyone can take advantage of this for ABD but there are some amazing deals to China right now. http://thepointsguy.com/2016/07/us-to-asia-from-381/ I think the best are for RT but I was able to get a very cheap ticket to HKG (one way), and then upgrade all four of us to business using miles on United. I also scored first class award tickets returning from Shanghai so I'm feeling pretty thrilled. Thanks to Calypso for cluing me into miles hacking. I don't do half of what she does, but we've been able to upgrade and/or get free flights for almost all of our trips lately.

You are welcome! I saw those deals and was thinking how awesome! Unfortunately, we are very rarely able to take advantage on fares like that since we often book flights nearly a year in advance. We haven't paid for flights in a few years either and always look to travel hack our way to first class. It's a fun hobby!

 

[sayhello]

My luck. Doubt they'll be there when I get back!

Sayhello

 

[tgeorge]

You are welcome! I saw those deals and was thinking how awesome! Unfortunately, we are very rarely able to take advantage on fares like that since we often book flights nearly a year in advance. We haven't paid for flights in a few years either and always look to travel hack our way to first class. It's a fun hobby!

I agree....it is a fun hobby (even if my husband says I'm obsessed). I remind him when we fly first class or get to stay in nice hotels for free that it is courtesy of my obsession

Actually, I also have to thank you. I never heard of travel hacking until I read your Scotland TR. I have had a United card for years and used it to get miles, but after reading your report, I did some searching, read books/blogs/websites and now I always think 'how can I get more miles/points'?

 

[calypso726]

I agree....it is a fun hobby (even if my husband says I'm obsessed). I remind him when we fly first class or get to stay in nice hotels for free that it is courtesy of my obsession

Actually, I also have to thank you. I never heard of travel hacking until I read your Scotland TR. I have had a United card for years and used it to get miles, but after reading your report, I did some searching, read books/blogs/websites and now I always think 'how can I get more miles/points'?

You are very welcome DH got full on board with the travel hacking right after our first class flight that year to Scotland. Now we are both obsessed!

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Miles hacking??

How many points would you need to upgrade your flight to Asia?

If you search dis for miles hacking you should find some of calyoso's awesome posts on the subject of miles hacking. I'm a neophyte

Re the Asia upgrade... The number of miles required to upgrade varies widely among airlines and can also depend on the fare base of ticket so it's impossible to say. Here is united's chart: https://www.united.com/web/format/pdf/United-Award-Chart-02-01-14.pdf

I had a very cheap fare base because of this sale so I had to pay an upgrade fee ($450) along with miles (30k). To get business seats for four people on a direct flight this was well worth it to me. The more people you are looking for the harder it is. If I was only looking for one ticket, my equation might have been different. I might have been willing to wait for a business saver (70k) with minimal cash outlay to appear. To compare, I hit the jackpot on the way back and was able to find four 1st class seats for first saver award at 80k with only taxes $45 ish per ticket). A much better overall deal! That wasn't a direct flight, but I didn't want to gamble and wait since again I was dealing with four people.

I highly recommend following some of the miles hacker blogs on Twitter--like the link I posted above. The parse it out much better than I could by comparing airlines.

 

[Cousin Orville]

Novice questions here for the hacking pro's @calypso726 @tgeorge or anyone else. I've paid for business class and used miles for business class, but I've never paid for coach and used miles for upgrading to business. For some reason I was under the impression those upgraded seats weren't guaranteed (at least the ones I've looked at on United). Is that the case?

Would you say most travel hacking to business class involves paying for coach and upgrading with points (to reduce the amount of points) or paying for the entire business class seat with points?

 

[tgeorge]

I've done both with United (since that is my preferred airline). So, here is the deal with upgrades. They can be confirmed immediately if there is space available. You can be wait listed if space isn't available. They will charge you the miles and co-pays, but if they can't get it for you, then everything is refundable.


