The Best Way to Get to Israel with Reward Points and Miles
[This post contains credit card offers that may no longer be available.]
Anytime I hear someone talk about planning a trip to Israel, the first question I ask is, “Have you ever heard of Flying Blue?” With Flying Blue, you can get to Israel with some of the best redemptions you’ll find from any airline. What’s more, you can throw in an additional stopover to Europe at no extra cost! Here’s a breakdown of the best way to get to Israel with reward points and miles.
Here’s how many miles you will need to get to Israel
Economy: 50,000
Business Class: 125,000
These are pretty phenomenal rates, especially the economy rate.
Earning the Points
The first step to getting to Israel is earning the points you’ll need to get there. Luckily, Flying Blue is a transfer partner of three of the major rewards programs:
American Express Membership Rewards
Starwood Preferred Guests
Citi Thankyou Points
Thus, it’s very easy to accumulate miles for this program in a hurry if you need to. If you’re looking to rack up some points in a hurry, I’d recommend looking into the following cards:
Just getting one of those cards can earn you enough miles to cover your trip in economy and getting the bonuses from a couple of them can get you really close to having a business class ticket waiting to take you to Israel.
Redeeming Flying Blue miles to get from North America to Israel
The most valuable redemption Flying Blue has to offer is probably the 50,000 economy award to Israel. Now, you will still have to pay some fees and/or fuel surcharges to take advantage of this redemption but the value is still unbeatable.
Here’s what you’d pay flying Air France and KLM:
via Air France and KLM
You can get an even better bargain flying via partner airlines like Russian’s Aeroflot and Delta.
Via a combination of Aeroflot, Delta, and Air France
So how much value does this come out to if you were to compare it to paying cash for your airfare?
If you snagged a paid fare for the JFK to TLV flight you would pay $2,267.99, which means that a 50,000 redemption would come out to a value of approximately 4.2 cents per mile for this trip which is excellent and honestly a somewhat conservative valuation given how much those tickets can cost.
Furthermore, when compared to the rates of other rewards programs you see how much of a steal this 50,000 redemption award is.
Aeroplan: 80,000
American Airlines: 80,000
ANA Partner: 65,000 (high surcharges likely)
Delta: 70,000
United: 85,000
Compared to most other airlines, business class from JFK to TLV for 125,000 miles is a steal, too (ANA can’t really be beat by anyone with their routes to the Middle East).
Business class via Alitalia and Delta.
Compare:
Aeroplan: 165,000
American Airlines: 140,000
ANA Partner: 104,000 (high surcharges likely)
Delta: 170,000
United: 160,000
Adding a trip to Europe for free?
Flying Blue allows for one stopover and open jaw. This stopover can be on your inbound or outbound leg. Therefore, you hit Europe up either on your way to Israel or on your way back.
For example, your route might look like:
JFK -> CDG (Paris) [stopover]
CDG -> TLV
TLV -> JFK
Unfortunately, after calling in a few times I wasn’t able to see the exact amount of surcharges that I would incur for this flight but I imagine it couldn’t be much more than what shows for booking the legs individually.
See even more of Europe
Don’t forget that Flying Blue allows for one open jaw in your destination zone. Typically, you might be restricted to your destination zone for your open jaw. For example, since you’re arriving in the Middle East, you would be restricted to planning an open jaw in one of those countries.
However, somewhat inexplicably, Flying Blue includes Israel with its Europe region. That means you’re allowed to open jaw in places like London or Paris on your way back from Israel. Thus, you could hit up two spots in Europe in addition to the Middle East and only have to pay for a one way ticket to get to your European open jaw destination.
In this case your route might look like:
JFK -> TLV
TLV -> FCO [paid ticket]
FCO (Rome) [open jaw] -> CDG (Paris) [stopover]
CDG -> JFK
You would just have to take care of your leg from TLV to FCO but those flights can be as cheap as $166. This, in my opinion, is one of the cheapest ways to do Europe, let alone also get to the Middle East! Even when compared to airlines like ANA,which has some pretty unbelievably low redemptions to Europe and the Middle East, economy redemptions for Flying Blue are still more valuable with this itinerary!
So the take-a-way for me would be that with Flying Blue you can get to the Middle East and Europe for fewer miles than most airlines require just to make it to Europe! If you’re thinking about taking a trip to Israel, Flying Blue is definitely one of the best ways to go!
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Guide to Flying Blue Award Flights
Flying Blue has some stand-out redemptions that you definitely need to know about. If you’re okay with flying economy, Flying Blue can present you with some tremendous value when going abroad to places, such as Israel, Africa, South America, and several tropical areas. Here’s what you need to know about how to make smart redemptions with Flying Blue Award Flights.
What is Flying Blue?
Figuring out Flying Blue can be a little confusing for starters. When I first got into the game I wasn’t sure what is was. An airline? An alias for KLM and/or Air France? An alliance?
First, do not get Flying Blue mixed up with jetBlue — they are two entirely separate entities! This mistake has definitely happened to people before so make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
Flying Blue is not the same as jetBlue!
Flying Blue is actually the frequent flyer program for several airlines. Most notably, it’s the frequent flyer program for KLM and Air France but it also includes:
Air Europa
Aircalin
HOP!
Kenya Airways
TAROM
TwinJet
Air Europa, Kenya Airways, and TAROM are part of the SkyTeam alliance and the other airlines are mostly smaller, regional airlines. Flying Blue is thus represented in the SkyTeam Alliance, which consists of the following airlines:
The SkyTeam Alliance
In addition, Flying Blue has many non-alliance partners. Here’s the complete list of those partners with a brief description of where those partners serve for your future reference.
Air Corsica – flights between Corsica and numerous destinations in France and between Corsica and Rome and Venice in Italy.
Air Mauritius – offers flights to and from Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa.
Alaska Airlines – offers low airfares on all airline tickets to destinations throughout the United States, western Canada and Mexico, and is a great option for Hawaii.
Bangkok Airways – flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport to places such as Samui, Phuket, Trat (Koh Chang) and the Maldive Islands.
Chalair Aviation – Has a network of domestic regular lines in France.
Comair – South Africa’s longest operating airline after the national carrier; cooperates with two brands: British Airways and the low-fare kulula.com.
Copa Airlines – Offers flights through South America
Czech Airlines – Operates from the Czech capital, Prague, and flies to most European capitals and major North American destinations.
GOL – offers extensive and convenient routes in South America and the Caribbean
Japan Airlines – one of the largest airlines in the Asia-Pacific region
Jet Airways – India’s premier international airline – flies to India, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Gulf.
Malaysia Airlines – one of Asia’s largest carriers.
Middle East Airlines – the national carrier of Lebanon.
TAAG – Angola’s national flag carrier, operating long-haul and domestic flights.
Transavia – a low-cost airline that offers charter flights and scheduled flights to summer and winter holiday destinations, mainly in Europe and the Mediterranean.
Ukraine International Airlines – Ukraine’s leading airline
As you can see, Flying Blue has a broad partner network, which is one of the reasons why finding routes all over the globe is fairly easy for Flying Blue.
How to get Flying Blue Miles
Flying Blue is a transfer partner of four of the major rewards programs:
There are three different rates that Flying Blue charges for their award tickets
Flex – These offer you the most flexibility, hence their name. You can change them without cost and they often have more availability. The issue is that they usually cost two to three times more than Classic awards to redeem.
Classic – These are the standard award fares and while fairly consistent, they can vary depending on certain factors.
Promo rates – These are offered temporarily and can reduce the redemption rates from 25 to 50%. Some of them can be absolute steals if the timing is right for you.
Some other policies to be aware of:
International first class airfare is only available with Flex awards and is only available to Flying Blue members with elite status. Thus, those amazing new Air France first class cabins are not available to newcomers.
Unless you book a Flex award, you must pay €45 to cancel your tickets.
The promo deals are announced at the beginning of each month and usually apply to travel a couple of months out. Keep a constant eye on the Flying Blue promo page for the best deals, like 50% off to Europe! Most of the deals are for economy fares, which is another reason why I feel this program is well-suited for those who don’t mind economy.
Zones
Flying Blue does not release a full reward chart. Because of that, I ultimately suggest just playing around with the Flying Blue mileage calculator to figure out mile requirements. However, if you want to get a general idea on the different zones, see below:
Middle East, Central Asia, Central Russia
North America, Netherlands Antilles, Mexico
Central America, Caribbean, Hawaii, Bermuda
Africa 1 (Central, East & West Africa)
Africa 2 (South Africa, Indian Ocean)
Indian subcontinent
Latin America 1 (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela)
Latin America 2 (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay)
Asia 1 (China, South Korea, Japan, East Russia, Mongolia)
Asia 2 (Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwain, Thailand)
Pacific 1 (New Caledonia, French Polynesia)
Pacific 2 (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Guam)
Europe is a bit confusing. It is apparently divided into three zones and one zone includes countries from Africa and even one from the Middle East:
Europe 1
Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg
Europe 2
Austria, Denmark, Spain, Balearic Islands, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Sweden
The redemptions rates will change as you depart and enter different zones of Europe, so again, play around with the mileage calculator to figure out what your requirements will be.
