Hello everyone... and thanks Randy for helping me, it was very nice of you to get involved personally. I understand what happend now, even though I was told different stories. It's all good now! I should have just ordered under my limit once/week and I would have accomplished my goal.

As usual, I jumped the gun and should have maybe tried once again before posting here... I thought my phone calls were enough.

Thanks to all for tolerating this thread.

CF (soon to be Pit_In)

dcw you are assuming that everyone wants to travel in coach(not everyone wants to have callused butts . Miles generally are only worth using for premium cabins, be it for an upgrade or a straight award, or for last minute tickets(coach included). In this respect the Inside Flyer promo is an excellent deal and that is without even adding the value of the magazine itself which by all accounts is substantial.

If you know of a hassle free way that miles can be obtained at less that 0.19c/mile bring it on.

Another good value the Inside Flyer promo represents is that many of the *woods properties cost in the $600+ range a night. Using the Inside Flyer promo one can bring that down to $240 a night.

As has been written before, the Inside Flyer promo represents an excellent value for the premium cabin flyers and those who frequent *woods more expensive properties. For the average coach passenger(not someone who needs to do allot of last minute coach flying though) you are probably right, you are better off just paying the fare and enjoying your calluses



[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 04-20-2002).]

Following your thread of a premium ticket I have repriced my Itineray for First Class:

LAX to HNL $ 2,416.42

I am sure this could be beat through a consolidator

(Not including the three bank pool shot from SW to Quantas to ?)

Standard Award 60,000 Points $ 1,440 through IF Mag
EasyPass Award 120,000 Points $ 2,880 through IF Mag

If you believe the award seat will be available on the date you need it then your argument is valid.

Again the dollar paid for miles needs to be divided by the total miles used, not just the miles purchased. Great deal to top off.

I would be reluctant to plan to pay for my whole trip through purchased miles.

It is just too dificult to book award travel unless you are willing to be flexible about:

Origin

Destination

Departure

Arrival

Outside of those four problems, It's great.

PS:

As to the callouses on my butt I have flown less than three segments in coach since hitting the Silver level. However so many of the contributors have comped status, I am just pointing out that looking at my flying pattern to and from IAH Continental was unwilling to comp me even though I had Medallion status with DL and was on track to reach Platinum without the post 9/11 2 X miles promo.


[This message has been edited by dcwcce (edited 04-21-2002).]

I wonder if has noticed that Starwood has a 39,999 point limit for transferring *wood point to Qantas. This is documented at http://www.starwood.com/preferredgue...s_airways.html

Perhaps the limit is not enforced, but it is documented, and that limit is only half a concorde ticket.

dcwcce, majority of the people are buying the magazine for SPG starpoints bonus, transfer them to Qantas FFP, then redeem the points for a Concorde Award with BA across the pond. So for about $1,300, you can have a $10K worth of ticket (provide the RT is within 10K flow miles). I would like to emphasis that beside the Concorde Award (or simply the 10K flow miles award), rest of Qantas Frequent Flyer Awards are not that appealing at all.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006677.html

I absolutely will not take the OnePass bonus since everyone know OP is relatively worthless nowadays given the difficulty to redeem a standard reward and the lack of strong alliance outside US. Getting F award ticket with Qantas using OnePass is next to impossible. OTOH, using Qantas FFP to redeem a BA Concorde is reported to be relatively easy since BA has the whole flight to fill, instead of only 10 or less F in subsonic flights.


[This message has been edited by OnePassLover (edited 04-21-2002).]

Obviously the value that 1.9c/mile represents depends on your usage of the miles.

I don't know about CO but I recently booked a trip for a couple of friends in 1st to HI in May using an AA 100K award. Cost is $1900 using the miles, close to $20K using Cash. Availability was not a problem and has rarely been with a bit of advanced planning and flexibility on AA. For instances like that, and for upgrading sub $400 AA coach tickets to Europe, and many other cash/award/premium oneworld permutations this promo represents an excellent value.

Your mileage may vary!

If I'm not mistaken, I believe I can get a Quantas award out of LA to Sydney in Business class for 90-120K depending on restrictions. This was my goal to begin with. For $1.85k in suscriptions, I basically get two B-class roundtrips...... or 4 or 6, etc.

CF (soon to be Pit_In)

I believe the Starwood transfer limits are per day.