Is this a good use of miles?

[NCteacherlovescruising]

Economy tickets are $1629 or 68.5k miles

Premium economy is $2289 or 127k miles

Business  is $4585 or 167k miles

 

We have about 140,000 miles between the two accounts, and I would transfer mine to his.

 

Would it be worth it to use 127k and then buy a second ticket?  Buy two economy tickets with our miles?  Or try to talk dh into splurging and buying enough miles to get one free business class ticket.  This is one way clt to Barcelona.  We are using the cheap cruise air to get home.

[JM0115]

20 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

Economy tickets are $1629 or 68.5k miles

Premium economy is $2289 or 127k miles

Business  is $4585 or 167k miles

 

We have about 140,000 miles between the two accounts, and I would transfer mine to his.

 

Would it be worth it to use 127k and then buy a second ticket?  Buy two economy tickets with our miles?  Or try to talk dh into splurging and buying enough miles to get one free business class ticket.  This is one way clt to Barcelona.  We are using the cheap cruise air to get home.

I generally try to get at least 2c per mile. For economy this is $1629/68500= 2.3c, for Premium economy $2289/127000= 1.8 c per mile, and for Biz $4585/167000= 2.7.  These are decent. Not great but decent.

[FlyerTalker]

You don't mention the program, so it is hard to get an answer from me.

 

Before any deeper dive, does your program allow you to pool miles across accounts?  A few do, but most would charge a fee to move miles from one to the other.  In those cases, you don't have 140k miles....you have two separate piles of small amounts.  And combining them would incur additional costs.  If you are talking about AA, the cost is 1.5 cents per mile just to move them.  Which really changes the value proposition.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

One more thing.  I think you are distorting your costs.  Your desire for using "cheap cruise air" is taking you away from round trip pricing and moving you to two one-ways, with likely higher costs, even using "cheap cruise air".  But, since we have limited details, including dates, cities and airlines.....

 

 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

7 minutes ago, JM0115 said:

I generally try to get at least 2c per mile. For economy this is $1629/68500= 2.3c, for Premium economy $2289/127000= 1.8 c per mile, and for Biz $4585/167000= 2.7.  These are decent. Not great but decent.

Thank you. 
 

5 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

You don't mention the program, so it is hard to get an answer from me.

 

Before any deeper dive, does your program allow you to pool miles across accounts?  A few do, but most would charge a fee to move miles from one to the other.  In those cases, you don't have 140k miles....you have two separate piles of small amounts.  And combining them would incur additional costs.  If you are talking about AA, the cost is 1.5 cents per mile just to move them.  Which really changes the value proposition.

 

 

Ugh. It is AA. I saw a form to do it but didn’t realize it would cost us to do so. So we could each buy economy tickets but we really didn’t want to fly economy. 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

4 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

One more thing.  I think you are distorting your costs.  Your desire for using "cheap cruise air" is taking you away from round trip pricing and moving you to two one-ways, with likely higher costs, even using "cheap cruise air".  But, since we have limited details, including dates, cities and airlines.....

 

 

We priced the multi-Citi and it was more expensive than doing it this way. We’re getting two tickets from Venice to Charlotte for 1k with NCL. We couldn’t touch the multi-city tickets for an additional 500 each. 
 

Charlotte to Barcelona on June 10. Flight home is Venice to Charlotte on July 13. (Not open yet but based it on June prices)

Edited July 18, 2023 by NCteacherlovescruising

[NCteacherlovescruising]

So can we buy the economy tickets and use miles to upgrade?  

[the mice]

1 hour ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

We priced the multi-Citi and it was more expensive than doing it this way. We’re getting two tickets from Venice to Charlotte for 1k with NCL. We couldn’t touch the multi-city tickets for an additional 500 each. 
 

Charlotte to Barcelona on June 10. Flight home is Venice to Charlotte on July 13. (Not open yet but based it on June prices)

Uh, in your signature you list 3 cruises, one dated July 15.   Are yo sure you are flying home from Venice on July 13?

