ease of use of your ff miles

[3kidz4dis]

I am researching credit cards that give ff miles and was wondering about the ease of use to being able to use them. In other words, do a lot of you try and use them and then find the seat is unavailable or can be used on that flight?

 

[safetymom]

It depends on the airline. Some airlines to popular destinations you have to book at the 330 day mark to get the flights.

 

[Brian Noble]

I've got status on Northwest, and live in detroit. In winter, flights to popular, warm tourist destinations are hard---Orlando in February is nearly impossible, but we have gotten tickets for our family of four to Santa Ana on miles for a February week at Disneyland at the 330-day mark. Within a few weeks, though, they were gone. So, if you are traveling a popular vacation route in a popular season, be prepared to plan ahead.

In lower-demand seasons, or to "not-so-touristy" destinations, it's not as hard---I just booked a long weekend in September for two of us on miles from DTW to MCO, direct on the way down, connecting back, geting the dates and times we wanted. Last month I booked a pair of tickets just two weeks in advance for a long weekend to Charlotte so that my daughter and I could start our summer amusement park season a month early at Paramount's Carowinds, and there were plenty of award seats available.

(On NW, you can use double miles to get around capacity limits, but I only do that in emergencies---it significantly reduces the value of your miles.)

In my experience, unless you are already flying a significant amount, and can consolidate your flights on a single airline, it will take quite a while to build up enough rewards to get tickets---most cards give 1 mile per dollar for most transactions, and you typically need at least 25K miles for a single ticket. It took my wife five years to rack up enough miles for a round trip flight on her FF account, and she takes 1-2 leisure flights per year that we pay for. (It would have taken longer, but we went to Geneva last year on a paid ticket, and that's nearly 9,000 miles right there.)

Furthermore, if you are mostly using award tickets to fly domestic coach routes, the value of your miles can range from less than $0.01 per mile to at most $0.02, but usually on the lower end of the range.

Bottom line? If you aren't a frequent flyer already, it's probably a better bet to go with a card that gives a cash payout instead, and set that money aside in a "vacation fund."

 

[3kidz4dis]

Bottom line? If you aren't a frequent flyer already, it's probably a better bet to go with a card that gives a cash payout instead, and set that money aside in a "vacation fund."

Thats what I was thinking. I am researching a AMEX starwood card that gives you 25% conversion bonus when you convert your points to miles, I just am unsure still if I should just stick with my cash rewards at 1%, 3%, and even 5% on gas and groceries and then this way do not have to deal with the hassle of unavailability. Thanks for your reply.

 

[manning]

Thats what I was thinking. I am researching a AMEX starwood card that gives you 25% conversion bonus when you convert your points to miles, I just am unsure still if I should just stick with my cash rewards at 1%, 3%, and even 5% on gas and groceries and then this way do not have to deal with the hassle of unavailability. Thanks for your reply.

We have AMEX Starwood and have a free week in Hawaii available. I would use the points for hotel stays. I think you can stay at Swan/Dolphin for 10,000 per night.

They say now it is easier walking on water than to get FF seats.

 

[NotUrsula]

The exception is Southwest's Visa card. Eight r/t flights within a yr. (16 flight credits) on SWA earn you a reward ticket, and there are NO FLIGHT BLACKOUTS on SWA. If there is a seat available on the flight, it's yours.

The money you spend on the Visa counts toward the flight rewards as well, each $1200 earns one credit (buying tickets on SWA counts double.) The number is a bit high if you are hoping to earn a ticket on CC purchases only, but if you fly at least 3X per year you can usually get a reward on the combined value quite easily. You can also earn a 1/2 credit on SWA each time you stay at a partner hotel chain or rent from a partner rental car firm.

DH has been flying a lot this year, and he's been buying the tickets with the SWA visa. His 22 rt's have so far earned us 5 frequent flyer tickets, four of which we are using to take n/s flights to Orlando on the Friday of a holiday weekend.

We also use the Starwood AMEX card; we will spending 5 nights at the Swan on 40K points; again, no blackouts on when you can use your reward nights.

