Flying for Fun

Really?? Interesting world you live in.

Did your out of pocket costs go down with the double mile promotion?

Absolutely, your RDM CPM is lower but that does not lower your cost of EQM for Elite requalification. If you are looking at the additional RDM as a rebate towards you out of pocket, again that does not lower your cost of EQM for Elite requalification.

In my world, attaining MVPG75K accumulates RDM faster than I can burn them. Balancing revenue and awards to maintain status isn't easy. I have already flown 3 JL F awards this year and have another next month, as well, I booked 12 CX, JL and QF J & F awards last year. I still have over 550K miles; adding another 30K EQM to requalify for MVPG75K (which I will have completed by mid-May) will yield a minimum of another 117,500 RDM with the 50K bonus. The double miles, if you are flying the route just for the bonus, is great if you need RDM but adds no additional benefit for Elite requalification so I don't follow how you ticket is cheaper.

James in Doha

VegasGambler

If you get more miles than you can burn maybe you should drop down to Gold for a year

For the rest of us, miles have real value, so getting a mileage rebate is equivalent to lower cost. It doesn't lower the cost of that flight, but it pays for part of a different flight, so, yes, out of pocket costs are lowered.

davistev

Considering I fly Australia to USA Round trip every month, balancing between nine purchased O class tickets and three QF 110K business class tickets, double miles lowers my actual costs. The double miles promo effectively gives me an extra QF 110K business class redemption. So - yes - in my world - it is cheaper.

nomiiiii

From the costs listed in this thread, it will take you anywhere from $4000-6000 to get elite mvp gold status (assuming you don't want to do cheap economy transcon runs). Why not just bank that money and use it to buy business class outright or bid for upgrades? Assuming a $500 each way bid on the longhaul or a typical $2000-3000 business class roundtrip flight with a good deal, you can easily get 4-6 oneway flatbeds across the pacific or atlantic.

Like, what's the value prop here if you're not interested in organic alaska flying giving you status organically to use/benefit on alaska itself. There might be some value on the margins, but overall its probably not worth it too much and just better to use the thousands of dollars to buy the flight you actually want.

VegasGambler

If you're not interested in flying AS domestically, then buying the business class flights you want is how you qualify for MVPG. It's not a choice between the two.

safari ari

Or use the money to buy the miles when they have a sale. $6k will get you 2 R/T tickets on partners in F/J.

Unless the cheapest J flights aren't on AS partners. You can usually find some very good fares on airlines like Xiamen or Air Canada for ~$2k to Asia. TAP/TK/AF/QR to Europe and the ME for $2.5k. These would all present better options, in my opinion, than paying for a flight to get MVPG+ status just to get 100% more miles, which wastes time and money which I value quite highly. Then you make yourself more captive to finding AS partners to get the 100% bonus you just spent money on to earn. But again to each their own, and I understand the thought, just one thing to go from 0-100% to get a small additional bonus, versus actually using the other benefits flying organically.

VegasGambler

I'd argue that transferring through mainland china to get somewhere else in Asia because the tickets are cheaper is really what wastes time. If I'm going to Japan I'm flying JL, not Xiamen or China Southern. I find that AS's partners (at least, to Asia) are the airlines that I actually want to fly. I'm not saying that there aren't others, but I think that the partners are quite good.

My friend was bragging about the $700 (economy) round trip flight he bought to Bangladesh. Two transfers in China; 36 hours of travel time on China Southern. I just laughed at him. Have fun trying to deal with the delays/cancellation when you don't speak Mandarin...

eponymous_coward

You hardly have to be limited to buying AS miles either (and soon unless you have AS status you WILL be limited in how many AS miles you can buy at a go per year). AV is pretty easy to come by at ~1.5 cpm. Other programs are competitive with AS at around ~2 cpm.

AS MP has some neat features: one way stopovers that can be used creatively, sweet spots in the award chart, the only US based program left where a mile flown on the airline is a mile earned, nice earnings rates in some partner premium cabins. But it also has downsides; the smaller booking window means QF and CX can get sniped from you, you can't combine partners on a one-way routing, very weak options for bookings that don't touch the USA (basically CX + QF Australia + Europe connecting on AY), AS's web booking engine produces on JL sometimes and lack of SQ redemptions is a running joke, Europe is very weak compared to *A/ST and even OW programs, just BA and a random assortment of LCCs, and other than Marriott and Diner's Club there's no real entry vehicle for flexible points currencies ala AMEX MR/Chase UR/Capital One/Citibank.

All told as a mileage piggy bank it's OK but how much a premium would I pay to get AS miles over (insert reasonable *A/ST/OW program option here)? That's a pretty dollars and cents equation.

And it's not like you get 0 miles in any program if you fly TP or TK to Europe, or AC to Asia.

safari ari

Lifemiles are a great redemption option in terms of price and their partners. Plus with their usual bonuses, and the fact that their CC category is airfare, you can easily spend $1K+ on miles, and get and additional 5x bonus with the AMEX Platinum, to get an additional 5k miles, so all in all a good value. Only downside is, their engine is pretty clunky to find valid city pairings and their miles expire which is quite annoying, albeit not a showstopper.

