Avoid These Mistakes Booking Flights with Points

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Booking flights with points is a heck of a lot more complicated than booking hotels.

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That's because there are so many airlines, so many routes, so many kinds of points.

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But just because it is complicated, it doesn't have to be hard.

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In fact, I'd argue that, thanks to newer tools, it's easier than ever to book flights with points if you avoid common mistakes and know where to go, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.

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I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family, but I believe that travel isn't just for the rich.

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That's why, on Points for Normal People, I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year.

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I booked my first flight with Airline Miles in 2006.

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I had opened a United credit card because I saw that the welcome offer could get me a round-trip ticket to Europe.

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Then I used those points to book a multi-city itinerary.

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I flew from LAX to Frankfurt, where I traveled around all the way to Italy, and back then continued on a flight from Frankfurt to Zagreb, croatia.

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Then a week later, I flew back to LAX.

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I was, and still am, pretty proud of this first redemption.

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In some ways, the way I searched for this flight is the way I still search, but thanks to a variety of new tools, it has become even easier to redeem points for flights.

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But I still see a lot of mistakes and pitfalls that end up costing people time and money and points.

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So let's talk about those pitfalls and how to avoid them.

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Next week we'll talk about specific sweet spots for flights that you can book with Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

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Chase points can be transferred to 11 airlines at least as of right now in July 2024.

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So that means you can take a thousand Chase chase points and transfer them to the United and you'll have 1,000 United miles.

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Or you can transfer them to Air Canada Aeroplan or to Flying Blue, which is the loyalty program of Air France and KLM.

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Each airline has their own method for determining the cost of an award ticket, and each airline flies different routes, and so the options can start to feel dizzying, but I promise you can learn this.

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Let's start with a brief background into how airlines price tickets with points or miles.

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These methods can generally be divided into two categories fixed award pricing and dynamic award pricing.

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Fixed award charts is a more traditional way of pricing flights with points and miles.

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It is often a chart that you can look up that will show exactly how many miles an award redemption will cost.

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Some airlines fix award prices by distance flown and some use a chart based on regions.

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If it's distance-based, it just adds up the distance you're flying and prices according to that.

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If it is a regional chart, it will vary by your departure and your destination cities, and the routing that the plane takes may not matter as much.

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Like between North America and Africa, for instance, would have one cost and North America and Europe would have another cost.

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Sometimes airlines add another layer of complexity by varying their award charts by season.

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Now, one big plus of a fixed award chart is that it is predictable.

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You can set a goal and start saving for it.

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Typically, though, with a fixed award chart, only a certain number of seats are available to book with points and miles.

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If those sell out, you won't be able to book on that flight, and sometimes airlines change those prices with little to no notice.

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This just happened, for instance, on the 4th of July when British Airways changed their award chart and made it so that when you redeem your British Airways Avios as they are called on the US airlines that they partner with which is Alaska and American those now cost more Avios.

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It did seem ironic for them to do this on the 4th of July, but that's how it was.

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A fixed type of award chart used to be the most common, but it is becoming less and less common.

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Instead, more airlines are switching to dynamic pricing.

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Dynamic award pricing is just that dynamic or changing.

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You're used to dynamic pricing for airline tickets because that's how all airline tickets are when booked with cash.

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They fluctuate from day to day with demand, and a flight that costs $100 one day may go up to $300 the next day.

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We don't know when and whether a flight price will go up and down.

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Essentially, the airline is just trying to maximize their revenue while also filling all the seats in the plane, if possible.

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For a mini history lesson here, this wasn't always the case.

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Before 1978, airline routes and pricing was highly regulated by the US government.

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The Civil Aeronautics Board set prices and the prices were very high In inflation-adjusted rates.

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The cost to fly from Boston to LA in the 1940s, for instance, was over $4,500.

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But when competition and deregulation was introduced, prices really came down.

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Dynamic award pricing works the same way as dynamic pricing in cash.

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The number of miles required to purchase a flight could and does fluctuate, and what's 60,000 miles one day may be 30,000 miles the next.

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Sometimes, like with Southwest Airlines, they use dynamic pricing, but the cost in points is strictly tied to the cost of the ticket in dollars.

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In this case, your miles or your points are always worth roughly the same ratio.

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For many other airlines, however, the dollar and miles price is not necessarily correlated and the redemption value of a ticket will vary from day to day.

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It can be harder to plan out how many miles you will need to save for a trip, because prices can and will change.

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Typically, when airlines switch to dynamic pricing, people who fly business class will see much fewer deals, but occasionally economy class flyers may have some opportunities for cheaper flights.

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The last little bit of background information you need to understand before we move on here is the basics of airline alliances.

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Airline alliances are partnerships between airlines worldwide.

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Most of the major airline carriers are part of one of the three alliances One World, skyteam or Star Alliance.

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Some airlines also have additional partners that are not in their overall alliance.

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So what does this mean?

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If you're booking with Miles, that you have more options.

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Let's use United Airlines as an example.

