how much is it worth to switch from your favorite airline?

[sumiandkage]

I've heard the award ticket game described as a 'hobby', which fits my case well. I've never paid to fly on United or had one of their credit cards, bu have still scraped together something like 250K of their miles through the use of things like shopping portals, market research surveys, and other types of promotional offers. 

 

If you enjoy 'the hobby' it's worth playing with and figuring out how to maximize mile earning for purchase and behaviors you'd do anyways. (Do I need the Delta AmEx Platinum for grocery purchases to hit the bonus MQMs or can I shift that spend over to the AmEx EveryDay for the extra member reward points that can redeemed for either Delta Skymiles or Flying Blue points that can often be a better redemption offer than Skymiles? Yes, there are opportunity costs to doing different things) 

 

And there are occasional total freebies. During the Alaska-Vigrin America merger, Alaska just gave me enough miles for a free domestic one way ticket because I'd had an active Virgin FF account with like 500 points in it. (Though not in the 'free' sense because it led me to do the opportunity cost thing to build enough Alaska miles for something more interesting down the road) 

 

I'll also note that I live in an area where there isn't much in the way of a competitive airfare market, and typically do 2 cents a mile or better on award ticket redemptions, so the argument of 'just use a cash back credit card for a better return than miles' isn't quite so compelling for us

[Zach1213]

20 minutes ago, sumiandkage said:

I've heard the award ticket game described as a 'hobby', which fits my case well. I've never paid to fly on United or had one of their credit cards, bu have still scraped together something like 250K of their miles through the use of things like shopping portals, market research surveys, and other types of promotional offers.

 

Oh I hate it so much. I'm lucky in that I travel enough to seemingly have endless miles, but once I inevitably cut back on my travel...so be it. I just don't like the game of chasing miles, though I understand why some people do. I read reviews on Points Guy where they talk about finding availability, transferring miles, earning miles from random places, etc. etc. and it just makes me want to pound my head in to a rock.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Zach1213

[TruckerDave]

10 hours ago, sumiandkage said:

I've heard the award ticket game described as a 'hobby', which fits my case well. I've never paid to fly on United or had one of their credit cards, bu have still scraped together something like 250K of their miles through the use of things like shopping portals, market research surveys, and other types of promotional offers. 

 

If you enjoy 'the hobby' it's worth playing with and figuring out how to maximize mile earning for purchase and behaviors you'd do anyways. (Do I need the Delta AmEx Platinum for grocery purchases to hit the bonus MQMs or can I shift that spend over to the AmEx EveryDay for the extra member reward points that can redeemed for either Delta Skymiles or Flying Blue points that can often be a better redemption offer than Skymiles? Yes, there are opportunity costs to doing different things) 

 

And there are occasional total freebies. During the Alaska-Vigrin America merger, Alaska just gave me enough miles for a free domestic one way ticket because I'd had an active Virgin FF account with like 500 points in it. (Though not in the 'free' sense because it led me to do the opportunity cost thing to build enough Alaska miles for something more interesting down the road) 

 

I'll also note that I live in an area where there isn't much in the way of a competitive airfare market, and typically do 2 cents a mile or better on award ticket redemptions, so the argument of 'just use a cash back credit card for a better return than miles' isn't quite so compelling for us

 

Before the airlines went to a min spend amount to get the various status levels (along with miles or segments) there used to be endless posts on flyertalk in dec from folks doing "milage runs" to keep status. The would find dirt cheap round trips,  from say Tampa to Hong Kong and back with the stop in HK just long enough to do immigration/customs/hit the bathroom and right back on the flight home. (usually the same plane the just got off) and do this all in a weekend. Just for the sole reason of getting status and that they enjoyed the "game"  Of course much of that has changed with the min spend limits to get the elite levels now, but back then you could easily get top level status for a few thousand dollars if you were willing to do crazy long, but quick turn around trips and "weird" routing for those miles. 

