fumje

How many business travelers would be using miles for business travel? My impression is most business travel is OPM, and I've never heard of a way to reimburse for award redemptions.

Kacee

Smaller businesses. You'd be surprised. $9,459 for a D fare vs. 140k miles.

And what other possible explanation is there? (That doesn't involve an NRSA conspiracy theory.)

narvik

Our business is small, and I often redeem miles for business travel. So much so, that I used to buy quite a few miles with my business credit card for exactly this purpose.
Looks like they are tightening down on this too recently. It has been a while since I bought miles.

fumje

Ah, good points. I suppose even buying miles without a sale could easily undercut the late-purchase price.

findark

I am somewhat surprised... can you deduct that as a business expense?

I think the other explanation here is someone tightened the algorithm for IN space too much, and nobody cares that this is one of the results.

docbert

My employer (>100K employees, so not at all a small business like some of the other replies) will pay me 50% of the fare if I buy the ticket using my own miles. Unfortunately it's paid as salary and thus taxable which makes it generally not wort it, but still...

fumje

Interesting, never heard of arrangements like that, thanks.

Kacee

Possible I suppose, but it's not a recent development, it's been this way for several years. And I'm pretty sure it's deliberate. It's not like we're talking an occasional anomaly. You will regularly see flights with 15+ empty J seats I0/IN0 on day of departure.

zombietooth

I've been using quite a lot of last-minute saver awards lately on UA metal and believe that I perceive a pattern (although it could be too small a sample to be significant and/or I am experiencing matrix search delusion) where UA opens-up I in the last week in one or two hubs only e.g. DEN-NRT/NRT-DEN but you can't find any inventory thru the other hubs, even when they are showing lots of J inventory, often more than the hub showing I > 0. I have been doing lots of checking for I every day for the last few months and there seems to be no logic to what hub gets the I relative to cabin loads, P/Z pricing, etc.

Artpen100

I have done this. Sometimes, the work budget just cannot justify a full-freight business class ticket, and using miles is way cheaper. Of course, you don't get PQMs and PQDs for the flight, but between how hard it is to use GPUs (which might otherwise justify the price on the grounds that you could recoup it buying economy on a subsequent trip) and the availability of miles from credit cards, that is not what drives the decision.

Hipplewm

Think about people who would be a sole proprietor etc - you can either spend $$$ or miles - They are all yours, the business is yours etc. Say you get a job where the client will pay for travel - you see a $9000 fare and bill the client $9000, but then you use your miles to buy a ticket.

Artpen100

That would be dishonest (well, unless you asked the client and they said okay, which is not going to happen). Only what you pay in cash. On the other hand, if you pay several hundred dollars in fees to use the miles for an international trip (e.g., on BA), then you can charge the hundreds in fees actually paid.

TomA

Absolutely.

findark

How much do you deduct? Most of the rest of us go to great lengths to avoid miles being treated as cash by the IRS (although I suppose it's all under the rebate exception anyway)

{T}here has been nothing to suggest that any other airline has a better FFP than UA. I still think MP is one of the best programs in the world (if you value international upgrades), despite the constant cuts and drops. I tend to see things in a different color though, because I measure upgrades by the $$$ they save me versus having to purchase a premium cabin ticket (I only attempt to upgrade when it's a reasonably likely thing), rather than the "feel" of being happy when I buy Y. When I drop 4x GPU to go to AKL for under $2,000 per ticket, that's easily $4,000 or more I've saved over an excellent Business fare. I can't name* any other loyalty program that's going to kick me back $4,000 and then some just for buying $12,000 of their stuff

It's fair to suggest that Kayaking for lower fares and abandoning alliances can save some money, but I don't experience that as much as some -- and I'm always shocked to see professions of "I paid $2,000 more to stay on UA/*A for this ticket...". My loyalty to UA extends to choosing it at roughly the same price for similar trips (maybe a little bit more, or one more stop), and/or planning my personal trips around when low cash or award fares make sense on *A. Never more than that -- that seems crazy to me!

*Our friends over at the MS board might be able to point my way, but I digress...

TomA