Stopovers and open jaws
Allowed an open jaw on your destination so long as you remain in the destination zone
Allowed one stopover (you must book over the phone)
Stopover must be different from country of departure
Maximum of three segments allowed to get to destination
Fuel Surcharges
Flying Blue bookings often do incur fuel surcharges. To give you an example of the kind you can expect, take a look at this sample booking from New York to Paris (JFK -> CDG) with Air France.
Business Class
This business class route with Air France requires $575 in total fees!
Air France charges $575 in total fees
But take a look at the same route but flying Delta instead… only $164 in total fees.
Delta charges $164 in total fees
That’s a $411 difference.
Now, maybe you’d much prefer business class in Air France over Delta so it would be worth the extra fees to you, but if you’re being very price conscious, you may want to go with the better deal.
Economy
The total fees for economy are much more reasonable across the board but again, you’ll usually save booking with Delta.
Delta charges about $120 in total fees for economy bookingsAir France/KLM charges about $225 in total fees for economy bookings
As you can see the total fees are twice the price when you book KLM/Air France.
So I’d recommend finding Delta availability or some other partner airline if you’re wanting to avoid large fees.
Same fees, different redemption rates?
Another thing to keep your eye on when booking is the different redemption rates. Take a look at the image below. Both of the flights are direct flights from JFK to CDG and on the same type of aircraft. Yet, one requires an additional 10,000 miles!
Make sure you seek out the lowest fares when redeeming
Sometimes you’ll see a lot of different redemption rates for a route that vary drastically but sometimes there’s a cheap award that’s a bit of hidden. The green “Lowest fare” tab should help you not to miss these low fares, however.
Always look for the green!
Flying Blue sweet spots
I tend to focus on business class when searching for sweet spots, but I think that most of valuable sweet spots with Flying Blue are with economy seats. Here’s a rundown of what are some of the most valuable redemptions for Flying Blue.
Probably the most valuable redemption Flying Blue has to offer is the 50,000 economy award to Israel.
This rate kind of stumps me as to how it make sense but it is absolutely a bargain! At 50,000 miles, that means with one credit card sign-up bonus from a card like the American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card, you could accumulate enough points to take you round trip all the way to the Middle East! Pretty wild.
Here’s what you’d pay flying Air France and KLM:
via Air France and KLM
You can get an even better bargain flying via partner airlines like Russian’s Aeroflot and Delta.
Via a combination of Aeroflot, Delta, and Air France
If you snagged the cheapest paid fare for the JFK to TLV flight you would pay $2,267.99, which means that a 50,000 redemption would come out to a value of approximately 4.2 cents per mile for this trip which is excellent and honestly a somewhat conservative valuation given how much those tickets can cost.
Furthermore, when compared to the rates of other rewards programs you see how much of a steal this award is.
Aeroplan: 80,000
American Airlines: 80,000
ANA Partner: 65,000 (high surcharges likely)
Delta: 70,000
United: 85,000
Compared to most other airlines, business class to TLV is a steal, too (ANA can’t really be beat by anyone with their routes to the Middle East).
Business class via Alitalia and Delta.
Compare:
Aeroplan: 165,000
American Airlines: 140,000
ANA Partner: 104,000 (high surcharges likely)
Delta: 170,000
United: 160,000
Remember, other African countries fall into the same Europe category, so tickets from North America to Algeria, Libya, Morroco, and Tunisia, should all also fall into the same 50,000 redemption rate. For example, New York to Casablanca, Morocco, would also go for 50,000 miles as seen below.
Flying via Delta and Alitalia
Combining Middle East/North Africa locations with Europe?
Combining a trip to Europe with Israel/North Africa is a great way to maximize value with Flying Blue. By combining these destinations, you can get to Europe and the Middle East for a mere 50,000 points!
Since Flying Blue includes Israel with its Europe region, you’re allowed to open jaw or stopover anywhere in Europe on your way back from Israel (or vice versa). Thus, you could hit up two spots in Europe in addition to the Middle East and only have to pay for a one way ticket to get to your European open jaw destination.
In this case your route might look like:
JFK -> TLV
TLV -> FCO [paid ticket]
FCO (Rome) [open jaw] -> CDG (Paris) [stopover]
CDG -> JFK
(This could also be done backwards where your destination and stopover are somewhere in Europe but your open jaw inbound departure is in Israel.)
This means you would only have to pay out of pocket to get a one way ticket from TLV to somewhere in Europe or vice versa. My suggestion would be to not use points to book this flight because one way trips can easily be under $200. If you did use points, chances are your redemption value would be sub-par.
2) North America to Mexico, Netherlands Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, etc.) and the U.S. Virgin Islands
I don’t know of any other program that lumps all of these countries and territories together but this is another sweet spot because it will only cost you 25,000 miles for a round trip to these destinations with Flying Blue.
Getting to Cancun Via Delta and Aeromexico
Compare:
Aeroplan: 40,000
American Airlines: 30,000
ANA Partner: 30,000
Delta: 35,000
United: 35,000
Getting to Aruba Via Delta
Compare:
Aeroplan: 40,000
American Airlines: 30,000
ANA Partner: 55,000
Delta: 55,000
United: 35,000
Getting to Bonaire via Delta
Note: finding availability at these low rates for some of these destinations like the Netherlands Antilles can be a little difficult so search far ahead of your booking date if possible. And don’t forget, Southwest Airlines is a contender for many of these destinations now.
Getting to Hawaii via Flying Blue is pretty easy and I found a lot of availability when I ran a lot of searches.
Only 30,000 miles and $5 via Delta!
Compare:
(I added other competitive airline programs that I know offer great deals to Hawaii in economy.)
Aeroplan: 45,000
American Airlines: 45,000
British Airways Avios: 25,000 Avios from the West Coast
ANA Partner: 40,000
Delta: 45,000
Korean Airlines: 25,000 miles
United: 45,000
Singapore Airlines: 35,000
30,000 miles to Hawaii is very competitive compared to most airlines and would be a great redemption if you couldn’t take advantage of any of the better deals.
4) North America to South America
The required mileage to South America 1 is 35,000 and for South America 2 it’s 50,000. Both of these redemptions are among the best for economy.
35,000 miles to South America 1
Compare:
Aeroplan: 60,000
American Airlines: 35,000
ANA Partner: 55,000
Delta: 60,000
United: 40,000
American Airlines ties but they don’t even allow stopovers.
50,000 miles to South America 2
Compare:
Aeroplan: 60,000
American Airlines: 60,000
ANA Partner: 55,000
Delta: 60,000
United: 60,000
Even going to South America 2 is one of the best redemptions in economy. Unfortunately, I had some trouble finding the bargain rates for places like Rio but with enough patience you could probably get lucky.
Flying Blue has some very valuable redemptions, as unexplainable as some of them are. If you’re heading to Israel, this should be your top choice. And even if you’re heading out to Mexico, Hawaii, South America, or some tropical locations, Flying Blue might be a solid option for you.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Guide to Booking Award Flights with ANA
The reward program for ANA has some very valuable sweet spots for both economy and business class redemptions to pretty much every corner of the globe. In addition, it’s pretty easy to rack up ANA miles from transfer partners making it a solid option for redemptions. However, the booking rules can be a bit confusing to comprehend. Here’s a guide for booking flights with both ANA and ANA partner airlines with ANA miles.
Star Alliance
ANA is a member of the Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance out of the big three (One World, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam). This means that you can use your ANA miles to fly on any of these other airlines (subject to availability).
The trick is to find availability for seats that can be booked with Star Alliance partners. The good news is that ANA is one of the best sites to perform searches for Star Alliance partner availability. Read about how to find Star Alliance availability here.
ANA Partners
ANA also has several non Star Alliance partners that you can book with.
ANA non-alliance partners
How to Get ANA miles from credit cards
Aeroplan is a transfer partner of two major reward programs:
There’s also the ANA Card USA. It has an annual fee of $70 and offers 5,000 miles upon your first purchase. This abysmal sign-up bonus should be a last resort and I would only consider it if you just had to have the 5,000 miles and had exhausted all opportunities with American Express.
