Frequent flier classes help you learn (and game?) the system

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Who knew a seminar could turn you into Gadling top dog Grant Martin? That isn’t the explicit promise of Grant-caliber savvy – nobody would be so bold – but two courses developed by Nicholas Kraley can bring you a little closer to maximizing your miles and taking that all important mileage run in December.

Kraley is something of an expert, having picked up more than 1.5 million miles in the past decade as a diplomatic correspondent and business travel columnist over at the Washington Times. The curricula he has developed for his “On the Fly” seminars – “Saving on airfare and redeeming frequent-flier miles” and the advanced course, “Securing top elite status and flying in luxury” – reflect his experience.

According to USA Today:

“No one has ever done this before, as far as I know,” Kralev says. “It took me years to learn all that stuff, since there are no books or classes about this, and I thought there must be enough people out there who want to fly cheaply but in luxury.”

Interested in checking this out? The program kicks off June 25 and 26, 2010.

Christopher Elliott on the reality of frequent flier programs

by Scott Carmichael on

Few people know the airline industry as well as Chris Elliott – he’s a regular contributor on MSNBC, The Washington Post (and Gadling) – so when I came across one of his columns on frequent flier programs, I paid close attention to what he had to say.

In his article, Elliott makes a very valid point that airline loyalty really only works one way. Millions of people work hard to earn airline miles, only to discover that the airline doesn’t really plan to reward them for all that hard work, or decides to cut the value of their points before they are able to use them.

Now, this may be a minor inconvenience to people with only one or two flights a year, but there are large groups of business travelers that stay ferociously loyal to a single airline or hotel chain, without ever bothering to check out the competition. I’ll call these people the “Up In The Air” crowd – after the George Clooney movie about the life of a very frequent flier. There is one thing a lot of these fliers have in common – something Elliott doesn’t make mention of – most of them don’t pay for their own tickets.

In the frequent flier world, there are thousands of fliers with millions of miles banked in their accounts, they travel with their platinum cards around their neck, know all the tricks, and obtain top tier status year after year. They show this loyalty because their airline of choice rewards them with a couple of convenient perks. But no perk is as important to them as the well stocked mileage account. With a rich mileage account, the business traveler can fly on the company dime during the week, and use their miles for leisure trips in their spare time. However – once you start living this life, you start losing track of the true price of travel.The blind loyalty to airline programs mentioned by Elliott is related to this – if your plane tickets don’t come out of your own pocket, you stop caring about price, competition and alternatives. When someone else picks up the tab, why bother finding a cheaper way to get from A to B. Airlines know this – and their frequent flier programs are designed to take full advantage of it.

The most brand loyal people are often the ones that earn their miles the easiest way possible – I even know people who use their personal credit card for company wide purchases – earning millions of miles without taking a single trip. Of course those people will defend brand loyalty – that brand loyalty lets them travel the world without spending a dime of their own money. Of course, there are also companies with a corporate policy on airline choice – but even those companies will force an employee to pick something other than their usual airline if the price is right.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I also know people that don’t have the luxury of a corporate expense account (myself included) – and these are usually the people that try not to bank any kind of “magical number” in their mileage account. Wise travelers spend their miles, keeping a limited balance for last minute trips. These travelers are the ones that don’t see the value of their accounts cut in half when the airline introduces new award levels, or adds new redemption fees.

The article takes a pretty negative tone – and I don’t agree that the cons always outweigh the pros. If you know what you are doing, you take the time to shop around, use mileage runs to top off accounts, and pay close attention to dormant mileage accounts, you’ll find plenty of things to like about frequent flier programs.

So – head on over to the Washington Post to read what Elliott has to say about loyalty – (registration may be required to read the article).

United Airlines finds $64 million lying around – thanks to your expiring miles

by Scott Carmichael on

Hands up if you have checked your mileage account, only to notice that you forgot to have any activity, and all your miles are gone.

Well, thanks to you, United Airlines just managed to make an extra $64 million.

The bonus bucks were earned thanks to a new accounting method and a huge stash of previously undiscovered expiring miles.

So, yes – air miles are big, big business. So big in fact, that last year, American Airlines managed to “advance sell” Advantage Miles to Citi in exchange for $1.6 billion.

Lesson to be learned here? Always keep a close eye on your miles. It doesn’t matter how many you have in your account, every mile that expires just adds to the bottom line of the airline. Here are some quick tips to add miles without too much hassle:

  • Find a shopping portal that earns you miles (check the airline web site for links)
  • Eat out (and register for a dining rewards program like Rewards Network)
  • Find a mileage promotion from your airlines (many of these involve non-flight activities)
  • Check for mileage discrepancies (did you take any flights without getting miles awarded?)
  • Earn miles when you stay at a hotel

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Fly first-class on a A340, A380 or 747 for the price of coach – Airplane tip

by Gadling Staff on

If you want to fly in comfort on an international flight, but don’t care for the frills of first-class (or don’t want to pay for them), purchase four coach seats in a row.

A row of 4 seats is long enough to lay across and is just as comfortable as a flat first-class bed. You also get to carry four times the luggage (while saving as much as 50% off the price of a first-class seat), and you can also order four different meals. Finally, as an added bonus, you earn four times the frequent flier miles.

The only downside is that you’re still in coach class.

On the road with a Gadling mileage runner

by Grant Martin on

Whether you ethically believe in the mileage runs or not, they play a serious, vital role in many frequent flyer’s lives. The concept, in case you’re unfamiliar, has to do with flying around willy-nilly at year’s end solely to reach a certain number of earned-miles. In turn, rewards are given to loyal passengers who fly these high volumes, often so great that it’s actually worth the cost of flying those extra few miles.

