What is the best use for my Air Miles?

[amie416]

I've saved up just under 4000 Air Miles right now, and I'm trying to figure out how to spend them for our April/May 2014 Disney trip. Here are my options:

1) Buy one adult MYW 5-day ticket for 2500 miles and upgrade at the park to Park Hopper and Waterparks. Save the balance of my miles and buy the second Adult ticket from Undercover Tourist.

2) Use Air Miles to pay for a hotel for our arrival day (day before we check into DVC resort) and the night before our departure. Approx. 1300 miles per night, depending on where we stay.

3) Get the compact point-and-shoot camera that I've wanted to buy for a while. Cannon S110, 3600 miles.

4) Flights. I wasn't really considering this option because I was planning to fly out of Buffalo or Detroit, but I looked into the cost and it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be to fly YYZ-MCO on Air Miles because we'll be flying in low season and my credit card gives us an additional 25% discount. For two of us to fly to MCO on Air Canada, it would cost 3562 miles and $384 in taxes & airport fees. Because we live in Toronto and may be able to get a ride to the airport, there would be savings in the cost of driving and parking, but I'm not sure if there are any "hidden surprises" that we need to worry about when booking flights with points...

Any advice or Air Miles tips would be most welcome!

 

[coastgirl]

I think your best "bang for buck" is usually the airfare, though if you are close to a US airport, you may end up better off flying from the US. (I paid $1000 in fees for four of us from Halifax, and on a good day I can find "retail" flights on SW from NH for all of us for that much!) But $324 for two is great.

Depending on which airline, you may pay for checked bags. We are paying $25 per on our AC points flights. WJ didn't have the baggage fee, but coincidentally, the cost per ticket in "taxes and fees" was...about $25 pp. :rolleyes3: That's the only add on we have for our tickets after the calculated taxes and fees are paid. I know there are extra charges, and quite a bit I believe, if you need to make changes and such to points tickets.

 

[amie416]

Depending on which airline, you may pay for checked bags. We are paying $25 per on our AC points flights. WJ didn't have the baggage fee, but coincidentally, the cost per ticket in "taxes and fees" was...about $25 pp. :rolleyes3: That's the only add on we have for our tickets after the calculated taxes and fees are paid. I know there are extra charges, and quite a bit I believe, if you need to make changes and such to points tickets.

Oh, right... baggage. If we each take one bag, that would add up to an extra $100 for the round trip. Since I'm leaning towards booking a SW flight that includes 2 checked bags each in the fare, this might just tip the scale against using our Air Miles for flights. I'm not great with Disney vacation math, but I think the park ticket is better value when we take that into consideration.

5-Day Adult MYW ticket: 2500 miles
Current Gate Price: $289
CGP of Waterparks/Hopper ticket: $373
Difference in CGP is cost to upgrade: $84 + 6.5% tax = $89.46 (Not sure how upgrades work - is this correct?)
What I would pay UT for the upgraded ticket: 368.48
2500 miles nets me a value of 368.48-89.46= 279.02, about 11 cents per mile.

On the other hand, if we use Air Miles for flights:

Assuming a cost of $700 to fly from the US. ($600 for R/T flights on SW from Detroit, $100 for driving and incidental costs.)
Cost of Air Miles flights: 3562 miles
Taxes and Fees: $384
Baggage Fees: $100
Spending 3562 miles for a savings of $700-384-100 = $216, about 6 cents per mile.


Yikes! I'm not sure if my math is correct... but I really thought the flights would be a better deal until I wrote that all out.

 

[Sprockie]

I agree. I never use them for flights - we always fly from NY state. I redeem mine for gift cards from Best Western and Alamo and also to buy park tickets.

 

[Diamondintheruff]

Don't forget that you still have to pay taxes and a service charge on hotels through airmiles. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express at the Montreal aiport for a night and it cost me just over $50 in taxes and service charges.

You will need lots of time to preorder your park tickets if you go that route. I tried to order seaworld passes with my airmiles and they never sent them. They apparently got lost in the mailroom somewhere. I ordered them a month in advance and called to check on them. I was told they had been redeemed and sent out. The day before we left, my husband called and that's when they figured they must have been lost in their system. Yes, they were sorry and yes, they credited my account back but it didn't help me. There was not enough time left for them to mail them to me before I left and they were not willing to contact seaworld for us or do anything other than say sorry, they had made an error. I had promised the family we would go so I had to pay cash for my park tickets I hadn't planned on spending.

Needless to say, we are not fond of airmiles at our house. I have just received a new PC credit card and plan to dispose of my airmiles one. It's just too hard to redeem them now.

 

[amie416]

Don't forget that you still have to pay taxes and a service charge on hotels through airmiles. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express at the Montreal aiport for a night and it cost me just over $50 in taxes and service charges.