Unique program policies
ANA has a few unique program policies. For example:
You can pool points with other family members but they must be registered and you must “apply” while paying for the application fee with 1,000 ANA miles
You can put reservations on hold for 24 to 48 hours by calling in (although YMMV)
Cancellations cost 3,000 ANA miles per person
In addition to these unique policies, there are several other booking policies. I don’t wont to bog down readers with all of them, so here are some of the important ones:
You must begin your trip within one year of ticket issuance
You can apply from 9:00 a.m. (Japan time) of 355 days before your boarding day (not including the date of departure) until 96 hours before departure.
You are able to change the boarding date or flight up to 24 hours before departure.
The name of the passenger, and the name of the individual supplying the miles cannot be changed.
The airline, passenger, sector, and route cannot be changed. (However, in certain cases where both ANA and Air Japan operate flights over the same sector, passengers may switch between the 2 airlines.)
ANA definitely implements some unique booking policies
Fuel surcharges
You are almost always going to incur fuel surcharges when using ANA miles to book award flights. However, United Airlines is an exception, and thus can be a very valuable partner to redeem miles with. Air Canada and Air New Zealand are also great partners to use to avoid or mitigate charges.
The surcharges imposed by ANA aren’t the highest in the industry and many can be quite reasonable, but they are often pretty much impossible to avoid unless you book United Airline/Air Canada flights. For a closer look on fuel surcharges, keep reading further.
Stopovers and Open Jaws
The rules section for “transfer partners” on ANA’s website is a little unclear but after playing around with bookings on the website and calling in to verify, I realized that the below rules apply to both ANA bookings and bookings with Star Alliance partners
1) One stopover is allowed on either leg
2) One open jaw is allowed subject to the following rules:
When the point of departure and final point of destination differ, both locations must be within the same country.
This means you can fly out of Chicago and come back to Houston, for example. (Confusingly, many regions like Europe and the U.S./Canada are considered one “country.”)
If the destination of your outbound trip and the point of departure of your inbound trip are different, they must be within the same area.
This is what confused me because they use the term “area” versus “zone” and then they provide a small chart that doesn’t completely describe the areas. (See the chart below.) Thus, if you’re wanting to explore options for open jaw for inbound flights, I suggest experimenting with the website or calling in to see if the destination of your outbound trip and point of departure of your inbound trip fall within the same “area.”
November 25, 2016 update: the website is clearer on this point now.
For zones in which the destination of your outbound trip and the point of departure of your inbound trip are different, the required number of miles will be calculated by halving the required number of miles for each zone and adding them together.
The stopover can be combined with the open jaw rules for pretty flexible routing that can somewhat make up for the lack of one way redemptions in some cases. For example, I was able to book the following on the website:
Outbound trip:
IAD -> LHR [stopover] -> CDG
Inbound trip:
LHR [open jaw]-> IAH [open jaw]
I called in just to make sure that this was a valid booking and didn’t get a 100% yes — it was more like, “we are pretty sure you can do that but the only way we can tell you for sure is if you transfer miles to ANA…” Thus, while this route should work according to the rules above, I’d always try to double check with ANA before planning on such a booking.
ANA sweet spots
ANA has several sweets spots that are worth mentioning.
Here’s a summary of the sweet spots for ANA:
North America to Europe
Business class: 88,000 miles
Economy: 55,000 miles
North America to South America
Business class: 88,000 miles
Economy: 55,000 miles
North America to Africa and the Middle East
Business class: 104,000 miles
Economy: 65,000 miles
North America to Japan
Business class: 75,000 miles
Economy: 40,000 miles
North America to Asia 1
Business class: 80,000 miles
Economy: 45,000 miles
Keep reading below to see details on booking these sweet spots and to see how much you would pay on fees.
North America to Europe
ANA offers one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to get to Europe with award bookings. Take a look at the award chart below.
Notice the sweet spot from North America:
88,000 in business class
Compare that to the following
Aeroplan: 110,000 miles
American Airlines: 115,000
Delta: 125,000
United: 115,000 miles (140,000 miles if booked with alliance partner)
Here’s a real world example of a flight between IAD and LHR. First, you can see how much this trip would cost on United’s website.
United offers flights from North America to Europe for 115,000 miles but only if you fly with United. Partner airlines require 140,000 miles!
So you’d be looking at 115,000 miles assuming you were able to find United availability. If you booked the same trip on another partner airline, you’d be looking at 140,000 miles!
Now, take a look below at how much this same flight would cost with ANA miles.
ANA requires only 88,000 miles and $183.70 to fly business class roundtrip to London from North America
88,000 miles plus $183.70 in fees to fly business class from North America to Europe is an absolute bargain, espcially given the product level of ANA.
And the deal is even sweeter when you book with Air Canada because the fees go down to $68!
But remember, those low fees are with flying United and Air Canada. Here is an example of what you’re looking at if you can’t get around the fuel surcharges
North America to Europe with TAP Portugal requires $613 in feesNorth America to Europe with Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa requires $497 in fees
As you can see, the fuel surcharges can be pretty hefty and so I’d try my best to find availability on a United or Air Canada flight to avoid the charges.
Getting more value with stopovers
Now let’s say you wanted to add a bit more value to the prior trip from D.C. to London by making London a stopover en route to Paris, and let’s just throw in an open jaw back to Houston so you can see how it works.
So this flight path is going to look like this:
IAD -> LHR [stopover] -> CDG
CDG -> IAH [open jaw]
This route is legal because it has one stopover in the zone of your destination [CDG in Europe] and you are returning to the same zone of your departure [United States and Canada]. (You could also make your second leg depart from anywhere within the same “area.”)
So let’s see how much more we’d pay in fees.
So that’s $155 more in fees to get the extra addition of Paris to your London trip.
If you searched long enough you could probably find better stop over deals than this but I noticed that a lot of the stopovers in Europe would incur pretty significant fees. For a true budget flyer, it might make more sense to just buy a one-way ticket on a budget airliner to your desired stopover location and then open jaw back from there to North America.
For example you could do:
IAD -> LHR
London -> Paris [with budget airline]
CDG [open jaw] -> IAD
And finally, don’t forget about economy flights from North America to Europe… at only 55,000 miles, that’s not a bad deal at all.
Therefore, ANA is one of the best options for getting to Europe from North America!
North America to South America
Getting to South America can be a lucrative way to redeem ANA miles, too. In fact, with the potential for lower surcharges, I’d argue there’s even better value in flying to South America than to Europe in business class. For example, Houston to Rio De Janerio is only 88,000 miles in business class and the fees are only $62!
Here are the miles required by other airlines or this route.
Aeroplan: 110,000 miles
American Airlines: 115,000 miles
Delta: 150,000 miles
United: 110,000 miles
88,000 miles and $62.24 for North America to Brazil in business class!
Getting more value with stopovers
Let’s say you were planning a larger scale trip to South America where you wanted to see Rio de Janerio, Santiago Chile (and maybe take a flight to Easter Island), and Lima, Peru (and take a short flight to Cusco to get to Machu Picchu).
For the same amount of 88,000 miles you could get to Rio de Janerio, Santiago, Chile, and Lima, Peru. You’d still have to cover your tickets from Rio to Santiago, Easter Island, and Cusco, but having everything else worked out with business class tickets for only 88,000 miles would be great.
A sample flight path would like this:
Outbound: IAH – YYZ -> GIG
Inbound: SCL[open jaw] -> LIM [stopover] -> IAH
This is all legal because your inbound leg departs from the same area (SCL in South America) as the destination of your outbound leg (GIG in South America) and you only have one stopover on your route (LIM which is also in the area of your destination).
The best part of this routing is that your fees would only come out to $101.25.
Take a look at what this itinerary looks like booked on the ANA website. Again, when I called in to verify this route I got the same “we’re 99% confident you can book this route but you’ll need to transfer your miles to ANA for us be sure.”
Note: you could probably find better routings not flying through Canada but I just wanted to show how much value you could get from 88,000 miles!
Total fees number to only $101.25!
Also, economy awards from North America to South America can really be bargains at only 55,000 round trip!
North America to Africa and the Middle East
104,000 in business class to Africa and the Middle East in business class is another bargain, in my opinion. Availability might sometimes be an issue, especially without the added flexibility of one way awards but being able to get to places like South Africa and Dubai in business class for 104,000 miles round trip is pretty phenomenal.
Aeroplan: 165,000
American Airlines: 140,000
Delta: 170,000
United: 140,000 (160,000 on partners)
Just keep an eye out for those surcharges, as you can see on the routes below they can be quite pricey. (Partner Etihad is known for having little to no surcharges, so seek availability with them.)
$498 in fees with Turkish Airlines$593 in fees with Ethiopian Airlines
Also, economy awards from North America to Africa and the Middle East can really be bargains at only 65,000 round trip!
Getting more value with stopovers
Don’t forget that Africa and the Middle East are part of the same zone (Zone 8). That means you would be able to combine a trip to the Middle East with your trip to South Africa. I struggled to find some availability for this trip so I wasn’t able to price out the fees but with enough time and willingness you could probably secure this route for a mere 104,000 miles.