Edited February 23, 2019 by TruckerDave

[GeezerCouple]

6 minutes ago, Gardyloo said:

I agree, this is an exceptional thread for this board.

 

I think a deeper understanding of how the miles game relates to one's choice of airlines and products is a very valuable thing to obtain.  Every time I see someone use the term "free flight" or "award" flight I cringe a little, because they're neither.  Miles are a form of currency like any other - they're subject to fluctuations in value, and you can work harder or easier to obtain them, depending on how you manage your miles "wallet."

 

Years ago, Air Canada was facing bankruptcy and decided to sell off their mileage scheme, Aeroplan, to outside investors.  At the time, Aeroplan's value was greater than the the rest of AC's assets.  These schemes are massive cash cows to the airlines, just as gift cards or certificates are to merchants and credit card companies.  How many times have you had a Starbucks gift card with 50c left on it?  Or, in my case, find a gift certificate in my piles of papers for a restaurant that went out of business three years ago?  Multiply that by a few million, and you've got serious profit accruing to the people who sold the cards or certificates - they've got the money and never had to supply the product or service.  Nobody knows how many billions of frequent flyer miles expire every year after languishing in people's accounts until they timed out, but it's a big number.  The credit card people paid real money to the airlines for those miles, which they recouped through annual fees or through merchant fees, but the airlines never had to "sell" a seat for them.  Winner, winner.  

 

I have my own (admittedly flexible) threshold for when to earn v. burn FF miles, but I always use a benefit-cost calculus when I'm considering using them.  It's not that hard to do the math, and for a bunch of semi- or very frequent flyers, it's a worthwhile exercise.  Like the lady says, "What's in your wallet?"

 

Yes, figuring out the "value" of the awards "points" is really difficult.

First, there's value in terms of money.

Second, there is value in terms of comfort, etc., and that's impossible to quantify similarly from person to person.  But one should understand if for one's self, and family.

 

For us, we can purchase AAdvantage points/miles for approx 2 cents each (close enough).

We haven't yet needed to replenish beyond spending, but at some point we might.need to.  We are trying to use Amex more often, as the Amex Membership Rewards can *not* be purchased.

 

As for that "value":  We've used AA points for F on JL and CX.  Those cash prices would have been astronomical.  But we do NOT "count" that cash value.  We would NEVER have paid that, and thus wouldn't have flown F in those airlines.

But if necessary, we *would* pay to fly J (business).  So that becomes part of the monetary value.  And then there is the "extra points needed" for F instead of J.  That's worth about $400-500  extra pp, each way. in terms of "points cost" IF we had to buy them  And for *us*, at this age/stage in life, it IS worth that amount if we can get the F seats.

 

So we'd never ("probably" never?) use points for anything less than 2 cents per point, and probably never for anything "just a bit" more than that... not if we are still able to get better "value" on other trips.

 

It's so complicated.  We finally turned to a service to help us get those F seats, and so far, so good... In one case, we need to wait for F to open up, while we hold J as backup.  Thus far, the F has opened up, even if we needed to change the flight by a day.

 

We get most of our points by spending on charge cards, either Amex or AAdvantage CitiCard.

DH used to travel a LOT on business, back when AA gave "status" for points accrued by spending, not just miles traveled.  (He was able to charge it all to our accounts, and then get reimbursed.)  AA doesn't do that anymore, no surprise. However, he banked a few million points and got lifetime elite status, which has been useful.  We don't spend/travel enough these days to earn that.

But we try to charge *everything* 

AND we occasionally open new charge cards for those bonus points.  (We should do this more, while it's still available.)

 

But everyone has their own personal "values" - financial and comfort/etc.

 

GC

[Voelfgar]

I'm from Milwaukee and Delta is my primary carrier and I have their AMEX card. I say primary because sometimes Delta may not have the schedule that works for me. I also now fly 1st Class/business exclusively. The nice thing about Delta is that their points never expire and with the Amex card you can use your points as cash when paying for a flight. In addition, when traveling internationally, AMEX does not charge for foreign currency transactions.