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United Airlines is in the Star Alliance and, through that, has partnerships with airlines such as Asiana Airlines, ana and Lufthansa.

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This means that you can use United Miles to book trips on United Airlines and also on any of their partner airlines as well, when space allows.

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It doesn't mean that you can book any flight that is offered.

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Not all flights have available award seats, but this greatly opens up your options.

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This is particularly important for international flights.

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United Airlines, for instance, doesn't fly to the Philippines, but its partners Asiana and ANA do.

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This also works in reverse If you have miles with Turkish Airlines or Asiana or ANA, you can use them to book on a flight within the US, on a United flight, since they are partners through the Star Alliance.

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These are the layers of complexity that start to feel overwhelming, but with a few resources, it will be easy to narrow down your search and strategy.

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One of the major developments in the past five years or so is new tools that allow you to search multiple airlines at once for points.

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Redemptions Tools keep popping up so I haven't always tested all of them Some are paid and some are free right now but these are really great for initial searches and to gauge pricing.

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One great free tool I've been using lately is called pointsyeahcom.

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One great free tool I've been using lately is called pointsyeahcom.

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So just to give you an idea of this tool, and I just put some random dates and looked for flights from Chicago to Cape Town, south Africa, to see what it would find and it came back with these options when I narrowed it to looking with ChasePoints specifically, and these are one-way prices.

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For the lowest price it comes back with Emirates for 38,000 points plus $300 in taxes.

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Then it shows KLM for 40,000 points plus $168.

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Then it shows using United Miles as an option to book onto Ethiopian Air for 49,500 miles plus $7.

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Now in my quick search I couldn't find any return tickets on KLM for a reasonable price.

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So let's say you use this tool and you booked KLM there and United back and your total is 90,000 points and about $200 in taxes and fees.

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So now you have one point of comparison.

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Overall, that's great, right.

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You can get round trip to South Africa for just $200 out of pocket if you have saved up enough points and if you are following my three-year plan, after just a year and a half you'd have enough points for this for a family of four.

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But as a quick side note, I want to mention that there is a lot of emphasis in the points creator world put on the need to transfer points to airline and hotel partners to get better value from your points.

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But this isn't a hard and fast rule.

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I do think that it is true that you should understand how and when to consider transferring points rather than redeeming them through an option like chase travel, but there are reasons to do it and there are other reasons to not do it.

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We'll discuss both today.

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One mistake I see very commonly is not comparing options with transferring points to comparing cash prices.

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I talked about this more in episode 13.

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Using your points to book a ticket via Chase Travel, for instance, can often use fewer points and might be a lot less of a hassle than transferring your points to an airline partner and searching for award ticket availability.

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I always recommend that when you have a destination in mind, that you start to track the price to that destination using Google Flights or just at least search occasionally to get a sense of what ticket prices actually cost.

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That will help you start to have a better comparison and gauge which way you can book your flight for the fewest number of points.

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When I just searched on Google Flights for options from Chicago to South Africa, I'm seeing current options for about $1,000 round trip on Turkish Airlines if I could fly off-peak in April.

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But if I want to fly around Christmas it's over $2,000.

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This is when your level of flexibility really makes a difference and why it's important to do the comparison yourself.

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If I was happy to go in April, I might choose to book that cash price on Turkish Airlines for $1,000.

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Personally, I might choose to do it via the Aeroplan pay yourself back method I explained in episode 13.

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That would allow me to book directly with Turkish Airlines and take advantage of their free stopover program.

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My flight would then cost about 80,000 points and include all those taxes and fees up front in that price.

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But if I wanted to fly over Christmas, then booking for 90,000 points plus $200 is a great deal rather than a flight that costs over $200.

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Again, you have to be the one to run a few searches to start comparing your routes, but don't forget to compare to cash prices.

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Another mistake I see is not paying attention to taxes and fees on award tickets.

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Unless you're booking via Chase Travel, as discussed in the previous episode, you're going to pay taxes and fees on award tickets.

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Within the US this is cheap it's just $5.60 each way but internationally it can really vary.

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Some airlines add not only mandatory taxes to their award tickets but fuel surcharges or other fees.

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You can see this in my example Emirates had $300 in taxes on the one way, klm had $168, and United's was just $7.

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Now there's no right and wrong answer here.

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You may decide you want to use fewer points and don't mind paying $300 in taxes to fly on Emirates, which is one of the nicest airlines in the world, but you want to make sure that you compare them.

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That's why I really like pointsyeahcom, because it gives you the price in points and shows the taxes and fees, and not all of the search tools do that.

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This ties into the comparison you need to do versus the cash price, because the cash price is already including the taxes and fees.

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Now I'm not saying that it's never worth paying taxes and fees, and I do think sometimes paying even high taxes and fees may be a good option if the routing is better for you or the experience is better for you.

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But these are the things I think you need to consider.

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If you're transferring points to book, it should either be saving you points or giving you better routing or giving you a better flight experience.

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Otherwise, what's the point?

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So let's talk about some situations when you'd want to go through the process of transferring points to an airline to book a flight rather than just booking in chase travel or, like the aeroplan pay yourself back trick I mentioned.