Partner Restrictions
There are some restrictions when booking with certain partners that you should be aware of:
Even if your itinerary includes ANA flights, the Chart of miles required for Partner Flight Awards will apply if the itinerary includes even one flight partner airline.
Flight award passengers cannot use Suite Class, First Class and Business Class on certain aircraft flown by Singapore Airlines (A380, A380 and B777-300ER).
Flight awards for Hawaiian Airlines flights can only be used only be used for flights within the Hawaiian islands.
When you book directly with ANA you are subject to different rules. They operate with a different map and on a seasonal basis.
They have low season, regular season, and high season, which change for different years. Take a look at the season chart for North America/Europe and Japan.
There are some real sweet spots for getting to Japan and Asia 1 (China, Guam, Hong Kong, Macau, Philippine, Taiwan).
The following rates apply during low season:
North America to Japan
Business class: 75,000 miles
Economy: 40,000 miles
North America to Asia 1
Business class: 80,000 miles
Economy: 45,000 miles
The drawback is that you’re going to have to pay fuel surcharges for ANA flights. The good news is that they really aren’t that bad. In fact, as you can see below, the total fees for flying ANA from North America to Japan are actually cheaper than those including a United flight!
Since there is one partner leg on this trip, the partner rate of 90,000 miles applyOnly 75,000 miles and $85 in fees for round trip business class to Japan is great!
Remember, that while one stop over is allowed on ANA flights, no stopovers can be made for flights departing from Japan.
Final Word
So there you have it, ANA is one of the most valuable transfer partners of American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood and should definitely be considered an option if you’re planning a trip from North America to any of the zones discussed above.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Guide to Booking Flights with Aeroplan Miles
After several disappointing (and quite drastic) devaluations over the past few years, Aeroplan miles aren’t quite the valuable currency they once were. However, there are still some valuable perks and ways for you to redeem Aeroplan miles that surpass other airlines. This article will highlight some of the most valuable ways to use Aeroplan miles when booking trips.
Star Alliance
Aeroplan (Air Canada) is a member of the Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance out of the big three (One World, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam). This means that you can use your Aeroplan miles to fly on these other airlines (subject to availability).
The trick is to find availability for seats that can be booked with Star Alliance partners. The good news is that Aeroplan has one of, if not the best, websites to perform searches for Star Alliance partner availability. Read about how to find Star Alliance availability here.
How to Get Aeroplan miles from credit cards
Aeroplan is a transfer partner of two major reward programs:
I personally value the transferability to Aeroplan because I live near a United Airlines hub and fly them often. United transfers at a 2:1 ratio from SPG and is not a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, so I originally thought I was out of luck. However, because I can book United flights with Aeroplan (sometimes with far fewer miles as shown below), I really value the transfer potential here.
There’s also the TD Aeroplan Visa, which offers a 25,000 mile sign-up bonus. You get the 25,000 miles with only $1,000 in spend within the first 3 months of account opening and the $95 annual fee is waived the first year so it’s not a bad deal.
These three options make it pretty easy to accumulate miles for Aeroplan and can make life a lot easier for folks who rely on United Airlines for reward seats.
Avoid costly fuel surcharges
The first thing to look at when redeeming Aeroplan miles is avoiding fuel surcharges. These fees can put a huge dent in your wallet and really take away from your savings.
For example, take a look at the next two flights below.
Notice anything different?
There’s a huge difference in the price. It’s a difference of $190 USD vs $834 USD due to fuel surcharges, so always do your best to book with a partner that does not incur fuel surcharges when booking with Aeroplan.
The following airlines do not carry surcharges when you book them through Aeroplan:
Air China
Brussels
EgyptAir
Ethiopian
EVA Air
Scandinavian
Singapore
Swiss
Turkish
United
LOT (has small surcharges)*
Stopovers and Open Jaws
Aeroplan is one of the rewards programs that allow for stopovers and open jaws and they are pretty generous with those. If you’re unfamiliar with these concepts, I suggest reading up on maximizing open jaw and stop overs. In short, stopovers allow you to break up a route so that you can spend time somewhere on your way to your destination. So if you are flying from Chicago to Paris, you could stop over in Geneva en route to Paris.
Open jaws on the other hand allow you to return or depart from from a different destination. So, for example, you could fly from Chicago to Paris and then have your return route be London to Chicago. You would be responsible for getting from Paris to London, however.
Stop overs and open jaws can get a little complex but they can add significant value to your redemptions, essentially offering you free one-way flights.
Air Canada has very generous open jaw and stop over rules.
So here’s a breakdown of the Aeroplan rules on stop overs and open jaws.
On roundtrip rewards, stopovers are permitted as follows:
Travel within Canada or between Canada and the Continental USA (not including Hawaii/Puerto Rico):
One stopover permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of the one stopover.
Between Canada/Cont. USA and Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Mexico/Central America/Caribbean:
Rule for rewards containing only Air Canada flight: Two stopovers are permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of one stopover.
Rule for rewards containing a minimum of one flight on a Star Alliance partner other than Air Canada: One stopover is permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in addition to the one stopover.
Intercontinental travel (travel between two continents):
Two stopovers permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of one of the two stopovers.
Intracontinental travel (travel within the same continent) except for travel within Canada/Continental USA, or between Canada/Cont. USA and Hawaii/Puerto Rico/Mexico/Central America/Caribbean:
Stopovers are not permitted. One open jaw is permitted.
North America to Europe
Aeroplan is one of the best ways to get to Europe from North America. Photo by Daniel Gillaspia
I think the best way to utilize Aeroplan miles right now is to book flights from North America to Europe. For Aeroplan, Europe is divided into two regions (Europe 1 and Europe 2). I’ll use a booking to a country found in Europe 1 as an example of how lucrative these redemptions can be.
Europe 1 consists of the following countries:
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
The United Kingdom
Let’s say you want to go from Chicago to Paris in business class on Swiss Airlines. This trip will require 110,000 Aeroplan miles. Compare this with the miles required when booking with other airlines:
United: 140,000 miles (with alliance partners)
American Airlines: 115,000 miles (no stop overs)
Delta: 125,000 miles (no stop overs)
As you can see, it’s a great deal but the deal gets even better. That’s because on international flights, Aeroplan allows:
“Two stopovers permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of one of the two stopovers.”
In this case, the “point of turnaround” would be Paris and so you’d be able to book two additional destinations with this itinerary, free of charge. I’ll show you how it would work.
Let’s say you wanted to visit Geneva, Switzerland and Brussels, Belgium in addition to your destination: Paris France. Your trip would look like this:
Chicago (ORD) -> Geneva (GVA) [stopover] -> Paris (CDG)
Paris (CDG) -> Brussels (BRU) [stopover] -> Chicago (ORD)
In order to find availability for this route, I would suggest researching on Aeroplan’s website, segment by segment to that you can find the best flights available and then call in to book them. Below are the steps I recently took to search for the above trip, segment by segment.
Here’s the first leg, from Chicago to Geneva.
The second leg from Geneva to Paris…
Now you want to head from Paris to Brussels…
And finally, it’s time to go home again to Chi-Town.
So let’s breakdown how much you’d spend if you booked these reward flights separately.
You would have spent 155,000 miles, or 45,000 more miles for these flights if you did not utilize the stopovers! Instead, you’re only using 110,000 miles to see three countries in business class for a grand total of ~$175 USD in fees — pretty remarkable value in my opinion.
And let’s see how much you would be paying in cash for these same flights.
Chicago (ORD) -> Geneva (GVA): $7,617
Geneva (GVA) -> Paris (CDG): $430
Paris (CDG) -> Brussels (BRU): $603
Brussels (BRU) -> Chicago (ORD): $3,025
The total cash price of these flights is $11,675.
Subtract the taxes and fees and you come out to $11,500 USD worth of value. The cents per mile value for your 110,000 redemption thus comes out to 10.45 cents per mile. That is a great redemption rate!
Many people value Membership Rewards at around 2 cents per point so if you transferred Membership Rewards to Aeroplan for this redemption you arguably more than quintuple the value of your points!
One way awards
With Aeroplan you can book one way rewards for 50% of the value as a round trip reward. Don’t get confused if you come across articles stating you need to be traveling to or from North America to book a one-way reward ticket — that rule was changed recently in December 2015. Now, you can book one-way rewards for 50% of the value of a round-trip ticket from anywhere in the globe.
No stop overs on one way flights
Aeroplan does not allow stopovers on oneway flights. From their rules:
“Stopovers are not permitted on one-way flight rewards.”
