Using Miles – Miles Briefs

Maximizing British Airways Miles- A Complete Guide for 2024

Juliana — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Looking to make the most of your British Airways miles in 2024? This comprehensive guide will show you how to maximize your Avios rewards, ensuring you get the best value for your miles. Whether you’re a frequent traveler or planning your next dream vacation, we’ll cover top tips, strategies, and insider tricks to help you earn, redeem, and maximize your British Airways miles efficiently.

From flight upgrades to exclusive experiences, discover how to unlock incredible benefits with this complete guide to British Airways miles for 2024. Start maximizing your travel rewards today!

British Airways Avios is a distance-based rewards program.

Single-partner awards are priced out segment-by-segment, meaning if your trip is actually made up of two flights with one connection, you pay for each flight individually according to the charts below. All single-partner awards price out according to the single-partner award chart, other than Aer Lingus and Iberia, which each have their own unique charts. Multiple-partner awards follow the multiple-partner award chart and are priced out based on cumulative distance, which can lead to lower pricing in some instances.

Award Charts:

Changes: $55 or forfeit all taxes and fees paid, whichever is less. Cancellations: $55 or forfeit all taxes and fees paid, whichever is less.

Close-In Booking Fees: None.

Stopovers and Open-Jaws: N/A for single-partner awards. Since you’re paying for each segment individually, you can create all of the stopovers and open-jaws that you wish. For multiple-partner awards, eight stopovers and one open-jaw are allowed.

Fuel Surcharges: On all airlines except Alaska and LATAM. Domestic flights entirely within the United States or from the U.S. to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America are also free of fuel surcharges. And while Aer Lingus and many of the Asian airlines have fuel surcharges, they are typically low, so these partners can be okay too.

Sweet Spots: United States (West coast) to Hawaii in Economy; short flights (under 650 miles) abroad, particularly domestic flights within Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and Europe.

Single-Partner Award Chart (all partners other than Aer Lingus and Iberia)

Travel Distance	Economy	Business	First
1 to 650 miles (NA)	7,500	15,000	30,000
1 to 650 miles (ex. NA)	6,000	12,500	24,000
651 to 1,150 miles	9,000	16,500	33,000
1,151 to 2,000 miles	11,000	22,000	44,000
2,001 to 3,000 miles	13,000	38,750	51,500
3,001 to 4,000 miles	20,750	62,000	82,500
4,001 to 5,500 miles	25,750	77,250	103,000
5,501 to 6,500 miles	31,000	92,750	123,750
6,501 to 7,000 miles	36,250	108,250	144,250
7,001+ miles	51,500	154,500	206,000

Aer Lingus Award Chart (Peak)

Travel Distance	Economy	Business	First
1 to 650 miles	4,500	9,000	18,000
651 to 1,150 miles	7,500	15,000	30,000
1,151 to 2,000 miles	10,000	20,000	40,000
2,001 to 3,000 miles	12,500	37,500	50,000
3,001 to 4,000 miles	20,000	60,000	80,000
4,001 to 5,500 miles	25,000	75,000	100,000
5,501 to 6,500 miles	30,000	90,000	120,000
6,501 to 7,000 miles	35,000	105,000	140,000
7,001+ miles	50,000	150,000	200,000

Iberia Award Chart (Peak)

Travel Distance	Economy	Business	First
1 to 650 miles	5,000	10,000	–
651 to 1,150 miles	8,250	16,500	–
1,151 to 2,000 miles	11,000	22,000	–
2,001 to 3,000 miles	12,500	25,000	–
3,001 to 4,000 miles	20,000	40,000	–
4,001 to 5,500 miles	25,000	50,000	–
5,501 to 6,500 miles	30,000	60,000	–
6,501 to 7,000 miles	35,000	70,000	–
7,001+ miles	50,000	100,000	–

Note: Awards utilizing two or more partner airlines use the chart below. If you do want to fly multiple partners, keep in mind that you also have the option of breaking up your trip into multiple single-partner one-way bookings, depending on which is cheaper.

Multiple-Partner Award Chart

Travel Distance	Economy	Business	First
1 to 1,500 miles	30,000	60,000	90,000
1,501 to 4,000 miles	35,000	70,000	105,000
4,001 to 9,000 miles	60,000	120,000	180,000
9,001 to 10,000 miles	70,000	140,000	210,000
10,001 to 14,000 miles	90,000	180,000	270,000
14,001 to 20,000 miles	100,000	200,000	300,000
20,001 to 25,000 miles	120,000	240,000	360,000
25,001 to 35,000 miles	140,000	280,000	420,000
35,001 to 50,000 miles	160,000	320,000	480,000

British Airways shows award availability for all Oneworld partners. However, it does not show Mixed Cabin awards. This can be problematic if you are searching for business or first class awards, so unless you are searching for flights in economy, you should always search British Airways one segment at a time.

