Milenomics² [No Annual Fee Edition] Episode 70: Booking Summer Award Travel for Four

Usually I lock up a summer trip as far ahead of time as possible. But due to the current award travel patterns and my need for 4 seats I found myself without a summer booking and a family wanting to travel.

Today Robert and I chat about the ups and downs of the search for a summer trip, award space scarcity, alliance and search engine fragmentation and more. - Enjoy!

01:55 Let’s talk about the Constraints of this trip:

We didn't have a single destination on our list but rather a short list of places to go

2 Adults 2 children.

3:00 Summer, during Summer Break (June/July)

Prices and awards rise dramatically in Jun/Jul and award space dries up even worse than it is during other parts of the year

4:24 No flexibility in cabin (I couldn’t even pitch premium economy)

As we’ve gotten older we’ve taken less trips, but put more into them. 

Last year we spent 36 years on vacation, but we’re trending into longer trips

6:45 Don’t want to reposition

Saw some options through IAH, PHL.

Also saw flights through Canada

I don't like clearing customs and then having another flight, with little kids that is a pressure point

9:00 Point balances: 

I’m a non-hoarder. I have about 250,000 Alaska, 400,000 AA and very little other miles on hand. 

I do have a large MR and UR balance I can draw down. Otherwise I’ll cash them out

9:53 AA out of LAX, comparing AA vs BA.

points yeah served up LAX-LHR on AA with Alaska Miles:

But AA wouldn't show this for a similar 'low' price

But adding a leg--searching LAX-CPH showed the low price for the whole flight.

This seems like a 'married logic' issue. It means pricing is end to end (LAX/CPH) vs segment by segment.

This has become VERY common with dynamic pricing.

This makes the old 'get over the pond' mentality dangerous. Searching between city pairs only for long-haul flights won't show you the whole picture (Not just on AA, across most airlines now).

This is also a search engine fragmentation because you are relying on the search engine to do the routing logic.

15:41 Let’s talk about award space out of LAX

I’ve had an eye on LAX long haul routes for more than a decade. I’ve never seen it this thin

That’s on top of more capacity than ever, with better cabins than ever

The 64,000 point question is: Will those seats get sold, or will they be released closer to the dates of travel

Current space isn’t a great indicator. There are very different people wanting to go to Europe in the next 2 months than in Jun/July

18:00 Quick discussion about the ‘loss’ of partner award space

This has made it more important than ever to hold flexible currencies like MR/UR/Cap 1

One ways with different currencies helps spread out the search net

Ultimately you still need that triangle of flexibility we’ve talked about forever here: Dates, destination or class of service. You have to flex one (or more) of them. 

Flights Have to Exist in order for you to take them

Flightconnections.com is still the place i go to start any search

I look for ALL long haul options out of LAX (remember I don’t like to reposition)

Some filtering is needed, because these are not all flights that can be booked with miles easily, but without a premium account you’ll be limited to filtering by a single airline. 

18:40 Options start coming into focus

EF showed space on Air Tahiti Nui LAX-CDG in business. I’ve flow this before. It really isn’t great, but it is a lie flat and the flight was an easy feeling one.

Unfortunately with a few calls to AA agents none of them could see the space. I tried some other tricks but with no luck. I don’t know what’s going on there–if it is a block or phantom space

From there I saw on pointsyeah some air france awards in the 130,000 per person (plus about $300 in fees). 

I didn’t love those so I went to Air france’s site and started going day by day, looking at all flights i might want to take.  Ontario-TPE, LAX-Manchester, LAX-Oslo/stockholm/Helsinki/Rome.  And something interesting started to show up…

The biggest issue is they don’t always show you the partner space and they don’t by default sort by lowest price in miles (not the only site that does this). 

Again going city pair by city pair pulled up 

an option, LAX-OSL for 4 passengers for about 72,000 miles and $225 each. 

There’s a huge hurdle here: Foreign program, I have no miles in and have never used.  I’m about to transfer 300,000 MR into it. This better be REAL space. 

Married logic makes it look even more phantom when you search LAX-CDG and find it is 700,000 per person. Almost makes you want to skiplag an award ticket. 

Of course people online are talking about phantom space biting them, and I just had that issue with TN and AA. 

So I called Flying Blue and asked for the rep to see the space, and put it on hold. And he did, which made me feel good about this space. 

24:19 Still Need a Return -- Just as Uncertain as before

But I still had no return.  So the entire search starts again, but this time with even more restrictive constraints. It doesn’t help me if I find a return from Tokyo-LAX– not the entire search has to be from Oslo, or somewhere nearby to LAX (or somewhere nearby). And I don’t want to clear customs on the east coast with my kids, and have to keep picking up bags, so I’m looking at even less options. 

AA had an option through LHR. The fees were huge, but I was sure if i called I could get them lower by making the first leg  in economy. 

Aeroplan had space on Air canada (not partner) through montreal in PE. This was not ideal–I didn’t want to fly PE and would be putting miles into aeroplan that I would cancel and possibly orphan. 

25:30 Let’s discuss Stranding miles?  PE Vs J? Anything you like here? 

The trend of moderately priced awards with native miles almost guarantees orphaned miles if you cancel a trip. 

That didn’t used to be the case–but the lack of partner space makes it happen

Beware expiration of miles (Asian carriers don’t allow extending miles for example). 

27:30 Book and then garden vs. wait and book  

There are benefits to each approach, but drawbacks as well. 

I probably could have gotten the family on board with a situation like 2 in Business 2 in Premium. But I wasn’t even seeing that option

Nice upgrade of AA Miles being useful for JAL Premium economy. 

31:06 Nothing is Free, Everything is Cash

Luck–ultimately was the key. Immense luck in the form of 4 seats OSL-LAX on air france on the exact day I wanted to return at the lowest level I’d seen all search, an average of 48,000 per person (plus $320 in fees).  With the outbound on hold I transferred enough for this return, booked it online (if it was phantom I would have used those miles for the outbound) and then transferred again to ticket the outbound on the phone. 

Total: 491,750 MR plus $2200 in fees. 

$2200 in cash is 200,000 Membership rewards cashed out with schwab.

Compare to an 88,000 United booking this is very close to the same thing

A total of 691,750 MR for 4 people. Compares to

Can't really do much to improve this or risk stranding these miles

37:41 This one shook out–but I don’t want to let things slip past me like this. 

Close in doesn’t work for me, both with requesting days off of work and with planning trips

So I need to remind myself to start looking NOW for winter break, and soon enough for Summer 2025. 

Flex the demand schedule with your family too.