[NCteacherlovescruising]

46 minutes ago, the mice said:

Uh, in your signature you list 3 cruises, one dated July 15.   Are yo sure you are flying home from Venice on July 13?

Yes. I need to update my signature. We are moving that cruise. After hitting search more, I found one in business class for 57.5k and $757 so I jumped on them. It says pending or something like that because after Clt to JFK, it is a partner airline. Hopefully there’s no issues with them going through. I was able to book mine with my card and his with his. Hope dh is good with this. He’s sleeping and I didn’t want to lose them. I hope it was a good deal. I loved the price so  I’m happy!  

Edited July 18, 2023 by NCteacherlovescruising

[NCteacherlovescruising]

50 minutes ago, the mice said:

Uh, in your signature you list 3 cruises, one dated July 15.   Are yo sure you are flying home from Venice on July 13?

Signature fixed. 🙂

[the mice]

21 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

Yes. I need to update my signature. We are moving that cruise. After hitting search more, I found one in business class for 57.5k and $757 so I jumped on them. It says pending or something like that because after Clt to JFK, it is a partner airline. Hopefully there’s no issues with them going through. I was able to book mine with my card and his with his. Hope dh is good with this. He’s sleeping and I didn’t want to lose them. I hope it was a good deal. I loved the price so  I’m happy!  

Your partner airline is BA, right?  From JFK are you flying through LHR (Heathrow) to Barcelona?  Did you check the connection times in JFK and LHR?  Hopefully you have a sufficient amount of time.   Sometimes the airlines list very short connection times and still let you book.   Please look over your itinerary and post here. While I've booked my own awards over the years, Flyer Talker is way more knowledgeable than me and will give you much better advice once we see your itinerary.

One thing I do, even after booking awards, is keep checking.  The best awards are not always available when the schedule opens.  The good thing is that you can always cancel AA awards without penalty if you find something better. 

BTW, if you are going JFK to LHR, it's a fairly short flight, so with dinner service and breakfast service, don't expect to get a lot of sleep.  The main advantage is the lie-flat seat. 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

6 hours ago, the mice said:

Your partner airline is BA, right?  From JFK are you flying through LHR (Heathrow) to Barcelona?  Did you check the connection times in JFK and LHR?  Hopefully you have a sufficient amount of time.   Sometimes the airlines list very short connection times and still let you book.   Please look over your itinerary and post here. While I've booked my own awards over the years, Flyer Talker is way more knowledgeable than me and will give you much better advice once we see your itinerary.

One thing I do, even after booking awards, is keep checking.  The best awards are not always available when the schedule opens.  The good thing is that you can always cancel AA awards without penalty if you find something better. 

BTW, if you are going JFK to LHR, it's a fairly short flight, so with dinner service and breakfast service, don't expect to get a lot of sleep.  The main advantage is the lie-flat seat. 

You are correct. We land on JFK at 10:04 and our next flight is at 11:00.  LHR to Barcelona is at 1:05. I would expect dinner service that late, but perhaps breakfast.  I thought that looked like enough time but I have no idea. We’ve never flown abroad or even had to make a connecting flight. I planned on continuing to look because I had read we could cancel and get our money and miles back. Hopefully there’s no penalty for that option. 

[6rugrats]

BA charges outrageous taxes on award tickets; that's why I use my AA miles on tickets to the Caribbean, not Europe.  You will get dinner and breakfast on the flight from JFK.  You can cancel with no penalty and change your flights.  I would get ready for schedule changes booking so far in advance anyway.

Your connection is pretty tight for the summer.  I would not be comfortable with one hour, but again, this time will probably change.

[NCteacherlovescruising]

10 minutes ago, 6rugrats said:

BA charges outrageous taxes on award tickets; that's why I use my AA miles on tickets to the Caribbean, not Europe.  You will get dinner and breakfast on the flight from JFK.  You can cancel with no penalty and change your flights.  I would get ready for schedule changes booking so far in advance anyway.

Your connection is pretty tight for the summer.  I would not be comfortable with one hour, but again, this time will probably change.