Lap-child fares
Aeroplan is known for having some of the best lap-child fares. Basically if you’re going to be flying with an infant on an international flight, you’ll incur the following expenses:
Economy Class – $50 or 5,000 Aeroplan Miles
Premium Economy Class – $75 or 7,500 Aeroplan Miles
Business Class – $100 or 10,000 Aeroplan Miles
First Class – $125 or 12,500 Aeroplan Miles
These are some of the best rates that you will come across, so if you’re going to be traveling with a little one then definitely consider Aeroplan.
Cancellation fees
The cancellation fees are pretty reasonable for Areoplan. If you cancel a booking 22 days before departure, you pay $90 and get your fees refunded and points redeposited to do as you please with them. If you cancel within 22 days of your departure, you must use those points within one year of booking on a single reservation, or you lose those miles.
For example, let’s say you have a flight booked for next week and you cancel it today. You will then have one year from the time of booking to use those 110,000 miles. But if you use that credit for a 60,000 mile redemption, you lose out on 50,000 miles so be careful. Also, if you cancel within 22 days of your departure, you won’t be charged the $90 fee until you rebook your flight.
Phone service
Aeroplan has some of the best customer service phone representatives that can make finding your flights much easier. Sometimes the reps might even be able to find you flights that weren’t showing up on the Aeroplan website. Unfortunately, they charge you a $30 fee for booking over the phone and it’s very rare for them to ever waive the fee. But considering the level of service and potential savings you might come across, the $30 fee isn’t that big of a deal.
RTW options
I’ll have to reserve another post to discuss the RTW (round the world) options at length but Aeroplan is known for having some valuable “round the world” redemptions due to their stop over and open jaw policies. To read more about booking a RTW trip with Aerplan check here.
Overall, don’t discount Aeroplan, especially if you’re interested in getting to Europe from North America with a couple of stopovers, because that redemption value is definitely among the best!
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
How to Find Star Alliance Reward Availability
The Star Alliance is the largest of the three major airlines alliances (Star Alliance, Sky Team, and One World). If you’re not unfamiliar with airline alliances, they are programs that allow you to book tickets on partner airlines with miles from another program. So, just as one example of many, the Star Alliance allows you to book United flights with Singapore Airline miles.
One of the biggest issues with booking alliance partners is finding availability, avoiding surcharges, and knowing how to execute the booking. This article will focus on finding Star Alliance reward availability but will shed a little bit of light on the other two factors.
List of Star Alliance Partners
It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with all of the different Star Alliance partners right off the bat. Here’s a list of all of them to date.
As you can see, there are 27 different airlines that make up this alliance. That means that for each airline, you could potentially book up to 26 different airlines with their miles. With so many options, searching for availability might sound overwhelming.
The good news is that you can pretty much find all of the Star Alliance availability by just focusing your searches on a few websites. These are the the websites for: United, ANA, and Aeroplan (Air Canada), and Singapore Airlines. After reviewing these websites, you should have a thorough idea of the different routes you can book.
Searching United Airlines
Photo by Christian Junker
United’s website is one of the best to use for a few reasons. For one, I think it’s pretty simple and the layout will show you a full two months of availability for all classes. This is far superior to those sites that force you to look at one day at a time, or even sometimes one day and on air fare at a time. It’s also easy because United doesn’t even require you to have a MileagePlus account and to log in to view reward seats.
To get started, simply go to the United website and begin your search. Be sure to select “Search for award travel” to ensure that you’ll be pulling up results for awards. On United’s site, you can search for one-way, round trip, and multi-city trips.
When searching on United’s website you will be looking for “Saver Awards.” These are going to be the only potential seats that you will be able to book with alliance partners. You’ll easily see “Saver” listed for business and first class seats but pay close attention to the economy seats because the “Saver” designation is in a different area and in green.
United has a nice color system that makes viewing these at quick glance pretty easy.
As you can see, United provides an easy way to view the availability for each class of Saver Award over a time span of two months. Don’t forget to check the white boxes for availability that “may” be there.
If there are multiple legs, be sure to double check that each leg of the trip is the kind of class that you want to fly. If the class is different for different legs you should see the red “mixed cabin” as seen in the image below.
57.5K United miles for a one way flight to London from Houston
To get more details regarding the class fare, simply click on the “Details” icon and full details will drop down on the flight. As seen below, you can see everything from the types of meals offered, the class for each leg, the exact flight time, which airline operates which leg, etc.
As you scroll through the different flights, you’ll see the airlines noted right beneath the departure and arrival times and locations. As seen below, the flight is operated by Air Canada, a Star Alliance partner.
Multiple legs
I don’t ever have trouble finding reward flights with two legs but some people have trouble finding flights on United’s website with three or more segments. I’ve been able to find 3 segment rewards flights a number of times on United’s website, so it might just depend on the route. However, it’s never a bad idea to search for your flight leg-by-leg, just in case you might be missing out on something.
Important reminder: If you hold a United Mileage Plus Explorer Card or have status with United there’s a chance that you might see more reward availability than is actually available to other alliance partners. To ensure that you aren’t viewing increased availability, do not log in to your MileagePlus account when searching, or better yet, search the United website while browsing from Google Chrome Incognito or a similar private browser.
In addition, be on the lookout for “phantom reward” space, which are reward spaces that show up on a website but actually are not available to you. This happened to me recently when I tried to book United saver awards with Singapore Airlines. I called up Singapore Airlines about 4 times but each time they told me there was no availability. After I checked ANA, I saw that there was no availability and realized I must’ve seen the dreaded phantom rewards.
Searching ANA (All Nippon Airways)
Photo by Christian Junker
Unlike United, ANA requires you to have a rewards account with them before viewing reward availability. So first make sure that you sign up for their program. Their “application” appears a bit more daunting than any other frequent flier program I’ve encountered and they even have signage on their website as if you were applying for a credit card and were going to get a hard pull on your credit. But don’t worry, it’s nothing serious, just your standard contact information.
To get started on searching for rewards on ANA, make sure you select “Award Booking” in the bottom right corner when you input your search criteria.
No one-way flights
The functionality of the search tool isn’t bad but note that you can only search for round-trip or multiple-segment trips — you cannot search ANA for one way reward flight any longer. If you try to you will get an error screen popping up telling you that you are not allowed to book to single legs.
Thus, I suggest just picking a random date for your return date on a roundtrip in order to view reward availability segment by segment.
Once you select your search criteria you’ll be able to see the availability based on a weekly timeline if you select the “+/- 3 days” option. Click the dates with seats available to move forward with the booking process.
ANA allows you to view the final fees and mile requirements even if you don’t have the requisite miles to complete the booking, so it’s easy to see exactly how much you’d pay were you to book through ANA.
The biggest advantage to searching the ANA website is that it usually shows all of the alliance partners (with some exception mentioned below), which is very handy for airlines like Singapore Airlines which don’t usually show up on United or Aeroplan.
Multiple Legs
Most of the time, ANA is pretty good about showing multiple legs for rewards flights but just be careful when trying to find certain airlines, such as South African Airways.
I tried to find the same route from DFW to CPT that I found on United’s website but none of the routes showed up on ANA. Even when I broke the flight down into segments, the only leg that showed up was from DFW to EWR. Thus, not only was there nothing showing up for a multiple-leg trip, even nonstop South African Airways flights that showed availability on United and Aeroplan weren’t showing up.
That’s why it’s always good practice to check each of these websites when looking for your flight. You want to make sure that you fill in all of the gaps.
Searching Aeroplan (Air Canada)
Photo by Caribb
In the past Aeroplan’s website has caused many frequent travelers a bit of grief due its slow speed. However, recently speaking I haven’t had much trouble with it and actually consider it to be among the best.
Aeroplan does require you to sign up but that takes all but two seconds so it shouldn’t be an issue. Once you get your log-in information, sign in and click on “Use Your Miles” and then on “Travel.”
You should find the search process pretty straight forward.
Similar to United, you can scan for airline carriers on the left and also click on “Details” for full specifics on your flight.
When booking partner airlines with Aeroplan, you always want to be cautious to ensure that you’re not incurring unnecessary fuel surcharges. For example, take a look at the next two flights below.
Notice anything different?
There’s a huge difference in the price. It’s a difference of $190 USD vs $834 USD due to fuel surcharges. United is one of the Star Alliance partners that Aeroplan does not force you to pay fuel surcharges. So always do your best to book with a partner that does not incur fuel surcharges when booking with Aeroplan. The following airlines do notcarry surcharges when you book them through Aeroplan:
Air China
Brussels
EgyptAir
Ethiopian
EVA Air
Scandinavian
Singapore
Swiss
Turkish
United
United requires 30,000 more miles to get to Paris from Toronto than Aeroplan!
There’s another difference you should be made well aware of when booking as well. Above is the cost and fees for that same flight from Toronto to Paris but it shows what you would pay if you booked on United’s website. As you can see, you’d be paying about the same in USD but you’d be using 30,000 more miles for the booking!