VegasGambler

I think that having miles in multiple programs is a good idea if you earn enough to have a meaningful number in my than one program.

Unfortunately my 2 largest balances are AS (from flying, including partners) and AA (from credit cards), and most of AS' best partners are OW so there's a lot of overlap there.

I'm (at least) hoping to turn my Chase pts into an SQ Suites redemption eventually. Also I hear that SQ redemtptions are coming to AS some time in early 2042 so my retirement plans are looking solid.

eponymous_coward

MH, QR and EY come to mind as options, the latter two especially if you're interested in MLE (and EY First Apartments are competitive with EK "shower class", especially since AS jacked EK redemptions sky-high).



Apparently if you want to do an intra-Asia daytime flight PVG-SIN is a reasonably priced option. TBH, a program with four transfer partners like SQ KF probably means someone who can do the right credit cards probably doesn't need AS MP to redeem...

Flying for Fun

I am not disagreeing with anyone about the rebate reducing total out of pocket expenses over time. What I am disagreeing with is that @davistev specifically stated.

"​Hence a QF trans-Pacific ticket is now even cheaper to purchase in order to attain/retain Elite Status because my CPM is lower."

That is factually incorrect!

1) The flight is not cheapers as claimed.
2) The bonus miles do not lower your out of pocket costs on that flight as stated. "...is even cheaper"
3) It does not reduce out of pocket to attain/retain Elite Status. The bonus miles rebate will lower your out of pocket on a future flight "which does not count towards attaining/retaining Elite Staus."

That was my point! The fact that @davistev chose to skirt around the erroneous information in an attempt to justify his position and focus on the "rebate" in contradiction to his claim does not change the facts.

I enjoy flying too much. I could cut back on AS+Partners by 50K and still be 75K but haven't found another program that accrues meaningful RDM to attain Status with. I fly a lot of segments with AS too so I am taking advantage of the benefits of my status and can maximize value with companion certificates and GGUs. Any suggestions keeping in mind my first flight(s) will always be AS to get me to the other airline programs? I have UA Silver via Marriott but have never flown them. I have flown some on AA this year with good J fares from YVR-PTY & P fares YVR-HKG. When I flew YVR-PTY return the routing was YVR-DFW-MIA-PTY. The international segments posted at 150% EQM & 275% RDM with 75K. The domestic DFW<->MIA were full Y class and I posted them to AA. The $ cost of the flights for RDM purposes was $54 & $70 yielding 620 RDM for a non-status AA member. The same flights on AS would yield 5044 MP miles for 75K. Hardly worth flying AA unless I can credit to AS. Generally, my itineraries on an RDM CPM basis come in at or below the purchase price of miles so I would rather fly than buy and attain/retain status as a byproduct. Dropping to MVPG would reduce Elite RDM bonus by 20% too which would increase CPM.

James in Kigali

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VegasGambler

Re:cost of status, the point is that money is fungible. Paying full price and getting a rebate is basically the same as paying a lower price unless you have cash flow issues (ignoring time-adjusted value of money due to such short time periods). Even though the out-of-pocket expenses for the particular flights that contribute towards status remain the same, the total out of pocket expenses on all flights throughout the year drop. If your have to take 10 equally-priced flights in a year, or doesn't matter if you get a 10% discount on all 10 or if you pay full price for 9 and get 1 free. Either way you are paying 9x the price of 1 flight.

RE: status with other programs: Other programs definitely earn a lot less RDM but if you are serious about earning more than you can use this should not be a consideration. RDM that you don't use have a value of 0! Having said that, a 550k balance is really not that much. My balance will be around that at the end of the year! Once it gets to the millions and looks like it will never drop below that, it might be a serious consideration though.

With the amount that you fly it might be worthwhile to collect top-tier status in as many major alliances as possible. This is useful even when redeeming on AS. Eg if you accrue to some OW airline and become emerald, when you take an award flight on any of the OW partners you can put in that FF # instead of your AS number and get emerald benefits. There is some value there when you are not flying F (eg a route within Asia with no F cabin). AS has partners in all 3 major alliances to they could technically all have some value (but OW would be the most valuable).

Also having some miles in the program of a major alliance gives you a lot more redemption options. Yes, you might be earning at 1/2 or 1/3 the rate, but, again, if the AS miles would go unused this should not be a serious consideration. You should gladly trade 3 AS miles that you will never redeem for 1 UA mile that you can redeem on a non-AS partner -- the flexibility has value.

Just a different possible strategy to think about... 500K AS + 500k UA might have more value than 2M AS.

safari ari

Except Star Alliance, which we only have SQ, but as you know redemption will be live in 2027. And on Skyteam we only have KE which have some of the lowest cabin bonuses etc, and a harder way to redeem miles with their R/T award cost on all flights.