Thanks!  My friends are telling me the connection time is too short. I wouldn’t want to eat at 11:00. Lol Maybe I should just cancel and continue looking. I can’t seem to figure out what gate it is on the AA flight. 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

This may seem like a dumb question to you experienced flyers, but what do the miles circles at the top represent?  They don’t seem to correlate with the miles to fly those days. 
 

[Gardyloo]

1 hour ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

This may seem like a dumb question to you experienced flyers, but what do the miles circles at the top represent?  They don’t seem to correlate with the miles to fly those days. 
 

If you keep scrolling down, eventually you'll come to some flight combination where the minimum number of miles will get you a seat.  Those are always the minimum number for economy seats, not premium economy or business class.

 

If you click the "advanced search" box on the previous screen and specify "business/first" in the "class" box (under "Options" at the bottom of the screen," you'll get a similar table to the one above, only showing just the business options.  Here's a screenshot of that result for June 10.

 

Note before you get your hopes up, the flights for 57,500 miles (sounds great, right?) include a flight from Atlanta to London on British Airways, connecting at Heathrow to Barcelona.  Because of BA's usurious additional fees, the "+ $5.60" or whatever line under the mileage cost, becomes $757.30 for that option.  

 

If possible, I'd use a laptop or desktop for this rather than your phone.  It can get annoyingly slow and complicated to handle these transactions with a phone-sized screen.  

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Gardyloo

[Gardyloo]

I'm so sorry, I missed where you've already decided to spend that extra money and take a BA flight through JFK.  

 

Those are NOT additional taxes, they're "carrier added surcharges," or "carrier imposed fees," - so-called "YQ" fees in the industry, and they're simply BA's way of insuring that it makes huge profits on those flights.  

 

Do some math.  Let's assume for a moment that your miles are worth 1.5 cents each ($0.015.)  That would be poor value in my view; I never redeem miles unless they're worth at least 2.5 cents each, but for the sake of argument let's say 1.5 cents is okay with you.  So 57,500 miles x 1.5 cents = $862.50.

 

Then add the $757.30 in BA fees and the total for one way in business class becomes $1619.80.  Multiply that by 2 and your round trip (or open-jaw return) becomes $3239.60.  If you were like me and wanted your miles to be worth 2.5c each, then the total for the whole trip would be $4390.  

 

You can buy a round trip business class ticket - one that earns a lot of miles rather than spending them - for less than that right now, but you should wait.  

 

Travel for next June is too far out to get good deals on flights booked now.  The airlines set fares to insure they make a profit, and because things are so uncertain that far out (price of jet fuel, labor issues, the global economy, whatever) they hedge the risk by setting fares very high at the outset, and especially by limiting the number of "award" seats they make available.  I promise you that if you are patient and wait until later this year - I'd suggest sometime around November at the earliest, that you'll see better deals both for purchased flights and for availability for mileage redemption.  

 

The airlines are NOT going to sell out, and in fact, traditionally the summer is the cheapest time of the year for transatlantic business class, due to the falloff in travel by actual business flyers.  It's not unusual to see transatlantic business class fares in the $2000 - $2500 range (round trip or open jaw) for the peak summer, but those fares won't show up for several months yet.  

 

So I'd urge patience and research.  You have plenty of time.

 

 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

Thanks so much!  I canceled. We are planning on using NCL for the return flights (only $500 each) unless we find a better deal ourselves. I will try to be patient and wait. Thanks so much for your help!

[FlyerTalker]

11 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

Thanks so much!  I canceled. We are planning on using NCL for the return flights (only $500 each) unless we find a better deal ourselves. I will try to be patient and wait. Thanks so much for your help!

 

Please remember -- that $500 bargain will be forcing you into a one-way ticket for the outbound.  And that may end up costing as much or more than the round trip.

 

Don't be seduced.

 

 

[NCteacherlovescruising]

37 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Please remember -- that $500 bargain will be forcing you into a one-way ticket for the outbound.  And that may end up costing as much or more than the round trip.

 

Don't be seduced.