Use Airline Route Mapper (tutorial) to look up possible routes.

Go to British Airways. Create an account if you do not have one already.
Fill out the form and submit. Search one segment at a time for business or first class awards.
Review your results. Note that there should be a business/first mixed cabin award available on the date I chose, but it is not displayed below because I wanted to show what happens if you do not search one segment at a time. Remember, one segment at a time for premium cabin awards! In any case, select your flights and complete your booking if you find something acceptable. You may have to call in for a mixed cabin award or if you want to verify award space before transferring points from American Express or Chase.

Advanced Tips & Tricks

American Airlines Award Space

British Airways’ award search engine does not display American Airlines’ award inventory with consistency. It therefore makes sense to look on American’s website first if you intend to book an award on one of their flights using British Airways Avios. Assuming you find availability, you then will want to search for the same flight on British Airways’ site. It may be necessary to repeat your search multiple times (this can be done by clicking back-and-forth between different dates on the seven-day calendar of results from your initial search) to find the award space you found on American.

Nonstop Flights to Hawaii from the West Coast

This is one of the few sweet spots on the British Airways award chart. Nonstop flights to Hawaii from the West Coast will generally fall under 3,000 miles, making the price of a round trip 26,000 Avios. You will need to use American to look for nonstop award availability on Alaska or American Airlines (ignore any results on Hawaiian Airlines because you cannot book those with Avios).

Using Stops to Save Miles

The number of Avios needed for a trip increases as the mileage flown goes up, but you’ll spot some oddities in the chart if you look for them. In particular, 13,000 Avios for flights under 3,000 miles is cheap compared to much of the rest of the chart. In many cases, you can save Avios if you can break off flight segments that are fewer than 3,000 miles. For example, a one-way nonstop flight from SFO-SYD (7,417 miles) would cost 51,500 Avios, but a flight with one stop, SFO-HNL (2,398 miles) + HNL-SYD (5,066 miles), would cost 38,750 Avios. You could also stay in Honolulu and turn the stop into a stopover if you wish.

Multiple-Partner Awards

The rules for multiple-partner awards are not well-publicized. Pricing might not be based on the highest class of service flown but rather the class of service flown for the majority of the trip (i.e., a trip that is 60% economy and 40% business might price as economy).

Iberia Airlines Awards

British Airways Avios can be transferred to Iberia Airlines Avios to book awards using the Iberia Airlines Avios award charts. For some flights (short range, multiple partner), fewer miles are required to book through Iberia. Iberia Airlines typically imposes lower fuel charges than British Airways does as well.

Reward Flight Saver

Some results will display the below icon to indicate a Reward Flight Saver award. While they will cost the same number of Avios as a regular award, the taxes and fees will be at a lower flat rate and may result in a lower overall cost compared to other options.

Singapore Airlines Miles- The Ultimate Redemption Guide for 2024

Juliana — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Note: Read the primer on Using Miles if you have not already.

Singapore Krisflyer has separate award charts for flights on Singapore Airlines only and for flights with their Star Alliance partners. Generally, the best use of Singapore Krisflyer miles is for their own flights in business, first, or suites class. Another good option is partner award flights within North or South America, including Hawaii and the Caribbean. Other options tend to either cost too many miles or charge too much in fuel surcharges to be competitive.

Award Chart:

Flights on Singapore Airlines as well as Flights with Star Alliance and Flights with Non-Alliance Partners (incl. Alaska Airlines). Flights on non-alliance partners cannot be combined with flights on Star Alliance partners in a single award.

Changes:

$25 for Singapore Airlines flights and $50 for partner airlines. A $25 fee is added for any service that is done over the phone if it could have been accomplished online.

Cancellations:

$75 to cancel and redeposit your miles. The same $25 fee mentioned above potentially applies here too.

Close-In Booking Fees:

None.

Stopovers and Open-Jaws:

One stopover and one open-jaw for international round-trip awards (stopovers in the country of departure are excluded). Up to three stopovers can be added to an award (even a one-way award) for $100 each.

Fuel Surcharges:

Yes, but none on a) Singapore/Silkair awards, b) Air New Zealand, Avianca, and Copa, nor c) partner awards within North and South America. Fuel surcharges on ANA, Ethiopian, EVA, LOT Polish, Scandinavian, and Turkish can be low also.

Sweet Spots:

Singapore Airlines flights in Business/First/Suites Class.
Alaska Airlines flights in Economy Class (between most of their destinations in the U.S., Canada, and Central America).
Flights within North America (including Hawaii) in Business/First Class or to Southern South America in Business Class.
Travel between Hawaii, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Flights within South America, South Pacific, or Africa.

