How To: Showcase of Flexible Points for Award Redemption (United Economy Transatlantic Flight)

When people are first starting with travel hacking, many assume that the initial learning curve of how to earn points will be the hard part. Which can take some time to wrap your head around how to maximize spend / sign up bonuses / different bank’s rules, etc. But you will quickly come to learn that the more difficult thing to learn/master is what comes next: when you go to use those points for award travel.

And as with all things in life, I promise that it does get easier as you do it more often. First set up accounts with all of the loyalty programs and then run lots of practice searches/award redemptions! And sometimes it can be useful to see how others do this – so let me walk you through how I went about booking a recent award flight.

REMEMBER THAT THIS IS YOUR JOURNEY

I wanted to start here because I know how discouraging that it can be when you are in Reddit forums or Facebook groups and people are quick to judge ie “that’s a terrible redemption” or “you should only use your points for XXX aka business class tickets”.

Seriously there’s nothing wrong with using points for an economy transatlantic ticket! I try to book business class for any flights over 5.5 hours because it is hell on my knee (compounded by the fact that I am short so most airline seats are really uncomfortable for me but now with a regressing knee, it causes me to be out for a day otherwise =/)

It’s interesting to many that my professional and personal personas are so different – in that I am very Type A/super organized/OCD when it comes to work and even writing on this blog. But when I travel, I am pretty spontaneous and impulsive…this trip was another example of how true that was. For a number of reasons, I decided to completely switch gears and went from planning a trip to Egypt to a holiday spent hunting the northern lights in Iceland – oh and this was about 6 days before I left!

FLIGHT NEEDED: DEN (Denver, CO, US) – KEF (Reykjavík, IS)

When you are planning a trip this last minute especially when traveling overseas, cash flights are prohibitively expensive. Icelandair does offer some great prices but only if you book ahead – cash price for a one way flight was running around $930 for my travel date!

One thing to note is that I had to be in some places on specific days which meant that I had to really narrow my search thus limiting choices. For example, I would have been able to fly business class to Iceland but I would have need to reposition to New York (meaning buy a separate ticket there) plus flying out on Sunday and not reaching Iceland until Tuesday. Unfortunately I had to be in Iceland by Monday for my booked activity.

This forced me to concentrate on flights from Denver and into Iceland. Another way to make it easier to book/find business class seats is to fly into somewhere else in Europe and then buy a cheap ticket to your final destination but note that this scenario also adds time to the flight part of your itinerary.

Which Leads Me to Flying with United Airlines (UA)

The combination of shortest flight times balanced with cost and in this case being able to use points/miles is why I have landed on flying with United. As you can see from above that this one way flight from DEN – KEF would be $762.42 in cash or I could use 40K miles and pay $7.20.

• Pluses for booking with United Airlines
  • Easy to change/cancel and without fees to do either
  • Low taxes/fees
  • United Award bookings (those made using UA Miles and flown on United planes/metal) do count towards status qualification
• Cons for booking with United Airlines
  • Highest number of miles/points needed
  • I don’t have this many points in my account so I would need to transfer (and only Bilt or Chase are partners and even though I have a lot, I still like to save those for Hyatt redemptions!)

Notice that some of the award flights have the phrase “Saver Award” listed which is very important in this case. First thing that indicates is that this is a lower (often the lowest) redemption value for an award flight and just as importantly, United only opens availability on these “Saver Award” flights to their partners.

Airline alliances were created to establish a global network/reach for partner airlines ie United passengers would be able to book flights through United to places that United does not fly directly to. From a consumer side, the pluses are that elite status privileges are recognized by partner airlines including benefits and lounge access. And one of the other ways that you benefit is when you are looking at award flights…let’s see how.

Airline Partnerships – United is Part of Star Alliance

This is one of my favorite beautiful tips for flight award redemptions: many times, the best value for booking an award flight is to NOT book directly with the airline’s own loyalty program. Crazy right? It’s true because every loyalty program calculates their own and their partner airlines award redemption differently!