Good to know... that's akin to highway robbery! I wouldn't want to spend all my Air Miles just to find out still have to pay that much $OOP. I think I may just get the camera or some car rental certificates and be done with it.

 

[Sprockie]

Good to know... that's akin to highway robbery! I wouldn't want to spend all my Air Miles just to find out still have to pay that much $OOP. I think I may just get the camera or some car rental certificates and be done with it.

We always get Best Western Gift Cards, which are just like cash. Gift cards cover taxes, fees, meals, anything that's charged at the hotel. We just stick to the Best Western chain and you can always use your gift card.

 

[Mellabella]

I was also planning on using our air miles for our Disney trip. We are most likely going to get the 5 day pass.

 

[KittyKat1978]

I used my AM to get my flight.

From Vancouver its 4775 AM to fly to Orlando.

The taxes were $189.00 and baggage fees will be $50 = $239.00

The cheapest flight I could find (including baggage fees) was with United (I really did not want to fly with them) for $700 (for one person)

So with AM flight I saved $461.

My mom is using her AM to get me the 7 day ticket for my birthday which I will upgrade when I get to WDW.

I have also used AM to fly to DL. And my parents have used AM for DL tickets.

I have never had any issues with getting what I purchased.

I usually go with what will have me the most money.

 

[lauracitawita]

We used them to get Marlin Travel giftcards.

You buy your package with Marlin and they credit you the amount. I went over every scenario and this was by far the best use for us.

 

[maplevale]

I don't have AM so I am not sure what you can redeem them for. I have PC points - and what I do is redeem my points for my groceries... and that months groceries goes into the trip fund.

(like the redemption for the camera theory - spend the points on something you would be buying anyway and use the cash you didn't spend towards the trip). Groceries, Gas?

 

[amie416]

The grocery idea is a really good one! The only thing is that we don't shop at Metro, so it wouldn't work for us. (I should really sign up for PC points, because we shop at ValuMart and RCSS all the time!) I also really like the Marlin Travel certificates idea, but we're staying as DVC guests and not booking a package, so I don't think we could use them.

I was on the Air Miles website today and sadly they don't offer Best Western certificates anymore. In fact, it seems like most of the gift certificate offers are being phased out because there are way less options now than I remember seeing not too long ago. To redeem for any hotels now, it seems that you have to book through an Air Miles agent, for which they will charge you a $20 booking fee.

Since I don't want to be caught without any options, I decided to go ahead and redeem my miles right away instead of waiting until closer to our vacation... Got one 5-day Adult MYW ticket and 1 $100 certificate for Alamo. Thanks for all your suggestions everyone!

Now I've just discovered that I have $450 worth of iTravelCash from my MBNA credit card too... hopefully I can use that towards our flights or something.

 

[Dynamoliz]

Just an fyi ... I ordered 2 $100 gift certs for Budget US, on July 30 and they arrived in the mail today. I was surprised to receive them so quickly.

 

[CdnCarrie]

The grocery idea is a really good one! The only thing is that we don't shop at Metro, so it wouldn't work for us. (I should really sign up for PC points, because we shop at ValuMart and RCSS all the time!) I also really like the Marlin Travel certificates idea, but we're staying as DVC guests and not booking a package, so I don't think we could use them.

I was on the Air Miles website today and sadly they don't offer Best Western certificates anymore. In fact, it seems like most of the gift certificate offers are being phased out because there are way less options now than I remember seeing not too long ago. To redeem for any hotels now, it seems that you have to book through an Air Miles agent, for which they will charge you a $20 booking fee.

Since I don't want to be caught without any options, I decided to go ahead and redeem my miles right away instead of waiting until closer to our vacation... Got one 5-day Adult MYW ticket and 1 $100 certificate for Alamo. Thanks for all your suggestions everyone!

Now I've just discovered that I have $450 worth of iTravelCash from my MBNA credit card too... hopefully I can use that towards our flights or something.

They do still have Best Western gift cards. They are just sold out of them at the moment.

 

[disneyfreak89]

We usually redeem our AM's for 7 day MYW tickets then upgrade once we get to the resort.

It appears they have raised the amount to 2,675 for a 7 day, up from 2,485. That's quite a jump! Might have to rethink our redemption plans now.

Last year we won some AM's through BMO and exchanged them for Priority Club points through Intercontinental Hotels Group (Holiday Inn, Express etc.) and were able to stay in Fort Myers for a week for free! So we might use our AM's for our hotels to and from Florida on our next trip.

Check out the rate of exchange here:

https://www.airmiles.ca/arrow/Rewar...ons=3&qty=false&productId=fwprod1029849628320

Most Holiday Inns and Holiday Inn Express hotels require 15,000-20,000 points per night stay. So for 1,150 to 1,525 AM's you can get a free night!