Booking Process:

Go to Singapore Airlines’ website and create an account if you do not have one already.
Fill out the form and submit. Review your results and select the flight you are considering. You can also edit your search or view results on the next or previous day.
As of December 7, 2017, there is now the option to show flights for Star Alliance or Other Partner airlines.
The booking summary in the top right will update with the cost in miles plus any taxes and fuel surcharges.
- (Optional) If you are searching one way or one segment at a time, repeat this process for any other legs of your trip and assemble them into a single trip.
Select your flights and complete your booking. For some partners, e.g., Alaska Airlines, you will need to call (800) 742-3333 to book your award.

Suites Class:

One of the most fun ways to redeem Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles is for awards in Singapore Suites.
To fly Singapore Suites, you need to pay only for a first-class award, but it must be on a route flying the Airbus A380. In other words, on an A380, first class is an enclosed suite.
Singapore’s routes that fly an A380 are shown in the table below. The reverse direction (i.e., return trip) for all these options does as well. Make sure to check the plane details when booking because they will sometimes fly other planes on these routes and will offer you those options as well.

Origin	Destination	Miles
New York	Frankfurt	86,000
Singapore	Auckland	85,000
Beijing	53,000
Frankfurt	125,000
Hong Kong	40,500
London	125,000
Mumbai	53,000
New Delhi	53,000
New York	132,000
Paris	125,000
Shanghai	53,000
Sydney	85,000
Zurich	125,000

Searching with United Airlines:

If you are booking an award with Star Alliance partner airlines rather than on Singapore Airlines directly, you may still want to search following the steps at Searching With United Airlines. Although Singapore Airlines has now added the option to search for and book Star Alliance partner awards online, the interface is still a bit clunky. Ultimately, you may want to go back to Singapore Airlines to book your flights to avoid the $25 phone booking fee. Otherwise, you can call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 to complete your booking over the phone.

Searching with Alaska Airlines:

Similarly, if you are booking an award with Alaska Airlines, you will want to use their own award search to find availability. You will also have to call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 to book the flights you found, but they should waive the $25 phone booking fee since Alaska’s award space does not show on Singapore’s website.

Advanced Tips & Tricks:

Waitlisting Awards Before Booking Your Flight: If you’ve found available awards but the options aren’t ideal, consider waitlisting for your preferred itineraries. Waitlisting Singapore awards is free, but you must have enough miles in your account to book your award. Since no miles are deducted when you waitlist, this means that you can waitlist as many awards as you like prior to booking your non-ideal option that has availability. Should availability come up via waitlist on a more ideal routing in the future, you can then change your itinerary to your preferred one. Note that waitlisted awards are automatically canceled if they do not clear within fourteen days of the departure date.
Finding Extra Award Availability by Adding Segments: If you’re searching for an award, especially to Singapore, and cannot find any available seats in your class of choice, try adding another segment to your trip (e.g., search for LAX-NRT-SIN-HKG rather than just LAX-NRT-SIN). Oddly enough, it appears that Singapore reserves some extra seats for people connecting in Singapore rather than selecting it as their final destination. This doesn’t help, of course, if you intend to actually visit Singapore, unless you can carry on all of your bags and skip the last segment.
Saving Miles with a Stopover: A partner award from South America to the US costs 30,000 miles, while an award from South America to Hawaii (via the US) costs 25,000 miles. Thus, you could spend $100 more and 5,000 miles less to have a “stopover” in your hometown and a flight to Hawaii later. There are likely other instances like this in the award chart.

How to Stack Rewards for Maximum Travel Benefits In 2024

Juliana — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Traveling can be an expensive endeavor, but with the right rewards programs and credit cards, you can offset a lot of the costs and even travel for free. The key is to strategically stack rewards from multiple sources so you can maximize your travel benefits. In this article we talk about How to Stack Rewards for Maximum Travel Benefits In 2024.

Step 1: Get the Right Credit Cards

The foundation of any good travel rewards strategy starts with getting the right credit cards. There are three main types of cards that can help you rack up points and miles quickly:

Airline credit cards – These cards earn you miles with a specific airline. You can use the miles for free flights and upgrades. Cards like the Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express and United Explorer Card are great options.
Hotel credit cards – Similarly, hotel cards earn you points and perks with a specific hotel chain. Some top picks are the Hilton Honors Card from American Express and the IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card.
Flexible/transferable points cards – Cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and American Express Membership Rewards cards earn points that you can transfer to various airline and hotel loyalty programs. This gives you maximum flexibility in how you redeem rewards.

