Any other Airlines with Points???

[boxer]

Have a boatload of cc points, and usually would immediately dump them into Southwest. Just flew my first time after the seating change, and was super disappointed. Between luggage costs, all these seat fee's, etc--they are not so economical anymore.

Who else is everyone using now?

 

[sam_gordon]

All the legacy airlines have some kind of points model.

Check with your CC and see where your points can be used. They may even have a travel side where the points can be used on any carrier.

 

[boxer]

All the legacy airlines have some kind of points model.

Check with your CC and see where your points can be used. They may even have a travel side where the points can be used on any carrier.

Never thought of the Travel portal!!! Yes, gonna look into that.

 

[jimmymc]

American tends to be the best value for points in the US, at least for me.

 

[SteveH]

As we live in the Northwest we to most of our flying with Alaska & Hawaiian. With their CC's we get a nearly free companion fare each year so that makes our flights to/from Hawaiʻi very reasonable. Going to FL isn't as ideal though, always cheaper for us to fly into Tampa.

 

[beccasmom]

You can use the travel portal or you can transfer points directly with an airline. If you go to the points section and click “redeem” your choices will be listed. I think it depends on the credit card, but for airlines the points must be at least 1,000.

We travel pretty frequently on American (our home airport is a hub), so we redeem our points with them. British Airways and Aer Lingus are two of its partners (along with many others), so it helps with international travel as well.

 

[EACarlson]

Since you talk about transferring points to SW, I'm guessing you have Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Those also transfer to United, same as they do to Southwest. Whether that's a better deal than using the Chase Travel Portal is individual trip dependent.

 

[DebbieB]

I have Southwest Priority card. I get 1 free bag and preferred seat at purchase. My last annual fee was $149, I think it has gone up this year. I had a roundtrip to Orlando last month, no complaints. I have 2 more trips this year, so it’s worth it. From Pittsburgh, Southwest is non-stop so I’m sticking with it. Other choices are Spirit, Frontier. Not going there.
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[beccasmom]

I have Southwest Priority card. I get 1 free bag and preferred seat at purchase. My last annual fee was $149, I think it has gone up this year. I had a roundtrip to Orlando last month, no complaints. I have 2 more trips this year, so it’s worth it. From Pittsburgh, Southwest is non-stop so I’m sticking with it. Other choices are Spirit, Frontier. Not going there.
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If you are happy with Southwest and have non-stop flights available, that’s terrific. I have family in Pittsburgh who fly with them a lot. From my airport we are lucky to have maybe two non-stops a day. The other flights have 1 (sometimes 2!) connections through either Midway, Nashville, or St. Louis. Since normally our flight is just over 2 hours, that makes for a very long day (and circuitous routing through their other hubs).

We used to have a much more favorable schedule at PHL on SW. Thankfully, we have other options and we’re now using American. Not perfect for sure, but it just makes more sense especially since the fares are roughly comparable. And we don’t pay for luggage since we have the AA credit card.

 

[hardcorestitch]

One word: Delta.

 

[LuvOrlando]

This is a tricky game lately.

We loved United out of PA favoring Newark for ages, have tons of points. Then when up in Boston we switched to Jet Blue for a few years because it was super flexible not a hub but still. Now though JetBlue no longer even goes to Newark from Boston and is getting a bit iffy with reliability so for EWR we are back to United. We now have family in DC & Virginia area so Delta is in the mix with those routes. These days the fav is anyones game.

We have a ton of points in AMEX and have no idea where to attach them yet but we'll probably wait until where we go from Boston plays out, it is too expensive and too cold to wanna stay here

 

[EACarlson]

One word: Delta.

Why? Unless you're at a Delta hub, rarely is Delta anywhere near as good a value as AA or UA per point. I flew to MCO in January, DL was 43k points and AA was 15k points. If you already have Amex MR or a stash of Skypesos it's fine, but if weren't for the MR transfers, I wouldn't use them nearly as much as I do.

 

[elvispursley]

As we live in the Northwest we to most of our flying with Alaska & Hawaiian. With their CC's we get a nearly free companion fare each year so that makes our flights to/from Hawaiʻi very reasonable. Going to FL isn't as ideal though, always cheaper for us to fly into Tampa.

This is us as well. We live in Seattle, Alaska’s hub, and previously were in Hawaii, so we’re thrilled when Hawaiian airlines merged with Alaska. We’re pretty happy with Alaska and it helps that they’re part of OneWorld alliance. And now when we fly to Europe next year for our cruise, Alaska has a nonstop flight to Rome from Seattle, so really excited to put our miles/points toward that!!

 

[DCLMP]

Have a boatload of cc points, and usually would immediately dump them into Southwest. Just flew my first time after the seating change, and was super disappointed. Between luggage costs, all these seat fee's, etc--they are not so economical anymore.

Who else is everyone using now?

All airlines charge for the better seats. You can avoid baggage fees with an airline co-branded credit card.

 

[DCLMP]

Why? Unless you're at a Delta hub, rarely is Delta anywhere near as good a value as AA or UA per point. I flew to MCO in January, DL was 43k points and AA was 15k points. If you already have Amex MR or a stash of Skypesos it's fine, but if weren't for the MR transfers, I wouldn't use them nearly as much as I do.

I agree. Delta points are so inflated. I've gotten some good redemptions using Alaska miles on AA. I'm flying business class to Rome in July for 55k miles. I'm returning on Delta in premium economy for 72k miles which is good for Delta since I booked it's gone to 275k miles. I can't imagine using that many miles for business class much less premium economy.

I flew to Japan last year on JL using AA miles 60k for business class. As you know it's so much work finding the deals. You have to check every day. I use my United miles to fly in Europe on Turkish air and Luftansa. I haven't found a use for United miles in the US.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Keep the points at Chase for now. There is no benefit to sweeping them into another FF program to sit there.

When you're ready to book a trip see if your credit card gets any extra value redeeming through the chase travel portal, sometimes a promo is running, and see what your costs are. Then go look at the point transfer partners (AA is not one of them) and see if there is point availability for your desired dates and flights. If there is price it out and remember to also compare to direct cash bookings to see if it's worth the effort over cash. I don't recommend doing foreign partners to book AA or whatever unless you are willing to really dedicate time to understand the ins and outs but you do you (those not deep in the points game tend to get over their head trying that and then are like "I have 100k points stranded in Uganda airlines- what now?!" lol). If you've decided to transfer the points cross your fingers and make the points transfer hoping that like it's a clean transfer and the points are immediately available. That doesn't always happen and if points availability disappears in the meantime, c'est la vie you better have picked an airline you might fly in the future.

Chase also has Hyatt as a points partner. Hyatt's program is undergoing increasing devaluations, so again don't just let points sit there, but they still tend to be a great points value.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Why? Unless you're at a Delta hub, rarely is Delta anywhere near as good a value as AA or UA per point. I flew to MCO in January, DL was 43k points and AA was 15k points. If you already have Amex MR or a stash of Skypesos it's fine, but if weren't for the MR transfers, I wouldn't use them nearly as much as I do.

Actually I am a rare case in the DL ecosystem and get pretty good value for my DL points- and I don't fly from/to DL hubs. I have found it is entirely dependent on the exact routings you're looking at, seat types and what the cash alternatives are. Skypesos are named such for a reason but I do like to advice folks to look at their own exact plans and situations instead of dismissing them out of hand because they aren't a DL hub.