Several of the major carriers are currently in a frequently flyer mile fare war among short hop tickets. As many of you know, a normal frequent flyer ticket costs 25k miles or more. But as many more of you know, most of us have far less than that in our accounts.
In this case, many tickets (depending on the carrier) are about 15k miles. I just booked a ticket from Detroit to New York for a grand total of five dollars in taxes.
If you know your plans well enough in advance, book early. American Airlines, for example, charges an extra $50 in fees if you book inside of a 21 day window prior to departure. You’ll also want to check the market price for your ticket; since the price of mileage tickets has gone down, so have the cash tickets. It may be better worth spending the $130 on the airfare and earning the miles against blowing your load on a cheap mileage ticket.
But for those of you who earn miles at a snail’s pace or have 15k stranded miles in a random frequent flyer account, take this opportunity to get away for the weekend and visit some friends in New York for dinner.
American’s fare sale is here while other carriers have similar pages. Travel between September 1 and February 29th.