When applying for cards, take advantage of signup bonuses which give you a large lump sum of points after meeting a minimum spend requirement. Combine that with the points you earn from everyday purchases, and your balance can quickly grow into a free trip.

Also, consider your travel goals. If you frequently stay at Hilton hotels, getting their co-branded credit card makes sense. Airline cards work best for those who are loyal to a particular carrier or alliance. Flexible points cards are great for dabbling across brands. Apply for cards that align with your habits and brand preferences.

Step 2: Link Credit Cards to Loyalty Programs

Many travel credit cards are affiliated directly with a hotel chain or airline’s loyalty program. However, some cards earn generic flexible points – these need to be transferred to loyalty programs to redeem rewards.

Here are some key programs to consider linking your credit cards to:

American AAdvantage
Delta SkyMiles
United MileagePlus
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Hilton Honors
World of Hyatt
Marriott Bonvoy
IHG Rewards

Check what transfer partner options your credit cards have for moving points. Chase Ultimate Rewards points, for example, can go to United, Hyatt, Southwest, and more. American Express Membership Rewards transfer to Delta, Hilton, Marriott and others. Transferring to the right airline and hotel programs lets you effectively combine credit card points and loyalty program points for bigger rewards.

Step 3: Earn Points from Shopping Portals & Dining Programs

In addition to credit cards, many loyalty programs let you earn extra points by shopping online via their portal. Airlines like American and United operate shopping portals featuring hundreds of retailers. You earn miles for purchases at no additional cost. These miles stack on top of any credit card points you also earn, boosting your totals faster.

Similarly, dining rewards networks like Rewards Network allow you to earn extra airline miles and hotel points when eating at participating restaurants. No receipts or vouchers needed – miles are automatically reported from your bill. These mileage bonuses give your balance an easy boost from routine shopping and dining.

Step 4: Book Travel and Redeem Points

Once you’ve built up a healthy stash of miles and points across programs, it’s time to redeem them for award travel. This is where loyalty program rules, award charts and transfer options come into play.

Assess if you have enough points banked with an airline or hotel program for a free ticket or night. If not, consider transferring points from credit cards or even making a rewards purchase to top-up your account.

Be aware of fuel surcharges, blackout dates and availability issues when booking award travel. Leverage airline alliances and partner hotels to increase your redemption opportunities. For complicated bookings, working with an award travel agent may help identify the best redemption option across merged points balances and programs.

To maximize value, use points for expensive hotel rooms and long-haul flights in premium cabins. For shorter economy flights and cheap hotel rooms, pay cash instead. Avoid spending points if you can pay lower cash fares and rates unless you’re topping up for an award ticket.

Step 5: Repeat & Continue Earning

The key to perpetual free travel through rewards is continually repeating the steps above. Keep earning points via new credit card bonuses, daily spending bonuses, online shopping portals, dining rewards networks and any other bonuses.

Redeem points strategically, book award travel, then repeat the process to work towards your next free trip. Over time, through careful rewards stacking across cards and loyalty programs, you can earn enough for flights and hotels on a regular basis.

Additional Tips & Tricks

Here are some extra pointers to further maximize your travel rewards:

Take advantage of 5x or bonus category spending on credit cards for things like grocery, dining, travel etc. to rack up points faster
Consider getting business credit cards too – this doubles your card bonus opportunities
Don’t forget lesser-used programs like Best Western, Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards – they offer valuable redemptions, especially for budget domestic hotels
Leverage airline and hotel status perks that come with premium credit cards for extra benefits like room upgrades, lounge access and priority service
Book longer hotel stays and utilize 5th night free benefits to get the most value from your points
Monitor loyalty programs for special promotions that temporarily increase earning rates or lower award prices – these can present excellent value

The possibilities and combinations for stacking travel rewards are nearly endless. Finding and exploiting opportunities across credit card bonuses, loyalty programs and their various partners leads to a winning strategy. With diligence and continual point-churning, you can enjoy terrific travel benefits for less over the long-run. I sincerely hope you find this “How to Stack Rewards for Maximum Travel Benefits In 2024” article helpful.

How to Make the Most of Your American Airlines Miles in 2024

Juliana — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Note:

Read the primer on Using Miles if you have not already.

Search Engine:

American’s search engine shows flights on American, Alaska, British, Cape Air, Cathay Pacific, Fiji, Finnair, Hawaiian, Iberia, JAL, Malaysia, Qatar, Royal Jordanian, S7, Seaborne, and Sri Lankan. For Oneworld availability on other carriers (e.g. Cathay Pacific), skip to “Searching With British Airways.” For availability on Air Tahiti Nui and other non-alliance partner airlines, skip to “Searching With Expert Flyer and Etihad.”