I found this last year and it has helped tremendously when trying to determine if there is availability. Just scroll down to the United part.

http://thepointsguy.com/2015/06/award-availability-united-cards/

When upgrading you will want to look look for space in ON (Business to First), PN (Global Service members) and R (all other upgrades).
On United's page there is a chart that will give you the info of number of miles needed and co-pay that will be involved for the upgrade. The link above that California girl 09 posted takes you right to the chart.
It is a little more work since you have to search for a paid ticket first to determne if space is available, but it helps to take out some of the guess work.

Not sure about other airlines. Perhaps Calypso or someone else can help with those.

Hope that helps a bit and didn't make it anymore complicated.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Novice questions here for the hacking pro's @calypso726 @tgeorge or anyone else. I've paid for business class and used miles for business class, but I've never paid for coach and used miles for upgrading to business. For some reason I was under the impression those upgraded seats weren't guaranteed (at least the ones I've looked at on United). Is that the case?

Would you say most travel hacking to business class involves paying for coach and upgrading with points (to reduce the amount of points) or paying for the entire business class seat with points?

Like tgeorge I've done both--upgrade with miles and pay with miles. My recent upgrade (economy ticket to HKG with payed upgrade to business) was confirmed immediately. I could have done an upgrade on the way back, but that one wouldn't have been guaranteed. Look for that little (yellow?) arrow next to the fare--it will tell you whether it's an immediately confirmed type or whether you'll have to wait.

As far as deciding whether to pay and then upgrade or just upgrade, for me it depends on (1) whether there is a choice--i.e, they might not be both available (2) how many miles I have and (3) the spending power I'm getting per mile.

For example, there were coach saver seats available for both legs of my ABD China next summer. The HKG leg was 35,000 miles, but the coach ticket was in the $500 range. That's only about 1.5 cents per mile. Not a great deal, but if I was just trying to get to China and not pay out of pocket, I may have done it. (The Shanghai leg is a little cheaper at 30,000 miles and the cash price was more at $890 so that would have been about 3 cents per mile... better). But for such a long flight I was willing to pay a certain amount out of pocket for flights and go for business/first. Unfortunately I didn't have enough miles for all four of us to go both ways (min. about 600,000 miles) so I was looking at different combinations. How much I was willing to pay out of pocket depended on how good the flights were. For my business class seats--currently running about $2500 each way, I ended up getting over 5 cents a mile; for my 1st class seats which are on sale for roughly double that, I got almost 7 cents a mile. Of course, I would never actually spend that kind of money on seats, but it's nice thinking about The way I look at it is that we are flying business and first class on the trip for about the cost of coach tickets on sale. All for not doing anything that I wasn't doing before--except applying for a few more credit cards.

 

[tgeorge]

Good to know about the little arrow! I just did a search (clicked on upgrade) and I see it. So much easier! The green arrow is the upgrade is available and the yellow is the upgrade wait list. Great info! Thanks

My factors for using all points or paying and upgrading are the same as yours! Luckily, for me, I'm usually only dealing with one ticket (sometimes two) , so it does make it a bit easier.

 

[Cousin Orville]

Thanks for the advice guys. I went ahead and upgrade my DS and my coach tickets to business to Paris and back from Munich (this Friday!). I looked at the difference between paying cash for the upgrade vs combo $ + points. The difference ended up being about 3 cents per mile, so I guess that's not bad. The main thing was it made the price of business class tickets a bit more palatable to purchase. It will be my DS's first trip in business/first. I think the problem may now be the shock of going back to coach for the next trip.

 

[tgeorge]

Thanks for the advice guys. I went ahead and upgrade my DS and my coach tickets to business to Paris and back from Munich (this Friday!). I looked at the difference between paying cash for the upgrade vs combo $ + points. The difference ended up being about 3 cents per mile, so I guess that's not bad. The main thing was it made the price of business class tickets a bit more palatable to purchase. It will be my DS's first trip in business/first. I think the problem may now be the shock of going back to coach for the next trip.

So glad it worked out! Hahaha, your son and my DH will soon be in the same boat Whenever I don't upgrade/book business/first with points it is always this look of utter disappointment. To be fair, I'm 5' tall and he's 6'2", so it does make a difference with regards to comfort. Luckily, he doesn't travel too frequently, so it isn't as catastrophic

Have a great trip. I hope you do a TR (they are always great to read).