 

[Brian Noble]

NotUrsula: what woud you say the average SW roundtrip goes for? You need just under 20K spending to rack up the credits needed for one roundtrip, and if the "normal fare" is typically under $200, you are still looking at earning only 1% on the SW visa. I would think a cashback card would be a better bet, because of the fexibility of cash.

That said, my primary earnings card is a standard AMEX, where I'm only earning 0.8%-2%, depending on what I'm buying and what I'm spending the points on, and the secondary is a Disney Visa, so I'm not exactly optimizing my credit card usage. The starwood card sounds like a pretty good deal---typical room rates are around $200/night, so that's an easy 2%.

Edit: the other "advantage" of a rewards card vs. a cash-back one is that you *have* to spend it on a reward. It's too easy to use cash on day-to-day living expenses. That's not a bad thing, but it's less "special" somehow.

 

[3kidz4dis]

NotUrsula: what woud you say the average SW roundtrip goes for? You need just under 20K spending to rack up the credits needed for one roundtrip, and if the "normal fare" is typically under $200, you are still looking at earning only 1% on the SW visa. I would think a cashback card would be a better bet, because of the fexibility of cash.

That said, my primary earnings card is a standard AMEX, where I'm only earning 0.8%-2%, depending on what I'm buying and what I'm spending the points on, and the secondary is a Disney Visa, so I'm not exactly optimizing my credit card usage.

I was looking into the Disney Visa, but isn't that just equal to 1% cash back?

 

[Lewisc]

Brian--Many of us who use SW RR tickets wouldn't "brun" a RR ticket if the fare is under $200. In fact RR tickets sell on ebay for $300-$350.

I use mine for longer flights, LAS for example. Last minute trips. Trips around holidays in which I can work around the very few black out dates but not get any discounted flights. Also good for a two one way flights. Sometimes I can only get a discounted flight in one direction and will burn one RR ticket for two of us for the direction without a discounted flight.

Flight to MCO are deeply discounted on most airlines. Many people are better off using their reward tickets on more expensive flights.

NotUrsula: what woud you say the average SW roundtrip goes for? You need just under 20K spending to rack up the credits needed for one roundtrip, and if the "normal fare" is typically under $200, you are still looking at earning only 1% on the SW visa. I would think a cashback card would be a better bet, because of the fexibility of cash.
.

 

[3kidz4dis]

Brian--Flight to MCO are deeply discounted on most airlines. Many people are better off using their reward tickets on more expensive flights.

I have that situation next year. The only problem is SW ff credits expire on year after you get your 16. We are going to MCO during that one year and do not want to waste it on that flight so we are going to let it expire and then pay $50.00 to extend the expiration 1 year. What will bit us though are black out dates and unavailability.

 

[NotUrsula]

We normally go to MCO on deeply-discounted fares, so we usually pay about $119 rt for them. This time we are travelling on a holiday weekend, and the best we could do was right around $200. Our most frequent flights are from STL to either MCI or MDW; at advance purchase prices those tend to be well under $100, often as low as $60. DH has to go to Dallas every so often, and with the Tulsa Twostep, that's good for double credits. We usually burn our RR tickets on Christmas flights to visit family, this vacation is a bit of an anomaly caused by scheduling conflicts.

Both of us fly at least 3-4X's yearly for business on SWA, so no, we don't spend $20K out of pocket for those FF tickets; not even close. (Especially not this spring, as DS has suddenly been assigned a lot of travel.) The business tickets are reimbursed by our employers, but we receive double points for purchasing them and credits for taking them. It happens that both our employer's preferred hotel chains are SWA partners, so we pick up a 1/2 credit on almost every business trip as well, and we use those chains on roadtrips, too. We usually only need to make up about 6 credits per year through card use to fill out 3 r/t's to cover our holiday travel.

I did say originally that the SWA card works best for someone who flies at least a few times per year on SWA. I prefer flying them for their flexibility, but honestly I don't bother making an effort for miles on other airlines. Status perks mean nothing to me; I want seats, and with SWA I get them anytime I want them.