Award Chart:

Flights: On American Airlines as well as flights with Oneworld Alliance. Also, see this post from Travel is Free.
Changes: FREE.
Cancellations: FREE.
Close-In Booking Fees: None.
Stopovers and Open-Jaws: Open-jaws are permitted on round-trip awards.
Fuel Surcharges: British Airways and Iberia Airlines. Avoid redeeming American miles for flights on British Airways if possible. You can uncheck British Airways if they show up in your search results. Iberia Airlines fuel surcharges are not too bad.

American Airlines Booking:

Go to American. (Note: Use Multi-city search to access American’s older but better search tool. Enter a random second segment if you only need to search one-way. Or you can just use the newer search if it doesn’t bother you.)
Fill out the form and submit. Click “Show Full Calendar” and select your class of cabin. Sort by Total travel time and expand Flight Details for any flights you are considering. (Optional) If you are searching one way or one segment at a time, repeat this process for any other legs of your trip and assemble them into a round-trip or Multi-City Search. You can only do this if you were able to find award availability for all of your flight segments through American’s website and did not have to resort to other search methods listed below.
Select your flights and complete your booking. If you’re not ready to book, American allows you to hold an award for five days. You can find the AAdvantage Hold option on the same screen where you would enter your credit card information.

Searching With British Airways:

British Airways shows award availability for all Oneworld partners that American does not. However, it does not show Mixed Cabin awards. This can be problematic if you are searching for business or first class awards, so unless you are searching for flights in economy, you should always search British Airways one segment at a time.

Use Airline Route Mapper (tutorial) to look up possible routes.
Go to British Airways. Create an account if you do not have one already.
Fill out the form and submit. Search one segment at a time for business or first class awards. Review your results. You’ll see below that British Airways is not finding the business class award that was found using the American search earlier. This is because I searched for my whole itinerary instead of one segment at a time, and the award American found was a Mixed Cabin award. If I had searched SFO-MIA and MIA-GRU individually, I would have found seats in first and business class, respectively, that I could have combined into a single business class award. So why use British Airways at all? The reason is that, unlike American, British Airways will show you awards on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, and a variety of other Oneworld airlines. Assuming you are here because you needed to look up flights that are not displayed on American’s website, you will also be unable to complete this booking with American online. Make note of all the dates and flight numbers for your award and call American Airlines to complete your booking at (800) 882-8880. There is no phone booking fee.

Searching With Expert Flyer and Etihad:

American Airlines has several partners outside of the Oneworld alliance that cannot be searched on American’s nor on British Airways’ websites. While I won’t cover each partner in depth, four that I’ll cover here are Air Tahiti Nui, China Southern, Gulf Air, and Etihad Airways.

Once again, you will want to use Airline Route Mapper (tutorial) to determine where these airlines fly and what flight segments to search for. Awards that involve flights with these non-alliance partner airlines can only be booked by calling American at (800) 882-8880. Make note of all the dates and flight numbers of the award you found to simplify things with the agent.

Air Tahiti Nui, China Southern, and Gulf Air – Expert Flyer:

Air Tahiti Nui operates flights to and from Papeete, Tahiti, as well as a flight between LAX and CDG. In any case, to search for their awards, you will need to use Expert Flyer.

Sign up for a five-day free trial with Expert Flyer.
Go to Award & Upgrade Availability Search.
Fill out the form and submit. You will want to search one segment at a time (e.g. LAX-PPT), with flexible dates, and showing all results on one screen. You’ll see that I also selected Air Tahiti Nui as my specific airline and both class F (Business Award) and class U (Coach Award). Your results will look something like this. You can see that there are two to four seats in coach on every day, and two seats in business class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
A similar approach can be used to search for flights with China Southern and Gulf Air.

Etihad Airways:

Etihad Airways primarily operates flights to and from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For those of us on the West Coast, you can often find a more efficient routing with another airline, though many people still opt to fly Etihad if they can find award availability in Etihad’s The Residence or First Class Apartments.

Go to Etihad Airways, fill out the form, and submit. The web interface here is pretty straightforward.
On the results page, look for the column labeled GuestSeat. If there are any seats there, there is an award available that you should be able to book with American.