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Thanks for the advice guys. I went ahead and upgrade my DS and my coach tickets to business to Paris and back from Munich (this Friday!). I looked at the difference between paying cash for the upgrade vs combo $ + points. The difference ended up being about 3 cents per mile, so I guess that's not bad. The main thing was it made the price of business class tickets a bit more palatable to purchase. It will be my DS's first trip in business/first. I think the problem may now be the shock of going back to coach for the next trip.

That's awesome! As my mom likes to say, it's hard to get the kid back on the farm

 

[Cousin Orville]

Whenever I don't upgrade/book business/first with points it is always this look of utter disappointment.

Funny!

 

[christannj]

Kevin

You've created a monster...just sayin

 

[calypso726]

Novice questions here for the hacking pro's @calypso726 @tgeorge or anyone else. I've paid for business class and used miles for business class, but I've never paid for coach and used miles for upgrading to business. For some reason I was under the impression those upgraded seats weren't guaranteed (at least the ones I've looked at on United). Is that the case?

Would you say most travel hacking to business class involves paying for coach and upgrading with points (to reduce the amount of points) or paying for the entire business class seat with points?

I have never tried for the upgrade for a paid flight with miles or the wait list option. To be honest I am still very much a novice too at all of this stuff. What little I know and do works great for our needs. Just learned something new from Californiagirl and TGeorge today. We keep a balance of over 2 million miles and points between the two of us despite redeeming a few hundred thousand every year for flights in first. But we still have barely scratched the surface with this hobby. All of our flights are usually booked nearly a year in advance and we book the flight with miles and pay taxes and fees. A few months ago I booked first class flights to Hawaii for next March on AA. The flight over was a saver award at 37,500 miles and $5.60 in taxes and fees per person. We wanted to stop in Disneyland on the way back and I couldn't find a flight from HNL-LAX at the saver award level and I was not about to shell out 125K AA miles per person for one way a flight in domestic first on a 2 cabin plane. Yeah, I know, I've turned into a airplane snob So I used Thank You Points and bought the flights in first class for a little over 50K points per person, plus we will earn the butt in seat miles for that flight. The flight back home from LAX was 40,000 miles and $5.60 per person.

Getting in to this hobby created a monster ... or rather a "princess." DH now refuses to fly in economy for any flight longer than 3 hours So any buying flights in economy and upgrading with miles needs to be a sure thing. I'll definitely look into it more now though. Thanks for sharing!

 

[tgeorge]

I have never tried for the upgrade for a paid flight with miles or the wait list option. To be honest I am still very much a novice too at all of this stuff. What little I know and do works great for our needs. Just learned something new from Californiagirl and TGeorge today. We keep a balance of over 2 million miles and points between the two of us despite redeeming a few hundred thousand every year for flights in first. But we still have barely scratched the surface with this hobby. All of our flights are usually booked nearly a year in advance and we book the flight with miles and pay taxes and fees. A few months ago I booked first class flights to Hawaii for next March on AA. The flight over was a saver award at 37,500 miles and $5.60 in taxes and fees per person. We wanted to stop in Disneyland on the way back and I couldn't find a flight from HNL-LAX at the saver award level and I was not about to shell out 125K AA miles per person for one way a flight in domestic first on a 2 cabin plane. Yeah, I know, I've turned into a airplane snob So I used Thank You Points and bought the flights in first class for a little over 50K points per person, plus we will earn the butt in seat miles for that flight. The flight back home from LAX was 40,000 miles and $5.60 per person.

Getting in to this hobby created a monster ... or rather a "princess." DH now refuses to fly in economy for any flight longer than 3 hours So any buying flights in economy and upgrading with miles needs to be a sure thing. I'll definitely look into it more now though. Thanks for sharing!

Flight from CONUS to Hawaii are on the worst planes, aren't they? I've flown from Chicago to Hawaii a couple of times in first, but it isn't even as nice as some business class seats I've had. Now, I'm sure it is better than coach, but I'm really surprised that they don't have better planes making that route. Seriously, planes from CA to NY are better. So, as you can tell, I'm an airplane snob too

I've always been fascinated with planes (it is odd). I'll never forget the first time I saw an A380 at Dulles. I remember thinking that I needed to fly on that plane some day!

