Tag Archives: American Airlines

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Bad use of AS $99 Companion Ticket & Codeshare AA / AS Booking with Citi Thank You Points

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Good morning from rainy San Francisco.  I hope you all had a great (sunny) weekend.  Since I was stuck inside most of the weekend, I did some travel planning (I do that anyway even if the weather is great).  I booked a quick weekend trip to Portland in mid May and I even found Alaska Airlines saver award space for the return flight from PDX to SFO at a convenient time (not 6 or 7am).  After calling British Airways several times and finally getting through after hearing the busy dial tone 5+ times, I booked the return flight using British Airways Avios.  It was not the greatest redemption ever, but I had British Airways Avios to burn.

For the outbound flight from SFO to PDX, I searched on Google Flights and found a few decent flight times and prices.  Since I am traveling with my roommate, I needed to get 2 tickets.  I have access to a few Alaska Airlines $99 companion ticket codes (the codes are transferrable and can be booked by anyone).  Here is the standard price for 2 one way tickets:

SFO-PDX AS No Companion Ticket

And here is the price with the $99 Alaska Airlines companion ticket.  As you can see, the price with the companion ticket is 43 cents higher than booking the flights without the companion ticket.  I decided to save the companion ticket for a future flight and researched other flight options.

SFO-PDX AS Companion Ticket Continue reading →

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2016 Eurotrip Travel and Expense Summary

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Good afternoon everyone, here is a summary of my 2 week trip to Europe from January 2016.  Here is my planning and booking process: Hotel & Flight Bookings for LHR, CDG, NCE, MUC, VCE, and DUB.  Here is a visual representation of my intra-European flights.  I also flew from SFO-LAX-LHR on American Airlines and DUB-SFO on Aer Lingus (not pictured).

GCM Eurotrip 2016

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Hotel & Flight Bookings for LHR, CDG, NCE, MUC, VCE, and DUB

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Good morning everyone, happy TGI Friday!  First, I wanted to thank everyone for voting in my poll (Reader Feedback Needed: Which Blog Posts Should I Write First?).  I was busy this week with 2 free movie screenings in SF (13 Hours and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies) and the SF Travel Hackers Meetup, but I’m finally getting around to writing about my upcoming trip to Europe.  That was the overwhelming winner and since my trip starts tomorrow (1/16), I better write about it before I fly out of town.

Blog Topic Poll 1-14-2016

I will share my thought process and booking experience with my flights and then about my hotels.  Since I planned most of this trip back in March/April/May 2015, I was able to find award space to/from SFO very easily.  Here is an overview of my paid and award flights:

  • SFO-LAX (AA First) and LAX-LHR (AA Business) = 50,000 AA miles + $5.60 in taxes/fees
  • LHR-CDG (British Airways economy) = 2,500 BA Avios + $57.50 in taxes/fees
  • CDG-NCE (Air France economy) = $56.76
  • NCE-MUC / MUC-VCE (Lufthansa economy) = $99.99
  • VCE-LGW-DUB (British Airways / Aer Lingus economy) = $138.60
  • DUB-SFO (Aer Lingus economy) = 25,000 BA Avios + $106.76 in taxes/fees

GCM Eurotrip 2016

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Guest Post from DEM Flyers: Should you Keep Citi Prestige & Dump Citi Premier?

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great New Years celebration, but now it’s Monday morning and time to get back to reality.  A few months ago, my friends Daniel, Esther and Michael started a blog: DEMflyers.com.  (The ‘D’ is Daniel, the ‘E’ is Esther, the ‘M’ is Michael, and the ‘flyers’ is who they are.)  They are very experienced travel hackers and members of the SF Travel Hackers Meetup Group.  Like I always say, 3 travel hackers/bloggers is better than me 1, so I always look forward to reading their informative, educational, and entertaining posts (except for writing 94 letters to IHG, no one has time for that!)

Anyway, a few days ago, I asked the DEMflyers team if they could help me with a math problem.  How many Citi Thank You Points per year do I need to redeem to justify paying the $450 Citi Prestige annual fee vs. paying the $95 Citi Premier annual fee?  Take it away Daniel…

The number one rule of churning is that you should never pay an annual fee.  Go for a retention offer, downgrade, or cancel, but never pay an annual fee.

This is the conventional wisdom for two reasons: First, the fees add up.  If you keep just 10 rewards credit cards a year but pay a $95 annual fee on each one, you’re paying nearly $1,000 in annual fees for benefits you probably don’t even use.  Second, the value proposition is usually in the sign-up bonus, so you have no reason to keep the card after you’ve received the bonus.  Continue reading →

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Travel Predictions for 2016 Part 1: Airlines and Hotels

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Update: Travel Predictions for 2016 Part 2: Credit Cards and MS is now live!

Good morning everyone, happy New Years Eve!  To prove how smart or dumb I am, I wanted to make a few predictions for 2016.  In Part 1, I will share my thoughts and predictions about airlines and hotels.  In Part 2, I will share my thoughts and predictions about credit cards and MS.  If you strongly agree or disagree with any of my thoughts or predictions, please leave a comment below and we will see who is right next year.  Without any further ado, let’s make some guesses!

Airlines

Southwest – Southwest points used to be worth 1.67 CPP, then they were worth 1.43 CPP, now with route variability, I have no idea how much Southwest points are worth.  I wish Southwest points would be worth a fixed amount, maybe 1.5 CPP for all flights.  I hope Southwest continues to announce new routes, especially a few routes from the West Coast to Hawaii.  Lastly, for the last several year, credit card sign up bonus points have counted toward the Southwest Companion Pass.  I think this might change in 2016.

American – after the devaluation goes into effect, I hope award space improves considerably (it can’t get much worse).  I hope American gets rid of the close-in booking fee for booking award flights within 3 weeks of travel.  I also hope that Citi adds the ability to transfer Citi Thank You Points into American Airlines miles.  I hope Citi Prestige Credit Card holders retain the ability to book American and AA codeshare flights for 1.6 CPP.

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