Advanced Tips & Tricks:

Flights from Brazil (and the Philippines): This is more of a general tip for any airline, but it is more applicable here because of the egregious fuel surcharges when redeeming for flights on British Airways. Fuel surcharges are illegal in Brazil (and the Philippines), so any flight originating here will not have any fuel surcharges. In particular, British Airways operates two flights out of Brazil, GRU-LHR and GIG-LHR.
Routing rules and restrictions: American has a few routing restrictions on award tickets that you should be aware of, but you will probably not run into them very often. Here are a few of the more commonly encountered ones, and for a full list, you can also check this Flyertalk thread:
- You are not allowed to transit a third region on an award, albeit with a few exceptions. For example, you cannot fly from the U.S. to Australia with a connection in Asia – if you are not flying direct, any and all connections must be in the same region as your origin or destination (in this example, the U.S. and South Pacific). There are several exceptions to this rule, but for flights originating in North America specifically, you can connect in Europe on tickets to Africa, India, or the Middle East, and you can connect in Asia 1 on tickets to Asia 2. You can get around this rule, of course, by booking separate one-way awards, but this may increase the cost of your ticket.
- Travel from North America to Africa, Europe, India, or the Middle East must occur via the Atlantic Ocean.
- Travel from North America to Asia or the South Pacific must occur via the Pacific Ocean, and if you’re flying to Tahiti or Fiji, you can’t connect in Australia or New Zealand.
- You are limited to at most three segments each way on an award within the US and Canada and four segments each way on an international award.
- It has been reported that the American Airlines app is not very good at enforcing these rules and restrictions, so it’s something to try if you are looking for a nonconforming itinerary.
Booking mixed-cabin awards with Etihad: If you are booking a mixed-cabin award on Etihad, you will run into the situation where phone agents cannot see the same award availability that you may have found online. To get around this, you simply need to have the agent start a fresh booking and add the lower segments (i.e. economy) first and the higher segments (i.e. business/first) after.
Booking awards with the Australian call center: Not all American Airlines call center locations can see the same award space. More specifically, there are situations in which you may find availability using a search engine such as British Airways, but when you call to book the ticket, US agents are unable to find the same flights that you did. Furthermore, if you call another location (e.g. Australia), you may find that the agents there can see the flights you had found and can therefore book the award for you. There is no particular rhyme nor reason why things work this way, but if your US call center agent is unable to help you, try Australia at +61 02-9101-1948.

Important Changes to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Award Redemptions for 2024

Juliana — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, Singapore Airlines announced a series of award redemption changes for Singapore Airlines and SilkAir operated flights, effective March 23, 2017:

There will be a new award chart (link).
The 15% award mileage discount is being eliminated.
Fuel surcharges will no longer be assessed.

Note that no changes are being made to partner (i.e. Star Alliance) awards.

Quick Summary

Awards on Singapore Airlines and/or SilkAir will now cost more in miles, but less in cash due to the removal of fuel surcharges. For most cases in Business, First, or Suites Classes, the cash savings does not make up for the extra cost in miles, and this is a devaluation. On the other hand, in Economy or Premium Economy Classes, the new changes might work in your favor.

Some routes will cost fewer miles as a partner award rather than a Singapore Airlines / SilkAir award, so if you’ve found availability on Singapore Airlines / SilkAir, you may be able to save miles by adding a flight from a partner that does not assess fuel surcharges (e.g. a domestic positioning flight with United Airlines).

More Miles vs. Less Cash

With the increase in the number of miles to book an award and the removal of fuel surcharges, you may or may not come out ahead depending on your booking class, destination, and how you value the miles. The tables below show the old and new mileage costs and well as current fuel surcharges for one-way flights from the USA to Singapore.

People flying to Singapore in Economy or Premium Economy Classes will save $220 at the cost of between 8,125 and 10,500 miles (depending on whether you fly from the East or West coast as well as class of service). I think most people would happily make this trade. On the other hand, those flying in Business, First, or Suites Classes would probably rather pay the $230 or $240 fuel surcharge to save between 19,750 and 26,625 miles.

Los Angeles / San Francisco to Singapore

Class	Current Mileage	New Mileage	Mileage Increase	Fuel Surcharge
Economy	29,750	38,000	8,250	$220
Premium Economy	55,250	65,000	9,750	$220
Business	68,000	88,000	20,000	$230
First / Suites	91,375	118,000	26,625	$240

Houston / New York to Singapore

Class	Current Mileage	New Mileage	Mileage Increase	Fuel Surcharge
Economy	31,875	40,000	8,125	$220
Premium Economy	59,500	70,000	10,500	$220
Business	72,250	92,000	19,750	$230
First / Suites	93,500	120,000	26,500	$240

There are some destinations such as Hong Kong and Tokyo that currently have very low fuel surcharges and are basically seeing a mileage increase with little to no cash savings.

Partner Awards Might Be Cheaper

One quirk of the new award chart is that select routes will now cost fewer miles when booked as a partner award rather than an award exclusively on Singapore Airlines / SilkAir. So if you are planning to book a Singapore Airlines / SilkAir flight to one of the destinations below, you could check to see if you can convert this to a partner award by tacking on a partner flight that does not incur any fuel surcharges, such as a domestic positioning flight on United Airlines.