I’ll have much more to say on maximizing your redemptions on Aeroplan later but this is a prime example of the things to be aware of when booking through alliance partners. If you’re not “in the know,” it can be really easy to lose out on thousands of points.
Multiple legs
Aeroplan is known to have good multi-segment search features, but again, I think you should always check on all three websites when trying to search for multi-leg flights. In addition, I would still break the flight down and search segment by segment to ensure that you’re seeing the maximum availability.
As an example, the screen shot below shows only two Star Alliance flights departing on this day but United’s website showed more than that. Granted, the additional flights on the United website included an airport change (JFK to EWR), it still goes to show that you need to be thorough with your research.
As an added note, check out the redemptions for DWF to CPT on economy on United versus Aeroplan. This time, United has the cheaper option, only requiring 40,000 miles for a one way economy ticket versus the 50,000 miles required by Aeroplan. This is another reason to make sure you check with the different websites: you can double check that you’re looking at booking the best rates for your trip.
United is 10,000 miles cheaper than Aeroplan from Texas DFW to South Africa CPT
So that’s it. It can be a bit time consuming to go through three different websites to search for different flights but if you really want to make sure that you’re not missing any availability, then searching all three of these websites for Star Alliance reward availability is a must!
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Using Hotel Points to Get The Southwest Companion Pass
January 3, 2017 Update: Hotel points are no longer allowed to earn the Companion Pass.
This article is going to look at if it’s worth it to transfer large sums of points to Southwest hotel partners in order to reach the threshold for earning the Companion Pass. This analysis should really be helpful to those people who for whatever reason aren’t able to earn that last ~30,000 Rapids Rewards needed for the Companion Pass. I’m not going to focus on small quantities of Rapid Rewards in order to prevent readers from getting lost in a ton of numbers and calculations on this post, so if you’re in need of of just a few hundred or a couple thousand Rapid Rewards, your analysis might be different.
I will assume a 2.2 cents per point value for Ultimate Rewards and will assume that someone is trying to earn 30,000 Rapid Rewards and is contemplating the best method for them to come up with those points.
Ultimate Rewards Hotel Transfer Partners
There are basically only two Ultimate Rewards hotel partners that you can transfer points from to Southwest: Hyatt and Marriott/Ritz Carlton. Ultimate Rewards transfer to all of these hotels at a 1:1 ratio so if you’re going to funnel your Ultimate Rewards through one of the hotel programs you want to make sure that you’re getting the maximum value.
By looking at the transfer ratios below, you can see the percentage of value maintained in the points transfer. In other words, the higher the percentage, the less value you are losing.
Hyatt
5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points for 2,400 Rapid Rewards Points (48%) or
50,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points for 24,000 Rapid Rewards Points and receive a bonus of 6,000 additional Rapid Rewards Points for a total of 30,000 Rapid Rewards Points (60%).
You can purchase up to 55,000 Hyatt points in a calendar year.
You can only purchase up to 50,000 Marriott points in a calendar year, limiting the amount of purchased Marriott points to the equivalent of 12,000 Rapid Rewards.
The best bang for your buck
As you can see, transferring to Hyatt and then to Southwest at 50,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points would be the most efficient way to use Ultimate Rewards to meet your requirement for the Companion Pass, as it preserves 60% of the value after converting.
However, before you decide to transfer 50,000 Ultimate Rewards you should decide if this is going to be the best return on your investment.
For this example we are assuming the following:
You are transferring 50,000 Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt Gold Passport points for 30,000 Rapid Rewards Points
You value Ultimate Rewards at 2.2 cents per point.
That seems like a $200 loss of value but you have to remember that because you will have the Companion Pass now you also gained huge value because the remaining 80,000 points sitting in your Rapid Rewards account just doubled in value from $1,200 to $2,400 due to the Companion Pass. So there’s an additional gain in value of $1,200.
So you started with $1,100 worth of value in the form of Ultimate Rewards and ended up with $2,100 worth of value in the form of Rapid Rewards ($900 in value from the 30,000 new Rapid Rewards + $1,200 in value from the doubling effect of the 80,000 points already in your Rapid Rewards account).
That means you’ve gained $1,000 worth of value. Congrats.
It’s important to note, however, that had you transferred Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt and then to Southwest and not obtained the Companion Pass you’re losing $650 worth of value since $1,100 – $450 (30,000 Rapid Rewards value at 1.5 cents per point) = $650. In other words, if you’re not getting the Companion Pass, this is not a good move.
Should you purchase Hyatt points instead of transferring Ultimate Rewards?
Buying Hyatt points at a normal rate
Hyatt Gold Passport points can be purchased in increments of 1,000, up to 55,000 points per calendar year. 50,000 points could be purchased at 2.4 cents per point for a total of $1,200. Again, at 2.2 cents per point, the value of the 50,000 Ultimate Rewards would be $1,100, so it wouldn’t make economic sense to purchase 50,000 Hyatt points instead of using Ultimate Rewards.
Buying Hyatt points at a bonus rate
However, sometimes Hyatt will run promotions for purchasing points. One recent promo gave a 30% bonus allowing you to purchase these points at about 1.85 cents per point. 1.85 cents per point would amount to $925 worth of value. Thus, if you valued Ultimate Rewards at 2.2 cents per point, you would actually be getting a larger return on your investment by purchasing Marriott points during a promotion, since you’d be exchanging $925 cash for $2,100 worth of Rapid Rewards instead of $1,100 of Ultimate Rewards for $2,100 worth of Rapid Rewards.
And if you purchased the points on a Sapphire Preferred you’d also earn 1,850 Ultimate Rewards on that purchase (worth $40). So factoring in that additional $40, your starting point would essentially be $885 ($925 – $40) and your gain in value would be $1,215 compared to the $1,000 worth of value you gained from transferring Ultimate Rewards.
The issue with spending $925 to buy these points is that a lot of people don’t like to use cash instead of points even though economically the numbers would support doing so because you’d be saving $215 in value. Spending “free money” rarely ever feels the same as spending your hard-earned cash. I think the question you should ask yourself is “would I normally spend $925 on Southwest air fare in the next two years?” If the answer is yes, then you might want to consider paying cash if it would save you on money you would spend anyway.
Non-Ultimate Rewards Partners
Just for kicks, I also listed the other hotels who aren’t partners with Chase Ultimate Rewards. Since these programs don’t transfer from Ultimate Rewards, their conversion rates aren’t as meaningful and the focus on them is how much overall value they would bring.
Club Carlson
Rapid Rewards Members who are also Club Carlson members have the option to redeem their Gold Points® for Rapid Rewards Points in the following increments:
You can only purchase up to 40,000 Gold Points per account, per calendar year. Therefore the maximum Rapid Rewards that could be bought in a year would be 4,000, which is not anywhere close to what we would need. Thus, for these purposes, they are ruled out.
Choice Privileges
Rapid Rewards Members who are also Choice Privileges members have the option to redeem
6,000 Choice Privileges® points for 1,800 Rapid Rewards Points (30%).
This is the best conversion rate for the non-Ultimate Rewards hotel partners. However, they still don’t really compare to Hyatt.
48,000 Choice Privileges® points would cost you $528 and would earn you 14,400 Rapid Rewards, which would still leave you well short of your desired goal of 30,000. Since the maximum you can purchase in a calendar is 50,000, Choice Privileges isn’t a practical solution for trying to rack up 30,000 Rapid Rewards.
Best Western
Rapid Rewards Members who are also Best Western Rewards members have the option to redeem:
5,000 Best Western Rewards points for 1,200 Rapid Rewards Points (24%) .
1,000 points will cost $10 so you’d pay $50 for 1,200 Rapid Rewards. That comes out to 4.1 cents per point, which means that you would pay $1,250 to get 30,000 Rapid Rewards Points. Assuming you could even pay for 125,000 points in a year (which I don’t believe you can), it’s still not as good of value as Hyatt.
La Quinta Returns
La Quinta Returns members also have the option to redeem:
6,000 Returns points for 1,200 Rapid Rewards Points (20%).
You would need 150,000 La Quinta Returns points to get 30,000 Rapid Rewards. A maximum of 40,000 points can be purchased in a year so you’d be way short of the goal. In any event you could purchase 35,000 Returns points at a current discounted rate of $288.75. That would be 7,000 Rapid Rewards points for 4.1 cents per point, which would come out to a total of $1,237.5. Again, not as good of a deal as buying Hyatt points.
Conclusion
Transferring Ultimate Rewards to hotel partners in order to accumulate Rapid Rewards will normally cause you to lose significant value in your Ultimate Rewards. However, if you’re in need of a final 30K or so Rapid Rewards to obtain the Southwest Companion Pass, then obtaining those final 30K Rapid Rewards via Hyatt will not be a bad idea because you are drastically increasing the value of those points. And sometimes, it might even make economic sense to purchase the points with cash from Hyatt.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
How Much Are Rapid Rewards and The Companion Pass Worth?