 

 

We can’t do round trip, we’ll have to do multi-city. We will buy tickets before final payment for the cruise so we will know ahead of time. Currently, clt-Barcelona and Venice-Clt is crazy expensive. 

[Hlitner]

Two things going on in this thread.  We will leave the cost factors and use of miles to Flyertalker and other experts.  But the issue of connection times (my pet peeve) is very important and can be the difference between an enjoyable trip and getting to your ship and a miserable day and missing your cruise.  These days, agreeing to tight connections is just dumb!

 

When changing at LHR, one must be very careful.  If your incoming and outgoing flights are in the same terminal, that is a good thing (although Terminal 5 is huge).  But if you need to change terminals (this just happened to us when we had to go from T5 to T3) the process can be very lengthy (even 2 hours might not be enough).  

 

In the past 2 years we have found ourselves running for flights (delayed arrivals causing connection issues) and, at times, having to deal with anxiety and delayed baggage (because of tight connections).  We now try to always fly Business Class (on international flights) and make sure we have lounge access.  Longer connection times can be boring, but it can avoid some major issues.

 

Hank

[Globaliser]

8 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

We can’t do round trip, we’ll have to do multi-city. We will buy tickets before final payment for the cruise so we will know ahead of time. Currently, clt-Barcelona and Venice-Clt is crazy expensive. 

 

Having just done a quick and dirty search for CLT-BCN on 3 June and VCE-CLT on 10 June (to get both dates in range), a one-way CLT-BCN can be had for about USD870 and the multi-city trip (both halves) for about USD1,650. But that one-way fare plus NCL's USD500 for VCE-CLT would work out at USD1,370 total. Are you seeing numbers like that? It doesn't seem "crazy expensive" to me.

[NCteacherlovescruising]

21 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

Having just done a quick and dirty search for CLT-BCN on 3 June and VCE-CLT on 10 June (to get both dates in range), a one-way CLT-BCN can be had for about USD870 and the multi-city trip (both halves) for about USD1,650. But that one-way fare plus NCL's USD500 for VCE-CLT would work out at USD1,370 total. Are you seeing numbers like that? It doesn't seem "crazy expensive" to me.

We are trying to avoid economy on the way there, so no. We are also trying to use miles and we don’t have enough for round trip.

 

I just tried and seeing higher prices than you. 

Edited July 18, 2023 by NCteacherlovescruising

[6rugrats]

Use matrix.itasoftware.com to search for flights.

[the mice]

A couple of things.  No one knows what travel next June will be like.  But we just flew to Amsterdam from Newark on May 30 and every seat (about 38 or 40) in business class was full. And the United Polaris lounge, which is just for business class passengers, was absolutely jammed, so I assume all the other flights had full biz class as well.  Also, the weather in the NYC area has been crazy - lots of weather related delays and flight cancellations in June and July, so no way would I ever due a 56 minute connection, much less in JFK.  

 

Just for the heck of it, since you are interested in using AA miles for a one way flight on a specific date as your outbound flight, sign up for free at Roame.travel.   It's got its limitations for general award searches, but works somewhat well for specific date searches. You can input your search requirements and select only AA from the programs to be searched.  It will show you award pricing, and if it's a mixed cabin award (not all segments in same class of service). You can see the flights, connections, times. You would still have snag those awards by booking on AA, but it can be helpful to watch for awards.  Is it perfect? No.  But I had great success finding one way award tickets using this site. 

 

And BTW, we usually fly business on overnight flights, but fly home from Europe in economy during the daytime.  Not the best, but we are short, average size, so it can work for us (although DH has gotten very spoiled by flying business so often, but I ignore his comments 🤣). And we are only going to the NYC area, not connecting onward.  Just did it on a flight from Hamburg-Munich-Newark.  If the plane is configured with 2 seats on one side of the aisle, we choose that.  Otherwise we book aisle seats across from each other.  Everyone has to figure out what works for them in terms of spending $$ and/or using miles.

 

In future, AA isn't the best for business class awards to Europe.  You might want to look into collecting other points currencies if European travel is in your future plans.  Lots of info out there if you search for it.  

 

Good luck with your search and decision-making.