ckg

Since so many of the travel blogs revolve around travellers without young kids can anyone suggest a mile and points blog that is more nuclear family oriented? The only one I have seen at all that even mentions non "earning" passengers is Mommy points.

I am curious to see strategies regular families use to fly on miles and how they do mixed paid and reward seats or upgrades.

newaarondavidson

Wrong forum. I have used all miles or mixed miles+cash and all flown in economy.

mia

Transferred to the Travel with Children forum where such issues are discussed.

bdschobel

The correct strategy here is not difficult to see. In most families (like mine), only one person has earned high elite status. (United gives spouses the same status, but that's not "earned.") I'm the real traveler in my family, and I need to pay for most of my tickets to maintain my status. If I flew too much on award tickets, then I wouldn't make my annual mileage requirements. So, even on vacation, it's normal for me to buy my ticket. Everyone else travels on miles, because they aren't trying to maintain status, and I have miles to burn. Regarding young children, under age 2, I will get them their own seats if low-mileage awards are available. If not, then they travel as lap babies, at least on short flights.

Bruce

LesBesTes

My husband and I both travel a small amount for work, but lately not enough to earn status on any airline (we occasionally hit UA Silver some years). We travel about 8-10 leisure trips a year with our 4 year old daughter and are about to welcome Baby #2 to the family.

Here's our current mileage strategy that may be helpful for other families in a similar boat:

1) We make sure at least one of us has the current credit card of airlines we fly often (UA, AA) to at least get the free bag benefit even if we can't earn elite status. Whenever we travel anywhere for longer than a weekend, we are usually checking 2 bags for our family and at $25 each way, that is $100 total. This more than offsets the annual fee for these cards, which often come with a few other perks too.

2) We redeem miles for (domestic) economy award tickets when traveling as a family. We look for good chances to redeem though -- a UA saver fare to Hawaii at 40K each was a great deal when tickets were running $1100 in economy. If domestic flights are under $500, we hang onto the miles for something better and pay cash.

3) We redeem for international business only when my husband and I leave the kiddo behind. We rarely have enough miles to get 3 (and soon to be 4) tickets in business class and it doesn't make sense to split our family up between different cabins.

4) Southwest, Southwest, Southwest: I know it is hip on Flyertalk to hate Southwest, but it is a really great option for families if it serves your area. Points are actually usable at any time and are as good as cash. My husband and I have both gotten the 50K credit card bonuses in the past 18 months and we have used those points to death. My husband also often travels on Southwest on intra-California flights for work on business select fares, which earn you a lot of points. And then we can redeem those points for cheap Wanna Getaway fares as a family and really get a good value. We've probably saved $2000+ in actual cash in the past 18 months redeeming these points.

5) If one of us has a decent chance of hitting an elite status tier with an airline one year, then we do pay for tickets for that person and redeem for the other family members when the prices strike the right balance. But low level status gives us so little that we don't chase it. We are lucky to live in the Bay Area with a lot of airline choices, so we just fly what works best for our family on a given route and let the chips fall where they may on elite status (letting the credit card benefits do a little of the extra work for us).

Happy family travels.

(BTW, I also blog about our family travels and will occasionally explain our mileage strategies and redemptions on the blog. I try not to plug the blog on here, but you can find it listed in my profile).

aptravel

This also happens to be my family's strategy as we primarily do SAN/OAK flights, and they practically own the SAN-OAK/SFO market. Also find the points as cash a good value for us, especially when we book far enough ahead and get good fares.

(BTW... if you want another great source for WN points, Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa has a 40K bonus after 3K spend in 3 months, and WN is a transfer partner. It's also got better earning power than the WN Visa with 2x points on restaurant purchases, for example.)

LesBesTes

Funny you should mention that. I'm actually applying for the Sapphire Preferred in my next churn in a few days, as my Southwest card's annual fee is coming due in a month or so and I plan to cancel that card.

bdschobel

That's a good point, which I forgot to mention. If tickets are cheap enough, then redeeming miles for anybody is silly.Actually, that happens to us a lot. Because I almost always purchase my tickets and have high elite status, I am usually upgraded (on domestic flights, anyway). For decades now (my oldest child is 32), I have given my upgraded seat to a family member and sat in coach with everybody else. It was always a big thrill for one of my kids to sit up front, especially as they became teenagers.

Bruce

LesBesTes

Excellent point. As I have a 4 year old, my perspective is skewed in the direction of those with little ones, and it doesn't make sense to split up mom and dad when sometimes both are needed to hand off the 4 year old. But I would imagine splitting cabins is a great option when you get a free upgrade and have an older child or teenager.

VickiSoCal

My husband is EXP on AA, mix of biz and leisure travel to maintain the 100K status. We almost always buy his ticket for family trips to help maintain that status. I am gold, all leisure travel, we generally buy my tickets but balance price, award availability and such.

For international travel his company generally pays for him to be in business so he usually has EVIP's/SWU's to spare, so for family trips abroad if he and I are on paid tickets, I try to upgrade both of us.

Kids are now 11 and 14. We usually use miles for their tickets, try to get them in business, but if not available put them in coach, alone. I realize this is not an option for those with younger kids. We started letting them fly alone in coach when the oldest was 10 or 11.

Special occasions, like the trip to NYC we surprised our older daughter with, this June when she graduated 8th grade, her sister did not come, and we had all three of us in business, her on an award, and us on SWU's.

We also frequently bring my mother-in-law with us. She shares a room with the two girls, and we stay next door, we either buy her ticket or use miles. This was especially nice when the girls were younger, one adult could stay in in the later evening while the other two went out, and no, we didn't stick MIL with that duty every night. In London she and I went to a open late museum night and a walk along the river, for example, while the husband stayed in.

lost*in*cyberspace

UA only gives spouses status based on their elite spouse's status if their elite spouse is a MM.

bdschobel

Oh, yes, I forgot. Thanks for the correction.

Bruce

daregale

I fly about 30,000 miles a year for work, my husband generally 55,000. The rest is largely TATL family travel.

We have challenges maximizing award travel because our two high school students live in Berlin and we live in Minneapolis. It rarely makes sense to fly them using Delta award tickets because the fuel surcharge is so high for a European origination. They are both silver, solely from three TATL trips a year. My 5-year-old travels largely on award travel or the SkyMiles AmEx companion certificate. We use award travel for my mother-in-law fly BE from FRA to MSP, because it really makes a difference in her comfort and ability to come here. My husband's work pays for many of his TATL tickets; mine are either award or paid depending on the relative costs.

It makes holiday travel planning exceedingly time-consuming and tedious. But I'm just grateful that such trips are possible for us.

Anna Phor

I am sitting here slapping my forehead. Why in the name of all that's holy have we not yet figured this out?

Helena Handbaskets

Even if kids and spouse typically fly on awards, it is worth opening a miles account for each family member, if you can at least keep the miles from expiring fairly efficiently. Although they seem less common now, there are occasionally promotions that can earn miles into these accounts, and with one account per family member, your family can earn more miles than if you only have the one account. Also, you may occasionally find that it's a better deal all around to buy a heavily discounted ticket for all or some of your family members rather than burning miles. In these cases you'll want to be able to earn miles on the family's tickets as well. And if you have, say, two companion tickets, you'll need at least one purchased fare in addition to yours to use them both. And that purchased fare will also earn miles.

If this approach ever results in enough miles in a family member's account to earn an award ticket, when you have an option you should use the miles in your family member's account first, since this allows the miles in your account (the main one) to accumulate to levels required for more expensive awards. If the family accounts never build to an award-earning level, at least for your kids it gives them a head start on miles when they start to be responsible for their own travel.