I found myself in the above situation as November came to a close this year, 7,000 miles short of reaching 100k on American Airlines, a status that they refer to as Executive Platinum (EXP). Flashy. With said status comes a variety of perks: extra bonus miles when traveling, free upgrades and waitlist priority to name a few. To most, however, the biggest perk is called an EVIP, or System Wide Upgrade, a voucher that effectively lets passengers book a ticket in coach to anywhere in the world and then upgrade to business for free.

Very simply put, one can thus purchase a $700 ticket to Tokyo and use an EVIP to ride in business class next to someone who paid $3400 for a proper revenue ticket. It’s a great perk for those who have time or fly enough to earn EXP. And frankly, if the goal is nearby it’s worth spending the few hundred dollars to reap these rewards over the next year.

Going back to November, I projected the number of miles that I would be short and realized that I needed to scoop up a few more before year’s end. So I began to construct a mileage run, a trip taken purely to soak them up. Destination? Duration? Unimportant. The right amount of miles in the right amount of time? Key. Here’s how it came together: Tools and Strategy

The obvious goal of a mileage run it to earn as many miles as possible for the lowest amount of cost and time spent. There are a few tools to search for fares by distance against cost, but the best is Farecompare. Using their Flyertalk tool, you can sort by Price Per Mile (PPM) and distance. It’s true FC will give you a ton of false positives, but patiently working through the schedules and availability will pay off in the long run.

In my case, I needed to fly at least 7,000 miles in under a weekend, so I limited my search to Europe and South America, eventually sifting out a $450 fare from Chicago O’Hare to Frankfurt, Germany that I could take departing on Saturday and returning on Sunday — on the same airplane, no less. Using the webflyer mileage calculator, I verified that this would earn me 8660 miles, so I booked the fare.

On the Road

After a night out with friends on Friday and a full day of work on Saturday, I left for O’Hare from work at 5:00PM for my 7:30 flight. In my messenger bag?

  • T-shirt and undergarments
  • Laptop and charger
  • Book: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • iPhone with a wide spectrum of TED videos

By 6:15 I’m in terminal 3 of ORD, ambling slowly towards the K gates and marveling at the grandiose holiday decorations. As an AA platinum member on an international itinerary I get free access to the Admiral’s Club, so I step in for a handful of pretzels and to pick up a complimentary Vitamin Water, then I’m at the gate five minutes before boarding.

Seat 21A on this Boeing 767 is part of the first exit row just right of the boarding door, and I’m joined by a nearly silent, middle aged man in the seat next to me. We push back right on time and I watch UP as I eat my dinner, then listen to This American Life until I fall asleep.

Frankfurt

Despite light flurries in Frankfurt we land on time in the German metropolis, dazed from a few short hours of sleep. With three hours before my return flight, there’s no time to go into the city (or leave the airport, for that matter,) but there’s plenty of time to explore the airport.

With no checked bags I vault through customs, the distracted passport control agent absentmindedly stamping my passport as I held it out to page J. He never even looked at the photo. And as I break out into the bright arrivals hall, the buzz of Frankfurt International Airport consumes me.

Time to check into the Admiral’s Club. Going up a few floors I randomly pick a direction and start walking, looking up at the massive departures board as I pass underneath. Oslo. Copenhagen. Mumbai. Chicago isn’t even on the list yet, but when I look down I happen to see the AA check in counter so I amble up.

“Is it too early to check in?”
“Nope,” the security agent smiles, “Where are you coming from?”
“Chicago.” She raises her eyebrows. “Needed the miles.”
“Oh, ok.”

Both veterans of the security question volley, we do the normal dance: Yes, I packed my bag this morning in Chicago. Yes, it’s been with me this whole time. No, I have no weapons. And then she points me to the ticket counter where I pick up my boarding pass and get directions to the Admiral’s Club.

In five more minutes I’m sitting in a leather chair above the departures hall, poking at a massive German pretzel and waiting for the shower queue to clear up. Between the lounge facilities and the in-terminal grocery store I spend the next hour cleaning and waking up, the products of which are a clean change of clothes, hot shower and two purchased containers of fried onions (great for hot dogs!)

Briefly before boarding, the lounging passengers in the Admiral’s Club are paged, and the slow return to the aircraft commences for our 2:30PM departure.

Return

Seat 21A is just as I left it, refusing to lock into its upright position and slightly uncomfortable. A new pillow and blanket have however been left for me which I unwrap, unfold and immediately proceed to fall asleep under.

8 hours goes pretty fast when you bring a fully charged laptop, research papers and videos along the way — and even faster when you sleep for most of it. Before I know it I’m passing back through the jetbridge and into the halls of O’Hare immigration, 30 minutes prior to my scheduled arrival of 5PM on Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security officer greets me with a nod as I approach his glass cubicle, and doesn’t even flinch when I tell him that I was on a mileage run. With a quick flick of his wrist he stamps my passport, then I pass straight through baggage claim and back into the open terminal, 22 hours and 8600 miles after I arrived.

Wrap up

So why don’t airlines just sell elite miles to passengers rather than making them fly in circles? They could sell the seat to a person who wants to travel and the mileage runner can stay at home and relax.

Partially because elite status needs to be earned. Any random exec shouldn’t be able to purchase the perks that many, loyal travelers spend weeks on the road cultivating. It’s a rite of passage, so to speak.

It also builds brand loyalty. When you scratch the airline’s back and spend thousands of dollars with them, the small tokens that they return to your mileage account make traveling that much easier. Everyone wins, in a way — it just takes a small amount of effort to get things started.

Ready to book your own run? Start with Gadling’s own guide to mileage running.