And I think your DH and mine have the same mentality. I bought two coach tickets to NY last year to visit my brother and you would have thought it was torture. It was a cheap flight and a short trip, but, he asked me if I could just 'work my magic' for future trips.

The times I've upgraded for personal travel they have always been guaranteed. Whenever I fly for work or for the Army I usually try to upgrade as well (as long as they don't put me on Southwest). But, those are more last minute since I have to wait for the TA to release the ticket to the airline. So, it is hit and miss at times.

it is getting a bit harder now that manufactured spending isn't as easy to do, but I still have a pretty healthy balance and try to find as many ways that I can to get miles. It definitely is a hobby that I enjoy and considering what it saves me, I figure it is a good hobby to have!

Now, if ABD would start taking points, I'd be in heaven...hahaha

 

[mare1203]

This thread is super interesting. I haven't ever looked into ways to maximize my miles, but over the last 2 years, I've seen my travel increase exponentially, with no signs of slowing down. This definitely has me thinking about how to start earning more miles beyond just flying all the time. I'm hopefully going to be buying a house soon, so starting small will be important, but this thread (and a couple others I've read since reading this one) have me realizing I'm definitely not using the system to its advantage. Thanks for all the great info!

I'll be honest, I'm the opposite of most and am a flight procrastinator. It was pure dumb luck that I found a flight 2 weeks ago for my upcoming trip to Europe this fall for $775 multi-city round trip. I swear the ABD Air Concierge I worked with to book it (I found the flights and gave her the info to book) was jumping up and down for me.

 

[calypso726]

Flight from CONUS to Hawaii are on the worst planes, aren't they? I've flown from Chicago to Hawaii a couple of times in first, but it isn't even as nice as some business class seats I've had. Now, I'm sure it is better than coach, but I'm really surprised that they don't have better planes making that route. Seriously, planes from CA to NY are better. So, as you can tell, I'm an airplane snob too

I've always been fascinated with planes (it is odd). I'll never forget the first time I saw an A380 at Dulles. I remember thinking that I needed to fly on that plane some day!

And I think your DH and mine have the same mentality. I bought two coach tickets to NY last year to visit my brother and you would have thought it was torture. It was a cheap flight and a short trip, but, he asked me if I could just 'work my magic' for future trips.

The times I've upgraded for personal travel they have always been guaranteed. Whenever I fly for work or for the Army I usually try to upgrade as well (as long as they don't put me on Southwest). But, those are more last minute since I have to wait for the TA to release the ticket to the airline. So, it is hit and miss at times.

it is getting a bit harder now that manufactured spending isn't as easy to do, but I still have a pretty healthy balance and try to find as many ways that I can to get miles. It definitely is a hobby that I enjoy and considering what it saves me, I figure it is a good hobby to have!

Now, if ABD would start taking points, I'd be in heaven...hahaha

Yeah, manufactured spend isn't what it used to be. I will max out what I can though shopping portals and the like. You're A380 comment made me think of a recent conversation with DH:

Him- I'd like to fly in first on Etihad's A380.
Me - But, we're not going to Abu Dhabi.
Him - Well we could and then we could fly on Eithad.
Me - Who are you?

My best travel hack for ABD involves a Chase Ink card, a Target sore card and online account and a Disney Vacation Savings account. You purchase Target gift cards with the Ink card online at Staples and get 5 UR points/$ which can be transferred to United, British Airways etc. The go online to your Target account and make sure your Target store card is set as the default payment to trigger 5% off for purchases with the Target cc. Load your Target gift cards on to your online Target account so you can use the as payment. Start adding Disney gift cards to your cart and will get 5% off each one for having the store card set as your payment method. Right before purchase though, edit the payment from Target store card to the Target gift cards. The 5% discount will remain and you pay with the Target gift cards. Then when you receive Disney the gift cards load them on to your DVA. You use the DVA to pay for your ABD and earn an additional 2% back in Disney gift cards.