The first thing to remember about valuing points is that there are very few times when valuations are absolute. The value of points for any given reward program usually depends on how, when, and where the individual will be redeeming those points. So I’m going to explain how I value Southwest Rapid Rewards and how much value they bring to me with the Southwest Companion Pass.
Photo by James A. Castañeda
The starting point
I first figure out my future redemptions. I start with those flights that I’m certain to redeem and then factor in others that I’m planning on redeeming sometime in the near future. I think figuring out the redemption for 3-4 potential flights should be sufficient, but you could always play around with more numbers.
It’s important to remember to be realistic when doing this.
You might be tempted to “plan” for those super cheap flights that depart very early in the morning or arrive very late at night but when push comes to shove are you really going to book those? Or how about layovers, are you willing to deal with those? The other thing to think about is your availability, can you really take off on all those four day weekends or book those mid-week flights?
Personally, I have three things going for me that have made it easier for me to realistically plan on booking flights that have less desirable departures, arrivals, and lay-overs. These might be helpful things for you to consider when planning future flights.
1) Willingness to fly early or late
I don’t have problems with flying late or early, mostly because I live about 15-20 minutes from the airport so departing early or arriving a little later in the evening isn’t much of a problem. Obviously, relocating your home isn’t an option for most, but just consider how truly open you are to arriving at the airport at 4:45am or touching down at 9:55pm on a Sunday. Just because those fares are the cheapest doesn’t mean you’ll actually go for them when it comes time to book.
2) Lounge access
I have lounge access through the American Express Platinum Card and Ritz-Carlton Rewards Card so lay overs don’t bother me much and I kind of look forward to experiencing new lounges when possible. I’ve since found that being open to lay-overs now makes travel planning much less of a headache — don’t underestimate the convenience of a nice airport lounge!
United Club Lounge in Houston
3) Flexible work schedule
Third, and most importantly, I have the luxury of having a pretty flexible work schedule so I can take off just about whenever I want so it does make things easier.
Now, I still have to remember to be realistic about taking mid-week flights and not eating up too much time on lay overs, but being realistic about these have helped me make accurate estimations on what future flights I’ll actually take on future trips.
Finding the average points redemption from Houston
Below are four trips that I’m likely to take within the next 12 months on Southwest and their corresponding rates. You can see their actual cash price, their Rapid Rewards price, and then what the redemption rates comes out to.
Southwest has many direct flights out of Houston (HOU)
HOU to OAK (Oakland)
$404 round trip
24,468 Rapid Rewards + $11.20 in fees
$404 – $11.20 = $392.80
$392.80 / 24,468 = 1.6 cents per point.
San Francisco
HOU to MBJ (Jamaica)
$404.76 roundtrip
17,500 Rapid Rewards + $114.66 in fees
$404.76 – $114.66 = $290.10
$290.10 / 17,500 = 1.6 cents per point.
Photo by Leonidas Konstantinidis
HOU to MDW (Chicago)
$332.95 roundtrip
21,584 Rapid Rewards + $11.20 in fees
$332.95 – $11.20 = $321.75
$321.75 / 21,584 = 1.4 cents per point
Photo by Antony Caldaroni
HOU to CUN (Cancun)
$459.70 roundtrip
24,998 Rapid Rewards +$74.10 in fees
$459.70 – $74.10 = $385.60
$385.60 / 24,998 = 1.5 cents per point
Photo by f. ermert
So the redemption rates for the four trips are as follows:
1.6
1.6
1.4
1.5
That brings the overall redemption rate average to 1.525 cents per point. This is pretty standard for Southwest but keep in mind that your average redemption rate for Southwest flights could be a little higher or lower.
How much is the Southwest Companion Pass worth?
In obtaining the Southwest companion pass I have accumulated a little over 110,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards. That means I can value the pass at $1,677.5 since 110,000 X .01525 = $1,677.5.
However, since Brad and I fly together on every flight we ever redeem that value is instantly doubled since he flies for free. So that’s $3,355 worth of value at 3 cents per point.
And just to play it conservatively, I’ll deduct the two annual fees I have to pay of $99, so the grand total of value of the Southwest Companion Pass for me is $3,157 as a value of 3 cents per point for Rapid Rewards.
Getting that dollar amount of travel for free is great but with Southwest it’s more about the quantity of experiences. Being able to travel to Cancun, Jamaica, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, and still another destination yet to be determined is amazing and I’d take those multitude of experiences over one first class redemption worth $3,000 in travel almost any day.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Can You Put Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Reward Seats on Hold?
Singapore Airlines offers some of the most luxurious business and first class redemptions out of any airline. It’s really great because it’s a transfer member of all three major rewards programs and even SPG, so it’s extremely easy to accumulate KrisFlyer miles in a hurry.
The only problem is that finding reward seat availability — especially for saver awards — can be an issue. This problem is compounded by the fact that point transfers from major rewards programs like Citi Thankyou Points, American Express Membership Rewards, and Chase Ultimate Rewards are not instant and can take several days to arrive in your KrisFlyer account. Thus, there’s always a possibility that the reward seats will no longer be available by the time your points make it to your KrisFlyer account and then you’re just stuck with KrisFlyer points and praying for seats to open up.
The way to deal with this scenario is to put your reservation on hold. Unfortunately, there’s some confusion about whether or not Singapore Airlines allows you to put reservations on hold. This article is meant to clear up some of the confusion.
Singapore Airlines allows you to put reservations on hold
First, despite what some article might state, you absolutely can put reservations on hold. I’ve done this on two occasions. I’m not aware of any way to do it online so I’ve just called in to the Singapore airlines U.S. number and requested to put a reservation on hold.
Here’s where it get’s a little unclear.
Some sources say that you need to have at least 50% of the miles needed to book your trip in order to put a reservation on hold. But again, this is not a hard and fast rule. I recently put a flight requiring 80,000 KrisFlyer miles on hold with only about 27,000 miles in my account! Thus, it might be KrisFlyer’s policy to require 50% of the needed miles, but that rule is not-hard coded into KrisFlyer’s booking system based on my personal experience.
Strategy for putting KrisFlyer seats on hold
So you can: 1) put seats on hold and 2) potentially do so with less than 50% of the required miles. Great. The only problem is that if you book a reservation that was put on hold you lose out on the 15% online booking discount. In my latest case, I would have lost 12,000 points in savings by not booking online.
The solution to this problem
Request the 15% discount to be applied to be your booking. A KrisFlyer representative, on her own volition, told me that she would notate my booking with a note to apply the 15% online booking discount but there was no guarantee.
This was a nice gesture but it meant that I didn’t have a 100% answer on if I should transfer points to my KrisFlyer account to meet the 80,000 total or the discounted total of 68,000. Having 12,000 points potentially in limbo didn’t sound desirable to me, especially since KrisFlyer points expire.
My solution to this is to just transfer the amount of points needed for the discounted booking and try to get the representatives on board to apply the discount. If they won’t do it, then just hang up and call again (HUCA) and try multiple times if you have to. So in this case, I would have transferred enough points to meet 68,000 and then held off on transferring the remaining points until I had failed multiple times with getting representatives to apply the discount.
Luckily, we found some availability online so we were able to circumvent booking over the phone and cancel our hold, but I definitely would have tried my luck with getting that 15% discount applied to my booking had reward seats not opened up.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Hilton HHonors Citi and Amex Credit Card Offers
[Offers contained within this article may no longer be available]
Right now, there’s a great opportunity to earn over 150,000 Hilton HHonors points for just spending $3,000 in 3 months after being approved for two credit cards. And what is even better is that both of these cards do not have any annual fees! This article will look at the two cards and how much value they can offer you.
The Hilton HHonorsTM Credit Card from American Express
No Annual Fee
Earn 70,000 Hilton HHonors™Bonus Points after you spend $1,000 on purchases on your card in your first 3 months.
Silver HHonors status and get HHonors Gold status when you spend $20,000 on eligible purchases on your card in a calendar year.
This card also offers bonus category earning in the following ways:
Earn 7X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases charged on your Card directly with a participating hotel or resort within the Hilton Portfolio.
Earn 5X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for each dollar of eligible purchases on your Card: at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations
Earn 3X Hilton HHonors Bonus Points for all other eligible purchases on your Card
This offer for the Hilton HHonorsTM Credit Card from American Express is to my knowledge the highest bonus ever offered by American Express for this card. If you’re interested in the card, make sure you go through the link above because the standard public offer is only 40K. What is really great about this offer is that it only requires a minimum spend of $1,000 so that really gives you a break in terms of energy and time required for meeting the minimum spend requirement.
