My girlfriend and I earned about 20K miles in December flying CO to Europe and back. Admittedly I am new to the whole frequent flyer miles game and have no idea about the best or even possible ways to use our miles. We would like to go back this May and we were wondering if FF miles can be used to pay for a portion of a ticket or is it an all or nothing thing? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

You can purchase additional miles, but you need way too many to add up to 50K. You can only purchase a fairly small percentage to complete your "purchase" of a reward ticket.

Your only decent shot would be if CO brought back a reward seat sale like they had last year. IIRC Birgmigham or some other non-London city. I'm sure someone will correct me on the correct city.

EmailKid

Join the club...many of us have been in Onepass for years and still have not figured out how to use these miles! Maybe do a search on this forum for "Nonepass" or "Sleazypass" and you will get the drift

I am starting to see that now. I have used CO exclusively for the past 12+ years and they have never let me down- until now. Hopefully I'll find a way to use those miles. Thnaks--and have a good one!

These "reward tix" you are talking about, do you pay part cash-part miles for them? I was thinking we could use miles to get us to IAH or EWR from SAT and only pay for the transatlantic leg of the trip. Is this even possible or am I sadly mistaken? Thanks for the reply--

My experience is just the opposite. I had no trouble booking a RT flight to HNL tomorrow for just 35,000 miles, or booking a RT flight to LGW in May for 50,000 miles. It was simple to do online and on dates that, while not my first choices, were perfectly acceptable. Yes, it would be harder to get BF tickets, but I am amazed and perplexed at the incessant complaints about not being able to get reward tickets! You can! It's easy. Not sleazy. I'm beginning to wonder if you don't secretly want to find no availability just so you can complain about it.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you don't secretly want to find no availability just so you can complain about it."
xxx

I have been saying the same thing for months. I never struggle as a PLAT to redeem mileage for anything whether it be BF or economy (shudder). The only thing that I have not worked with much is using miles to upgrade an international coach ticket to BF with miles. I do not really have a need to do that, so I am not too sure how it all works, but just using miles to book the entire trip is cake.

Upgrades... cake (90+% last year) and already 2/2 for eligible flights this year, although I have had 2 Embraer flights already, with 2 more on the 15th.

Because of the "nonstop premium", it will probably be cheaper for you to buy the ticket from where you are, instead of redeeming a flight to IAH/EWR and buying the transatlantic ticket. People who live in houston/newark will pay MORE than someone connecting from san antonio or philadelphia, because of the "extra convenience" of taking a nonstop flight.

You are indeed sadly mistaken. The "reward tix" I was referring to are "purchased" using NonePass miles, only NonePass miles, and nothing but NonePass miles.

You already know how many you need, but here's the complete CO list of miles needed to "purchase" reward travel. And here's are the rules for purchasing additional NonePass miles, but as I wrote in my original post, you don't have enough current mile to purchase sufficient miles to qualify for "reward travel."

Fly to Europe again by purchasing a ticket, and you'll have almost enough to "purchase" a reward ticket. OK, fly one and a half times, but that opens up another can of worms

Hope this helps.

EmailKid

...Ah, but I do have a need for that. I'm booked on CO78 EWR-ZRH Feb 18, Fare Class I. I called to get a miles+cash upgrade to BF, but none was available. Not sure if that's because of the fare class or some peculiarity with that particular flight or what. Think there will be availability later?

And that premium can be pretty hefty at times

EmailKid

I always find it funny how Houstonians pay a mere $100K for their house then complain about the high cost of airfares.

Sure there are cheaper places to fly from. Perhaps you should move to SFO to save money.

But it's hard to remind myself that when I'm about to fork over some of my hard earned money for leisure travel

And I'm talking about stuff like paying $200 less to fly MCO-IAH-GIG than IAH-GIG And yes, I realize that MCO and Florida in general is a much more competetive market, but that doesn't make my wallet feel any better.

EmailKid

While it is true that many do redeem miles for reward tickets (I redeemed 145,000 miles last year), the fact remains that most people find it difficult to redeem their miles for flights of their choice. This is a well recognized phenomena and airlines are releasing fewer and fewer seats for reward travel. Indeed CO had amongst the lowest proportion of seats released for reward travel of the legacy airlines. Also remember CO is selling more and more seats so have less seats to give away "for free".

While it is true there are ways round the "Nonepass" phenomena, remember that the only reason you are so successful in redeeeming miles is because 10 others are not. The number of reward seats is finite - if we could all obtain the seats as easily as seasoned award gurus, then even you will struggle to get a reward as is the case for upgrades (where there is a finite number and where rules are simple and transparent, requiring little ingenuity of the FF to execute). Your success in redeeming miles is not a reflection of an abundance of reward seats on CO; what you experience is the allocation of the few available seats, to the few who know their way around.

What's even funnier is how some people in a certain crazed, whacked-out, hippie commune, Mary Jane smoking, earthquake prone, SUV driving, tofu eating, Austrian run, bass akwards state will pay - and by pay I mean that take out loans so beyond their means all they can afford to pay on a monthly basis is the interest - ludicrous amounts for #@*&@#$ properties.

{�and I'm gonna duck into the bomb shelter right about now}

Houston may be a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence but at least $100,000 will buy you a house not a down payment. Hell, $450,000 will buy you a 3,500+ sq home in a gated community next to the lake on the 16th hold of the golf course. What does that buy you in CA? A used fridge box with a milk carton under I-5?

***

...and just for grins I thought y'all might enjoy an adaptation of this popular pol-sci joke:

Houston: You buy two cows for $1,000. The government bans you from setting up fences due to lack of zoning laws. The cows crap everywhere causing the city to smell bad and 28 lane freeways are built.

California: You buy two cows for $100,000 due to hyped up over demand in the cow market. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows and requires you to take harmonica lessons. The cow market bursts and your cows, if you still had them, are now only worth $1,000.