Below I’ve listed all routes that originate from the USA that cost fewer miles when booked as a partner award, in round-trip pricing. Some of these differences are extreme. If you’re flying from the USA West Coast to the Middle East in Singapore Airlines First Class, you can save 136,000 miles (!) by adding a short partner flight. Of course, a long itinerary like this would really only make sense if you were planning to visit Singapore in addition to the Middle East; otherwise, it would make more sense to fly another airline (i.e. a route that doesn’t connect in Singapore).

Destination	Class	Singapore / SilkAir Cost (E): USA East Coast & Houston (W): USA West Coast	Partner Cost
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, & Laos	First / Suites	240,000 (E) / 236,000 (W)	225,000
South China, Hong Kong, & Taiwan	Economy	96,000 (E)	90,000
Business	200,000 (E)	175,000
First / Suites	270,000 (E)	200,000
North China	Economy	110,000 (E)	90,000
Business	220,000 (E)	175,000
First / Suites	290,000 (E)	200,000
India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, & Bangladesh	Economy	110,000 (E)	105,000
Business	220,000 (E) / 196,000 (W)	195,000
First / Suites	290,000 (E) / 276,000 (W)	265,000
Japan & South Korea	Economy	116,000 (E)	90,000
Business	230,000 (E)	175,000
First / Suites	300,000 (E)	200,000
Australia (Perth & Darwin)	Business	220,000 (E) / 204,000 (W)	195,000
First / Suites	290,000 (E) / 296,000 (W)	255,000
Australia (excl. Perth & Darwin) & New Zealand	Economy	120,000 (E)	110,000
Business	236,000 (E) / 220,000 (W)	195,000
First / Suites	304,000 (E) / 308,000 (W)	255,000
North Africa, Middle East, & Turkey	Economy	104,000 (W)	75,000
Business	204,000 (W)	115,000
First / Suites	286,000 (W)	150,000
Central & South Africa	Economy	104,000 (W)	90,000
Business	204,000 (W)	145,000
First / Suites	286,000 (W)	220,000

United Airlines using Miles

Juliana — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 23:28:05 +0000

Note

If you are specifically looking for a partner award that includes Shenzhen Airlines, skip to Searching With Aeroplan below. Keep in mind that, due to United’s recent devaluation and poor IT support, you may have trouble getting any awards that include these two airlines to price out correctly.

Award Chart

Link: Note that there are different prices for flying on partners vs. flying on United only.
Changes: FREE if within the U.S., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, and the Caribbean. For other destinations, $75 if sixty-one or more days prior to departure or $125 otherwise.
Cancellations: FREE if thirty-one or more days prior to departure or $125 otherwise.
Close-In Booking Fees: 1,500 to 3,500 United miles.
Stopovers and Open-Jaws: Excursionist “Perk” instead of stopovers. Unlimited open-jaws.
Fuel Surcharges: None.
Sweet Spots: One-way economy flights within one region (outside North America, nonstop, under 800 miles only) cost 8,000 miles.

Steps for Booking

Go to United: If you have their credit card or elite status, sign in. You will be given better award availability.
Fill out the form and submit.
Check any dates you are interested in: The rewards calendar is not always accurate.
Review your flight options: Note that in the example below, we have found a business class seat on the 19th even though the awards calendar indicated there was no such award available.
Filter results: Toward the bottom of the page, you may filter by price & schedule, airports, and/or experience. This can be useful if there are many results. You can do things such as filtering out long layovers, forcing your connection to be in a particular city, etc.
(Optional) Repeat for other legs: If you are searching one way at a time, repeat this process for any other legs of your trip and assemble them into a round-trip or Multi-City Search once you have found availability on all of your flights.
Select your flights and complete your booking.
If you could not find available flights, see below.

Searching with Aeroplan

Note: Due to United’s recent devaluation, the only purpose of searching with Aeroplan is to look for availability on Shenzhen Airlines.

The Aeroplan search engine will often find more creative routings than the United search engine will. And unlike United, it includes flights on Shenzhen Airlines in its results.
Go to Aeroplan: Create an account if you do not have one already. Fill out the form and submit. If you checked My dates are flexible, the results will include an Availability Calendar. If you did not check the box, you can still access the Availability Calendar from the top right of the screen. For any routings that look interesting, click Details to see the individual flight details. These are the flights you will need to piece together for your United award booking. If you found a flight that looks good, skip to Piecing Together A Multi-City Itinerary.

Piecing together a multi-city itinerary (United Airlines)

Note: Multi-City Search no longer offers any benefits over a straightforward one-way or round-trip search and is only useful for utilizing the Excursionist “Perk.”

