SanDiego1K

Do you have a link?

s0ssos

https://pointmetotheplane.boardingar...-service-help/

Don't know if I should have brought this up. If it truly works, then all the work people here have spent learning about tricks to search is moot.

SanDiego1K

Thank you, much appreciated. There's a hefty price tag associated with it so the cost averse will continue to noodle away at award searches as we currently do. But I can see myself subscribing for specific months when I'm working hard to find award space.

boerne

It is one of my hobbies to make all the points and miles work to our advantage (pun intended). Wiped out our miles to get to AKL in J on the day the seats loaded. $60 dollars and all our miles. Totally worth it. I used UR points for the return in J on the day it loaded. Both on AA. Oh and a month in NZ. I like the challenge and the reward. YMMV

pinniped

Sounds like a solid award. ^ The whole month-in-Aus/NZ thing is on our list, although it probably won't happen until the early 2020's.

artemis

Needing specific dates or needing more than 2 FF tickets complicate things tremendously. That's something I try to stress to people who are interested in collecting miles/points. Flexibility is key!

pinniped

If you need more than 2, plan on flying Y. I've had reasonably good luck getting a few summer European trips booked with miles in Y (4 to 6 seats), but rarely ever see anything more than 2 J in an award bucket.

x1achilles

Collecting miles has become an absurd waste of time. Unless you fly full fare for business, don't bother. I cashed my United 220,000 miles in for three Business class tickets a year ago and I don't even bother anymore. Lounges are so crowded that I now wait in the less crowded main terminal. Not worth the money and brain damage.

pinniped

At the risk of striking a piece of bait that is following a very slow-moving boat, I'll say the only time one needs to "waste" to collect miles is logging into their airline's website to buy the ticket.

In fact, the act of *not* collecting miles would probably *cost* me time, because my KTN is stored in my FF accounts. If I do not log in, I'm not getting Precheck.

If you're referring to time spent on mileage runs or suboptimal routing to try to earn more miles, you might have a point but your post doesn't make it very well.

220k for 3 J tickets sounds like a pretty nice award (on most of the routes where United has a J cabin, anyway). Lounge crowds have nothing to do with collecting miles.

The_Bouncer

I pretty much agree with the last post. I don't do mileage runs or change my routings or even which airlines I fly in order to earn more miles.

But for the 5 seconds it takes to put my FFP number into a booking, I'll take the miles. As for lounges, I just buy an unlimited Priority Pass for $409 a year. Much cheaper than chasing status.

chleonard

Ditto. I don't get to do big international leisure trips often (hard for the wife and I to both get time off simultaneously), maybe once every couple of years, so we're usually able to save up points and splurge a bit. Did two weeks in Japan in 2017, stayed at nice hotels, flew ANA J nonstop both ways, total out-of-pocket cost was maybe a couple hundred. The flights alone would've been upwards of $6-7k each so not a bad deal. It did require some research and flexibility to find redemption dates that would work, but still totally worth the effort.

I also set aside some miles for upgrades (work makes me fly economy - paid J is fairly rare for us), even upgrading every third or fourth flight makes life far easier.

pinniped

I have to wonder what the end-game on Priority Pass (and similar third-party sources of lounge access) is.

The world is now awash with access to Priority Pass in particular, via an ever-increasing number of credit cards, some of which are effectively free (or that pay the cardmember) to carry. Since the lounges are getting paid, it seems like it's Priority Pass itself bearing the risk.

The fact that Hilton will pay me to carry a credit card that provides almost unlimited access to Priority Pass lounges and free restaurant meals and drinks in some airports seems too good to be true. Whenever I think something is too good to be true, it usually turns out I'm right and it gets devalued fairly quickly. So while I'm not complaining - and frankly I'm getting used to a pretty good burger and two tall craft beers for lunch before my regular afternoon PDX flights - I really don't see it lasting for very long. Usually the economics rely on a ton of people not knowing about or not using the benefit, but I have to think the target market for these credit cards is mostly people who actually travel and pay *some* attention to the benefits.

I guess they're betting on the gym membership user base (people buy the membership in January and quit using it quickly) and hoping they don't get the Moviepass user base (people who bought the cards really, really liked movies.)

s0ssos

Actually, I find this true for family members. Without status you collect amazingly few miles on tickets, and with partners sometimes 25% of miles flown (making even a TPAC nothing). And then you have to ensure that your miles don't expire, before you accumulate enough or find an opportunity to spend.
And for partner airlines sometimes you have to chase the miles, re-submit or whatever.

It is annoying and does take time.

And as for lounges, yes, flying premium out of the US internationally gives you lounge access, but usually the US lounges aren't much to speak of.

The_Bouncer

On the credit card subscriptions, it's easy. They get the money back from the card company.

However, I have often wondered how Priority Pass actually makes money on the unlimited passes. I can only assume it comes from the guest fees at $32 a pop. I suspect PP is paying the lounges a good bit less than this.

But I'm not sure how their economics actually works for single people like me on unlimited passes. I nearly always travel alone and literally only pay the $409 for between 40 and 60 lounge/restaurant visits a year. That works out at around $8 a time. I cannot see that they can possibly be making a profit from me.

I can only assume that there are enough people paying for the program (or having it paid for them by credit card companies or employers) and not using it, to subsidise people like me ripping the guts out of it.

Proudelitist

I think of how useless they are each time I am sitting in F on a TPAC.