JimmyInGreatLakes

Newbie to the Membership Reward thing here (and frequent flyer programs for that matter). We live in Michigan. My wife and I recently received (separately) by mail applications for the AMEX Gold card. The perk was 50,000 "points" if we charged at least $500 by March 31st (first year fee waived). She signed up and got her card and we've already charged the necessary $500 on that. I just signed up but haven't received the card yet. I'm assuming by around May (bonus points credited 6-8 weeks after the end of promotion) we will each have at least 50,000 points (plus purchase points) each to spend. Our goal is to get airline tickets and take a trip this summer (w/our three kids).

I guess the points can transfer to partner airlines at a one to one ratio (any holes in this?) then we can use that airline for tickets. So far, I've checked partners Continental, Frontier, Hawaiian among others for their required miles. Coach is fine with us. Seems like most are 25,000 for domestic flights except Hawaii is 35,000. Actually Frontier is only 15,000 for some domestic flights. That means, we could actually cash in 45,000 from one account and 30,000 from another for five tickets and have some left over (again, any holes in this?).

Questions we have are: What's in it for AMEX if we actually accomplish our goal of four to five free tickets and then cancel the card before the 2nd year fee kicks in (i.e. is this too good to be true?)? How easy is it to get flights through these carriers using these miles (I saw a few blackout dates but it wasn't onerous)? Most of their partner carriers offer their own credit cards with sign-up bonuses so it might be to our benefit to sign up for one of those and have even MORE miles in case we want to stretch to Hawaii or something. Then, of course, we would have to stick to THAT airline. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks much for your input!

wsflyer

Welcome to FT!

I don't know how experienced you are with frequent flyer programs, but it is far from certain that you will be able to book the flight you want at the low "saver" rates. For many programs, the choice summer award tickets may already be gone. And it can be hard to find 5 saver tickets on the same flight. If you can find them, the tickets may be for double the saver rate. I have no experience with Frontier, so I can't comment on its availability. For Hawaii, in particular, is difficult to find saver tickets: many airlines ask 70,000 miles per ticket.

You may very well be able to find the tickets you want, but it may take some legwork.

Before you decide on the airline where you want to transfer your points, go to each airline website and do some dummy searches--see how easy it is to get the tickets you want.

That being said, you really have no downside with this AMEX deal. It is a great deal. AMEX is hoping that you will be a long-time, lucrative customer, but you can certainly opt out before your first annual fee comes due.

JimmyInGreatLakes

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. We have never used frequent flyer points or been enrolled in any program. In fact, I haven't been on an airplane in almost 20 years. Two of our kids actually got to fly last year though (and I want to go somewhere NEXT time!).

So what you are saying is that there are a select number of seats on flights that points can be used for, especially at the low, low "saver" fares? I figured it wouldn't be as easy as it looked on the surface.

May I ask what a "dummy" search is? Is it simply plugging in dates to an airlines site and seeing if there are ANY flights or is it deeper than that (trying to use frequent flyer deals?)?

Thanks

TAHKUCT

Wirelessly posted (Treo 700p Sprint: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D052; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

The bonus offers you and your wife received are excellent offers. Many people would jump on them without a second thought.

To do a dummy search, just go to an airline website and search for the reward seats on the dates you want to travel. Keep in mind, you might have to register with an airline frequent flyer program before you can do a search. Also see airline spesific forums for more info on redemptions.

wsflyer

Also, look at the forums on FT for each airline, and look at the stickies at the top of the each forum--the "how to" threads. Each ff program is different. There may be a certain number of saver seats reserved for a route, or there may be none available at all. Seats may be available 330 days in advance, some other arbitrary date, or never.

It's often not easy to get tickets, but if you do searches on FT, you can learn the tricks of the trade, and save a lot of money.

Good luck.

fti

You must take the miles for a single ticket from one and only one account - you can not pool miles between accounts. So if a ticket costs 25,000 miles and you want three tickets, your scheme won't work with 45K in one account and 30K in another - you need 50K in one account and 25K in the other.

John

JimmyInGreatLakes

Okay, that would need more points with 25K but the Frontier site shows 15,000 points for domestic (say, Detroit to Denver) but from some of the replies, finding five seats from that seemingly too-good-to-be-true scenario might be difficult.

Any thoughts on our idea to also apply for an airline card such as Hawaiian that offers 10-20,000 points after one purchase w/ the card? That would, of course, bias us to one airline when redeeming the membership awards points.

Thanks...

Mr. Vker

I often mention Jet Blue as a point exchange option. Very comfortable coach with satellite TV.

They are 25k points/ticket but that includes all destinations in the Carribean as well.

We use them every year to go to Aruba.

wsflyer

Most airlines offer credit cards with substantial sign-on bonuses. They are usually a great deal, especially if the first year annual fee is waived. Check out your options before you settle on Hawaiian. They don't fly to DTW as far as I know, so you may be limited in your ability to redeem awards. Generally, I would choose a program that serves my home airport or one close. Hawaiian appears to charge 40,000 miles if you use Northwest or Continental to reach Hawaii. I have no idea about the availability of awards on Hawaiian, so I can't really tell you if it is a good option.

Before you sign up for anything, look on the individual forum for each airline aind in the credit card forums. Run a search on "credit card," "AMEX," "American Express," Mastercard," or "Visa." Often, there are better, unpublicized credit card offers that FTers have uncovered.

Sydneyjb

Was there a promotion code to receive the 50,000 bonus miles ?

boulderlaw

There is at least one way to pool MR points. Add your spouse as a supplemental cardholder on your account and have her do the same for you. You can even use a no-fee Amex credit card for this. Now you can transfer to either frequent flyer account from either MR account.

I would call the airlines and find reward seats, reserve the seats, then transfer MR points as needed. Note that you may be able to get Northwest tix with Continental miles because they are affiliated. Also, I have a high opinion of Frontier, fwiw.

Sydneyjb

By the way the exchange for American Express points to CO stinks! It's 2 AX points for 1 CO mile .

ctownflyer

No, its 1:1.

JimmyInGreatLakes

Yes, we each received an offer by mail with the promotion code. Just received my card yesterday to start using it. Shouldn't be hard to reach $500 in gas alone for the next two months. Don't know why we ended up with this offer (other than we don't already have an AMEX card) and most of the time we junk the CC offers. Fortunately, my wife noticed the deal and kept these. We'll see if it pans out.

SkyVillager

JimmyInGreatLakes: 50k bonus points per account is a fantastic offer, congrats!

I'll second advice above to hold off on transferring points to airlines, until you find award seats. Few more thoughts:

~ Sometimes AMEX offers bonus points if you transfer during promo time frame. Ex.: "transfer 10k points to Delta between MM/01/YY and MM/30/YY and receive 30% bonus". Continue reading FT and keep an eye on your junk mail & email...

~ Do you have airline accounts set up yet? Sometimes airlines offer sign up bonuses. Consider waiting for one of those

~ Have you figured out how to search for award seats yet? Let us know if you need help. To search for CO, NW, DL rewards - one does not need to have an account with airlines

~ In my opinion, short hop 15K awards on Frontier are waste of points