You can piece together your segment-by-segment itinerary using United Multi-City Search. Below is a screenshot of a form that has been filled out for a flight from SFO to MXP. Select your flights and complete your booking. Occasionally you will encounter an error during checkout. This is normal with more complicated routes, and it means you will have to call United at (800) 421-4655 to complete your booking over the phone. You may be asked to pay a $25 phone booking fee. Often you can get this waived if you point out that the website would not allow you to book the award.

Advanced Tips & Tricks

Excursionist Perk – The Excursionist “Perk” is United’s stingy way of offering a stopover/open-jaw that occurs entirely within a single region. The rules are as follows:

The Excursionist Perk cannot be in the MileagePlus defined region where your travel originates.
Travel must end in the same MileagePlus defined region where travel originates.
The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk is within a single MileagePlus defined region.
The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it.
If two or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence will be free, i.e. if you have more than three segments in your itinerary.
Any layover longer than 13 hours is considered a stopover and requires the use of the Excursionist Perk on a round-trip award. This also means that you cannot book a one-way award with a 13-hour layover.

Note: There is no mention of the excursion needing to connect with any of your other flights; therefore, a routing such as SFO-LHR, SYD-AKL, LHR-SFO is valid, where SYD-AKL is your free excursion.

Likewise, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from using cheap domestic flights as the first or last legs of your trip. The closest requirement is that your starting and ending cities must be within the same region, but having a cheap domestic flight at the start or end (or both) of your trip can satisfy this. For example, suppose you want to fly SFO-LHR and SYD-AKL in business class. If you tack on a flight from IAD-EWR in economy class for 5,000 miles, this will trigger the Excursionist Perk to make your SYD-AKL flight in business class free because SFO and EWR are in the same region. And because IAD-EWR is the last flight in your itinerary, you don’t actually have to fly the flight if you otherwise have no use for it. Lastly, if you are starting your trip outside of the US, there may still be cheap flight options that can be used to trigger the Excursionist Perk, e.g. intra-Hawaii and intra-Japan flights.
Occasionally, multi-city search will not show the same availability that you can find with one-way search when you are trying to utilize the Excursionist Perk. If you are unable to build the full itinerary you want due to missing availability when switching to multi-city search, your best bet is to search for and book just the one-way flight first. Changes are free within 24 hours, and you should be able to either Add Another Destination online or call United at (800) 864-8331 and ask them to make the change. If all else fails, you can still cancel the flight with no penalty as long as you are within 24 hours.

IHG Anniversary Free Night Being Devalued

Juliana — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 18:48:12 +0000

Via One Mile at a Time, the IHG anniversary free night is being devalued. Where it previously could be used at any IHG property worldwide, it will now be limited to properties that normally cost up to 40,000 points when redeeming an award. This change will go into effect for any certificates issued May 1, 2018, or later.

This drastically lowers the ongoing value of the IHG credit card. Personally, I will probably still keep mine open because there are still a few 40,000 point hotels in driving distance that could make a nice weekend getaway for me; however, it would not surprise me if many others are not in this situation and just end up canceling the card.

Airline Route Mapper Tutorial

Juliana — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 04:28:24 +0000

If your initial search for an award flight does not provide you with any options that you like, you may have better luck searching one segment at a time. Use the method outlined below to construct your itinerary segment by segment.

Example: SFO to MXP on Star Alliance

Download and install Airline Route Mapper (Optional: Download the updated routes.dat file and place it in the folder where you extracted the Airline Route Mapper zip file.)
Filter by airline or alliance (e.g. Star Alliance) and select your destination on the map.
Place your cursor over your origin and make note of which cities connect between your origin and destination. This will show you all possible itineraries with one stop.
In the above example, the most obvious connection cities are EWR and YYZ; however, you will see that connecting in CPH, FRA, MUC, and ZRH are also possible.
Make note of which airlines fly the routes you are interested in. If you place your cursor over any of the routes, the mouseover tooltip will show you which airline flies that particular route. In this example:SFO-EWR (United) + EWR-MXP (United)
SFO-YYZ (Air Canada) + YYZ-MXP (Air Canada)
SFO-CPH (Scandinavian) + CPH-MXP (Scandinavian)
SFO-FRA (United/Lufthansa) + FRA-MXP (Lufthansa)
SFO-MUC (Lufthansa) + MUC-MXP (Lufthansa)
SFO-ZRH (Swiss) + ZRH-MXP (Swiss)
If necessary, repeat steps #3 and #4 to find options with two stops or more.
Use this information to search for awards segment by segment. If you find availability, you can combine all the flights into a single award.