 

So there are alot of variables like if not Delta, who then? you'd want an airline that has a good presence at the airport that you use most of the time. for me that's Delta. Also I've recently flown round trip with American twice and both times there were several delays. So you also have to factor in that aspect as well.

 

Perhaps not booking a flight as soon as it becomes available to book. Even for travel over the holidays, I don't book anything more than 9 months out, typically in the 8th month.  Even for 1st class, the prices may drop from the original posted price in the first month or so after becoming available. It did for our trip to Rome and on top of that used my miles to take $1000 off the price. (Delta One seats).

[FlyerTalker]

7 minutes ago, Voelfgar said:

It did for our trip to Rome and on top of that used my miles to take $1000 off the price. (Delta One seats).

 

Hopefully not with the DL miles and money option.  If you did that, you got a mere penny a mile.  You would have been far better earning a higher cash rebate, or even getting two cents per dollar spend through the CapOne Venture card.

[Globaliser]

7 minutes ago, Voelfgar said:

Also I've recently flown round trip with American twice and both times there were several delays. So you also have to factor in that aspect as well.

 

I'm not sure why that in itself shows anything other than that you had one bad trip. "I had a few delays on one isolated trip on AA" doesn't equate to "AA generally has more delays than other airlines".

 

Unless you actually have real statistics that show that AA does generally have more delays than other airlines, that line of reasoning from one personal anecdote could lead to you avoiding an airline that is actually generally more punctual. There may be other reasons not to prefer it, but this sort of reasoning would not seem to be a good reason.

[Voelfgar]

1 minute ago, Globaliser said:

 

I'm not sure why that in itself shows anything other than that you had one bad trip. "I had a few delays on one isolated trip on AA" doesn't equate to "AA generally has more delays than other airlines".

That is not what I said. I said i recently flew on American for 2 round trips, and on each of these trips, we had several delays.

 

Also It was just an example to illustrate that frequent flight delays should also be factored into the conversation.

[sumiandkage]

AA has underperformed in terms of on-time percentages in the past year or two if you look at the DOT reports. (Hawaiian and Delta tend to have the best numbers among the American carriers) 

 

And there are also localized delay patterns that aren't necessarily reflected in the big picture. Southwest tends to be pretty middle of the pack in terms of on-time numbers.  They keep everything on track in part because their single plane class and no assigned seating lets them do far more equipment swaps than their peers.  

 

Which is great because if you're flying from major station to major station with them, they can move aircraft assignments around a lot on the fly. But if your final destination is one of their outstations, and your scheduled flight is the last one of a night with that aircraft scheduled to remain overnight at that outstation, then the Southwest Operations office is likely to take 'your' plane away to use on another route. Sometimes multiple times.  (It's an issue where I live and plays into my flight selection process)

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, sumiandkage said:

AA has underperformed in terms of on-time percentages in the past year or two if you look at the DOT reports. ...

 

And there are also localized delay patterns that aren't necessarily reflected in the big picture.

 

These are things that you might rationally take into account when factoring delays into an airline choice. But personal anecdote is not helpful at all, because the plural of anecdote is not data.

 

In any event, even the statistics have to be taken with some caution; they're likely to be of negligible help in making an actual choice. I think a few of us here are quite fond of the drowned statisticians.

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, sumiandkage said:

Southwest tends to be pretty middle of the pack in terms of on-time numbers.  They keep everything on track in part because their single plane class and no assigned seating lets them do far more equipment swaps than their peers. 

 

Take this as one reporting on the current situation at Southwest.  Unscheduled Aircraft Downtime is up significantly and is affecting flights.

 

https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2019/02/24/southwest-mechanics-are-hamstringing-the-airline-and-its-the-culture-that-may-suffer/

 

You be the judge as to the veracity/validity of this article.