The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card
No annual fee
Earn 75,000 HHonors bonus points after you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months.
Silver HHonors status and fast track to HHonors Gold status after four stays within your first 90 days of account opening or when you make $20,000 or more in purchases each calendar year
Earn an annual loyalty bonus of 10,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points at the end of each calendar year in which you spend $1,000 or more on stays within the Hilton Portfolio
This card also offers bonus category earning in the following ways:
Earn 6 HHonors bonus points for every dollar spent within the Hilton Portfolio
Earn 3 HHonors bonus points for every $1 spent at supermarkets, drugstores andgas stations
Earn 2 HHonors bonus points for every $1 spent on all other purchases.
The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card is a solid option for building up an HHonors balance and only requires a minimum spend of $2,000, so if you got both cards you’d be done with the minimum spend at $3,000. Like the Amex version, the 75K bonus is the best that this card offers.
If you get both of these cards then you will end up with 152,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points after you meet the minimum spends on both cards!
Silver Status
Both of these cards offer you Hilton HHonor silver status. Personally, this didn’t factor too much into my decision to get these cards as I already had Gold Status through the American Express Platinum. However, silver status is still nice and offers you the following benefits:
Automatically receive a 15% bonus on all the HHonors Base Points you earn.
Guaranteed Discount: A discounted, changeable & refundable rate is exclusively available for Hilton HHonors members
Silver, Gold and Diamond elite members will receive every 5th night free on Standard Room Reward stays of 5 nights or more.
Complimentary internet
Quick reservations and check-ins
Late Check-out
Complimentary access to fitness centers and health clubs
Two complimentary bottles of water per stay at certain Hilton properties.
How much value can you get from these points?
Hilton HHonors bonus points are a bit inflated so unfortunately you’re not likely to get the same value per point as you would with pretty much any other hotel currency. However, 152,000 points is still a lot of points and they can be stretched for some serious value if you redeem them the right way.
The chart taken from the Hilton website shows that 152,000 could get you 30 nights at a category 1 hotel (not factoring in any 5th night free benefits). Of course you could also splurge all your points on a couple of nights at a high-end luxury hotel. Personally, I’d probably stay around the 20,000 to 40,000/night range to get the most value out of these cards and snag at least 5 to 6 free nights in a decent hotel.
Check out the following article from Travel is Free to get a sense of the locations of different Hilton hotels around the world and their corresponding categories. (Click the box on the left of the map to toggle which categories you’d like to view.)
After checking out that map also check out another Travel is Free article that gives the low-down on the best use of Hilton HHonors bonus points. That article lists a number of different Hilton hotels in different categories all around the world. It shows you that you can get great great value out of the lower categories and easily be able to spend a couple of weeks in Hilton hotels with the amount of points earned from these cards.
Getting more Hilton HHonors bonus points
One of the great things about Hilton HHonors is that you can rack up the points for this program from a bunch of different cards. There is the Hilton HHonorsTM Surpass® Card from American Express currently offering 60K bonus points and the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card, which you can earn two free nights to use at almost any Hilton property (here are the exclusions). And don’t forget about the Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard® Credit Card, which can transfer miles at a 2:3 ratio to Hilton HHonors and bump your points up quickly (you can earn 37,500 HHonors Bonus Points just by making a single purchase). And lastly, Hilton HHonors is a transfer partner of both Citi Thankyou Points and American Express Membership Rewards.
These two sign-up offers from Citi and Amex are definitely worth considering. While Hilton HHonors Bonus Points aren’t as valuable per point as other hotels, there are numerous ways to quickly accumulate them and some great redemptions out there for you to find. If you want a jump start on your HHonors points, then you might want to apply for these two cards before the promotions end.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
Guide to Getting a Tourist Visa for Brazil at The Houston Consulate
Getting a tourist visa for Brazil from the Houston Consulate was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done in my life. We probably got a little bit lucky, but we were able to get our tourists visas for Brazil in less than 24 hours without doing any kind of expedited effort. Here’s a review of how we got our visas and some tips to help you along the way.
Disclaimer:This article does not constitute legal and/or immigration advice of any kind. If you have any questions please contact a professional immigration attorney or other other professional. Also, if you are applying for a tourist visa in another city many of these steps may not be applicable to you as different jurisdictions have different requirements.
Filling out the application
First, if you are looking for information on getting a visa from Brazil then check this out. That link will tell you almost everything you need to know and is a great starting point for wrapping your head around the requirements you’ll need to fulfill.
From that point, you’re in the application and just need to fill everything out. Remember, leave a space blank if it doesn’t apply (e.g., “previous name”). There’s not a whole lot to fill out for the application and the hardest part will probably be the contact information in Brazil. For most tourists, you’ll just put your hotel but you’ll need to go dig-up the address, phone number, and email. (The state is RJ if you’re staying in Rio De Janeiro, in case you couldn’t guess that.)
After you fill out your application hit submit and it should give you your application ID. If you don’t get that application ID you may have to just re-apply (that’s what Brad had to do).
Uploading documents
After you hit submit, you’ll be prompted to upload documents. (If you hit cancel, you can always upload the documents later or just not upload any documents and bring them into your appointment.)
Screenshot found on the Consulate website
The documents you’ll probably be uploading are itinerary, signature, passport, and photo. There are some special requirements for uploading the documents so pay close attention to those requirement. To upload a photo I would have had to cut my passport photo and since I only had one photo on me I decided not to upload any documents. Remember, even if you upload your documents you still must bring all of them in with you to the appointment.
Note: The website states that it will “agilize” your application by uploading the documents. I didn’t know what that meant, but it’s apparently Portuguese for “streamline.” Still, I got my visa within 45 minutes of my scheduled appointment so I doubt it could have been streamlined that much, anyway.
Anyway, if you just hit cancel then your next step is to print out your visa form delivery receipt. This is one of the documents that you have to bring with you to your appointment, so don’t forget about it!
Delivery Receipt Form
Schedule an appointment
Your next step is to schedule an appointment. This is easy to do and just requires you to follow basic directions and go to the appointment booking website. We found morning availability for the next day when we searched and there were plenty of open slots for the coming week so you should have a pretty easy time booking an appointment if you’re even just a little bit flexible.
You can schedule up to two appointments for one slot and the other applicant doesn’t need to be there (just bring a copy of their ID). You can schedule appointments for more than one additional person but those additional appointments will have to be booked separately and in groups of two. If you need to book appointments for seven or more people then you have to meet special group application requirements.
The appointment
Consulate General of Brazil in Houston Building
The building for the consulate is located directly off of 610 if you’re going north on the westside of Houston. It’s pretty hard to miss and you can actually pull into their little driveway and go right into the visiting center parking (it’s free, thankfully).
Parking garage at the consulate building.
Once you park, go inside and sign in with the front desk. You then need to go up to the 11th floor and you’ll head directly to your right where the visa signs to go. There’s like fifteen chairs and you just take a seat. You don’t sign in up there and the workers will just call your name when they are ready.
Tip: They only called names one time and didn’t shout the names too loudly when I was there and a few people seemed to miss their name being called. Thus, I’d sit as close to the front as possible.
For a tourist visa you will likely need at least the following documents.
Passport
Print out of delivery receipt form
Print out Itinerary (plane tickets)
Copy of ID for additional applicants
USPS (United States Postal Service)Money Order (Make sure this is a money order from the USPS, as this is one requirement they seemed very strict about!)
They called my name about 20 minutes after my scheduled appointment. This appointment lasted just a few seconds and the only issue for me was that I didn’t have a print out of my itinerary or a copy of Brad’s ID. Luckily, she accepted the itinerary that showed up on my Aadvantage App on my iPhone and let me get by with a photo Brad sent of his ID from his phone. It was kind of funny how easy it was satisfy the requirements but I was very thankful that it didn’t become too difficult.
There’s a cafe on floor 7 of the building and the workers encourage you to go down there for about 30 minutes while you wait for your visa to be processed. I didn’t check out the cafe so I’m not sure what all was down there but a lot of people seemed to be interested in it.
Anyway, about 45 minutes after my appointment, they called me to the front to verify the details on the visas and just like that I had two tourist visas for Brazil in under 24 hours! It’s awesome how quickly you can get them and I even met a guy on the elevator who was leaving for Brazil the next day and just getting his visa!
I’ve applied for a few visas but so far the tourist visa for Brazil has been of the easiest for me to apply for. Just follow the directions online and you should have no problems getting approved for your visa, potentially in as quickly as 24 hours as we did!
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and creator of the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned full-time credit card rewards/travel expert and has earned and redeemed millions of miles to travel the globe. Since 2014, his content has been featured in major publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, US News, and Business Insider. Find his full bio here.
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