scottsd

I thought so, but the DL rep kept saying "voucher is not transferable, blah, blah". I would have liked to see that on a DL Web page somewhere ...

So from your response, the verbage to pose to DL CS rep is: "Can I book flights for a companion using the residual value on my e-Credit ?"

Thanks
Scott

meevan

Guys,

I've saved up 180K TYN points, which took years... and was very disappointed that CITI pulled the rug out from under me. My parents are elderly, and I want to maximize use of this toward many many tickets over time to allow them to fly down to see the grandkids.

I did a seperate post asking for advice but didnt get any responses, so I offer $20 paypal or $20 donation to charity of their choice to the person who helps me with my ticket itinerary.


I am looking to convert ticket into whichever airline (preferably AA or CO) that will allow me to use the $3800 over several years with minimal change ticket fees (my guess is my parents tiks from the west coast generally cost $300 when the come out so I'd like to use this for 10+ tickets without the $150 or $250 intl change fee each time).


Thanks in advance for your help.


Mike

pcv

Hi-I finally booked a 90K business class reward on AA for $1799 (1934 on Expedia) + around 191 in taxes (including the 7.5%). From EYW to FAT. It seems that all dates work.

The way I went about searching for AA flights: I looked for flights from small airports near one hub to small airports near another hub--basically from small airport in either Florida (connecting via MIA) to Texas (connecting via DFW) or from Florida or Texas to an airport in California connecting via LAX or SFO. It seems that on Expedia, all American flights on puddle jumpers (the flights on American Eagle) are non-refundable, so using this combination, I was able to assure myself that my entire booking is non-refundable.

Here is a link to all the smaller airports that AA serves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...s_destinations

Hope this helps!

Fold0rDie

I looked on both Expedia and AA's websites and the 'fare' comes out to $1,800+ plus the $20ish in taxes & fees. Does AA roll in the excise/other taxes into their calculations because a $21 tax on an $1800 fare seems too low.

Thx

psychtobe

I have experience with CO and it is easy as pie.

You'll get 2 different tickets at $1800 each, try looking for a domestic biz class seat from something like Laredo to Anchorage. You'll have to pay $150 each to change them the first time, and on CO I had to pay the change fee out of pocket. Once you change the first time, and book your first real ticket, the residual must be booked within 1 year. There are no more change fees thereafter, and the residual can be used up til it's gone, and it can be used for more than 1 traveler, even someone not on the original ticket.

Hope that helps.

psychtobe

the answer is definitely yes; I've done it recently, and more than once.

chicagonick

thanks so much for this breakdown... i am about to call in my itinerary which comes in at $1940 + $51.1 tax and fees

really wish my drivers edge rebates posted to my account sooner, the $2700 credit would have been the best

psychtobe

For DL flyers, RDM-SRQ 9/1-9/5 is $1921.51 + $56.59, or $190.65 of out of pocket taxes and a 'base' fare of $1787.45. Close to $1800, nonrefundable, and a few months out giving you some time to breathe before having to make any changes.

chicagonick

oh perfect thank you!

the previous itinerary i had in mind did not qualify because it was not round trip

the thank you travel rep seemed to be a bit pissy and knew what i was up to right away hahah

GrizShel

This is sort of urgent. I think I'm ok on this ticket, but since I have never done this before, I'd like to hear from experienced fixed point redeemers.

I just booked a 90k business class ticket, JFK - YEG on Delta for December 23.
For those of you that are experiencing dong Delta redemptions:
All flights are Delta flight numbers, but some are Delta codeshares of what are currently NW flights. Is there any risk to this to be reduced to the more restrictive NW voucher rules at the time I would cancel and rebook?

I think I can change this without penalty within 24 hours of booking if there would be a problem.

awtravel

You should be able to book flights for your companion with or without you on the same itinerary using the ecredit.

sy7

The TYP program is about to be gutted so I don't think it matters whether Citi closes this loophole or not. Plus I thought most people already realized how the flight points worked, but based on all the posts here, I wanted to make it clear if they didn't.

If people don't already know this, they should match all their purchase points (which INCLUDES your sign-up bonus and any referral bonuses) with flight points, and then cash out. It is too late to do so before the 3/1 devaluation. Flight points post the statement after the date of the first ticketed flight, eg if your statement closes on the 15th of each month, any tickets whose first flight starts between 1/15 and 2/14 will post with your 3/15 statement.

However, even if you match all your spend with flight points, it still only comes out to a 2-4% rebate at best, so I wouldn't recommend the Premier Pass cards. The Citi Platinum Amex gives you 3-5% rebate (for the first 2 yrs) without the need for flight points. I'm personally going to go back to the SPG Amex card.

FYI, based on the new t&c for the thankyou program, it will be hard to churn cards for multiple sign-up bonuses, since all the TYP earned is subject to being canceled if the associated card is canceled. I guess you can use up the points quickly for gift cards, but it doesn't seem worth the hassle. I think the 25K AA Citi card will now be the best bet for churning, especially since it doesn't have an annual fee.

sy7

This works with any refundable ticket. I think Citi matches the refund to the ticket number, so if the ticket number has changed since the original purchase, they will have no way to figure it out. However, I'm not sure if a date change will always result in new eticket # being issued; it is safest to slightly change the routing.

That said, I think Southwest tickets are the easiest, since it requires the least outlay. I thought about getting a refundable NYC-SIN ticket for ~$3K (and 25K flight points), but once I realized how Southwest worked, I decided to do that instead (and I also needed some tickets on Southwest anyway). Plus, I think I ended up needing >100K flight points, which was quite easy to do with only ~$475 spent on Southwest.

sy7

I posted earlier in this thread about CO redemptions that would work. EWR-YVR for pretty much any date gives you a refundable ticket (so no change fee) for ~$1750 + $200 taxes. You will need to call up CO to change the ticket and request the remaining value to be put on an e-cert which will be valid for one year. Others have posted about workarounds to extend the date validity of the e-cert (basically you need to purchase a refundable ticket slightly more than the value of the ecert, and then cancel, which will result in a brand new ecert with an additional years validity being issued).

SFO-YYZ gives you a non-refundable ticket ~$1790 + $200 in taxes (you have to play around with dates to get this price).

chicagonick

has anyone tried going over the $1800 cap by a few dollars? i found a great route that is just over by $3... is it possible to pay this small difference?