So let’s check out this flight on other Star Alliance airlines and I can show you this in action.

Air Canada Award Redemption Options + Pros/Cons

I was able to find some of the saver award flights on Air Canada as you can see in the photos above.

• Pluses for booking with Air Canada
  • It would actually be less points for me as the points transferred in were when there was a 20% transfer bonus so really I would only be using 33,333 Chase points vs 40,000
  • PLUS I have a 5,000 Aeroplan miles certificate (a one time perk for holding the Chase Sapphire Reserve – here’s more on that but note it’s long expired to sign up)
• Cons for booking with Air Canada vs directly with United
  • $ Cash portion/taxes & fees is higher (90 CAD is ~$58 USD as Air Canada does charge a booking fee)
  • Cancelling a reward flight with Air Canada would be

Singapore Airlines (SQ) + Pros/Cons

One of the interesting things you will discover is that airlines don’t release all saver awards or even the same ones to partner airlines as we can see here – those two flights are the only options for United via SQ

• Pluses for booking with Singapore Airlines
  • Less points than booking with either United or Air Canada
  • I have 5,500 SQ miles that I need to use or pay to extend
  • I can transfer miles from Amex. CapitalOne and Citi in addition to Chase (I try to keep my Chase points to transfer to Hyatt)
• Cons for booking with Singapore Airlines vs directly with United
  • Very restrictive terms such as not being able to select seats
  • Again a cancellation fee vs booking directly with United

FLEXIBLE POINTS/CURRENCY

This would be a good time to talk about flexible points/currency credit cards. If you are familiar with travel reward credit cards, you probably know of the co-branded aka Chase issued United cards that allow you to earn United miles. And while there are many instances in which they may prove useful, I hope you can see from the above examples why you would want to consider getting a card that allows you to earn points that can be transfer to multiple travel partners.

AIRLINE: CREDIT CARD TRANSFER PARTNERS

These are the Credit Card Transfer partners plus some credit cards are currently offering great sign up bonuses that would allow you to transfer to Singapore Airlines

• AMEX Membership Rewards: 1:1 transfer ratio; transfers usually instant
  • American Express^® Gold Card, American Express^® Platinum Card, American Express^® Business Platinum Card
• Bilt Rewards: 1:1 transfer ratio; transfers nearly instant (within 10 minutes)
  • Bilt Credit Card – the card that allows you to pay your rent and earn points for travel! *Please note that in order for me to get credit for the referral, you must create your Bilt Rewards account and apply for the credit card through my link
• CapitalOne Miles: 1:1 transfer ratio; transfer usually instant
  • Capital One Venture  – there is currently an elevated sign up bonus, read this for all the details
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 1:1 transfer ratio; transfers usually instant
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred/Reserve : read why you should consider the Preferred card and here’s why even with the higher annual fee, the Sapphire Reserve might be the right card for you
  • Chase Business Ink Cards – read about the elevated bonuses for the two no-annual Ink cards (cash and unlimited) here
• Citi Points: 1:1 transfer ratio; transfers usually 12-48 hours

WHAT DID I CHOOSE?

Can you guess which one I went with?

It was a really easy choice to book via Singapore Airlines since I didn’t want the 5,500 miles to expire (or to pay to extend their validity!). Plus I was able to transfer over from Amex and save Bilt/Chase points for Hyatts. Note that the transfer was instant for me.

HOW DID MY FLIGHT GO?

It was honestly chaotic but that was more on choosing the short layover. There was some weather issues at ORD so we were delayed in leaving DEN and then had to deal with the ORD getting back up and running…as we sat on the tarmac waiting for clearance to get to the gate, I could literally see my plane. When the doors opened at the gate, I had 25 minutes to make my connection with a 13 minute walk but luckily there was another connecting flight/other passengers that we ended up waiting for so I was able to get on that flight.

I didn’t take any pictures of either flight or plane so no review for these flights.