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There are some distinct advantages to transferring points.

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One can be to get better routing.

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For me and I believe, for normal people who are just trying to get somewhere with their points, routing should be one of your top considerations.

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This is one of the primary strengths of using airline miles to book a flight, or primary potential strengths the more legs your flight has, the more chances you have of being canceled or delayed.

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That's beside the fact that it just takes more time out of your trip.

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Personally, I'm willing to pay more for a nonstop route.

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We did this last year when we went to Japan.

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We had booked a sale award flight to Japan and it was cheap.

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It was just 45,000 miles round trip on American, but I could only get that sale fare out of LAX, so we were going to have to fly from Chicago to LAX, spend a night and then continue on to Tokyo.

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That of course, costs more time and more points.

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So ultimately we canceled those flights and used Avianca Life Miles to book onto a non-stop United flight from Chicago to Tokyo.

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In the end it was more.

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It was 90,000 miles each for the round trip, plus $200-ish in taxes and fees, and the United flight was somewhat miserable, but we still appreciated being on a non-stop.

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Again, you have to be the one doing the comparisons and deciding what's worth it to you, and you will also have to do some research on routes that make sense for you.

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The two primary tools I use to research routes are Google Flights and FlightConnectionscom.

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Flightconnectionscom is the best for showing nonstop routes between airports.

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This can help you narrow down your best option very quickly when you see the nonstop route options available.

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It's not a perfect tool, especially because it doesn't always show seasonal routes, but it's pretty good.

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Airlines like United and American that use dynamic pricing for their own flights can really raise the price of their seasonal or high demand nonstop routes, but it can still be possible to find deals.

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We were able to get nonstop United flights from Chicago to Iceland and home from Scotland even in the summer, so it's still possible.

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If I can't get a nonstop route, I then start checking Google Flights, because it's one of the easiest ways to see the kind of connecting flights I might be able to get, and, of course, this is also helping me to gauge the pricing as well.

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As I keep saying, I don't calculate my cents per point values for flights because it doesn't take into account the value to me.

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If you find a route you're interested in, you can take that information and set up alerts for when the price on that route drops.

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Google Flights lets you do that for cash flights.

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Pointsyeahcom lets you have four free alerts too.

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So this is a great way to track pricing.

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There are other, more complex tools that do this as well, but they have a steeper learning curve.

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The most advanced one is seatsarrow, but the interface isn't as user-friendly, so you do have to spend some time learning it.

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So, again, I often find that it's worth it to transfer my points to an airline when it means I can get a better routing, because that improves my experience.

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It can also upgrade your flight experience to transfer points and not just by booking business class.

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Especially on international travel, the flight experience can vary a ton based on the airline.

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When we flew United to Japan, the seats were small.

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Other Asian airlines that fly to Japan have three more inches of legroom in economy.

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We hadn't planned far enough in advance, unfortunately, to book on those other airlines, so that's why booking in advance can really help too.

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So if you're looking at some options that are roughly similar, it can be worth looking at a tool like Aerolopacom in case the seats are actually very different, because, frankly, we realized later that economy on JAL would have had the same legroom as United Premium Economy.

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Or, as another example, with routing.

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Booking a flight to Europe with Flying Blue can be a good option and it's discussed a lot in the points world because their pricing in points is fairly low.

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But if you don't live near an airport that's served by Air France or KLM, this redemption might not make sense to you.

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Or if you're going to Spain and your airport has a non-stop to Madrid, you'd want to look at that first because it's more direct.

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Besides non-stop routing, booking with Airline Miles can also open possibilities for free stopovers or ways to add additional cities to your flights for no extra cost.

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We'll talk about this next week when I go over more of the sweet spots for booking flights with Chase Points.

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Another strength of booking with airline miles, especially over booking with cash or in Chase Travel, is flexibility.

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This will depend on the specific airline program, but this is a huge improvement we've seen over the last decade More flexibility for changing and canceling airline tickets you've booked with points.

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For the major US airlines United, american, delta and Southwest you can cancel or change a flight you've made with points and get your points right back for no extra fee.

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Now, this isn't true of every airline though, so if you're considering transferring your chase points to a certain airline to book a flight and you're not sure you're going to take that flight, you'll want to be sure you understand their cancellation policies.

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You'll want to be sure you understand their cancellation policies.

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Flying Blue, for instance, charges €70 to change or cancel an award ticket, so that can really add up for a family.

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But even €70 per person is better than losing your plane tickets if you change your mind, because when you book a cheap cash rate, it's usually non-refundable.

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Besides just some additional flexibility, you often get a few basic perks with booking airline miles that you don't get on the lowest cash fares.

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So booking a United award ticket means you get free seat selection and a carry-on bag.

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The cheapest United tickets otherwise with cash, are basic economy, but these are cash only and they're really restrictive.

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They don't include seats or even a carry-on.

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Now, since this has been a broad overview, let me just review the key points here.

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Booking flights with points is really, I believe, the biggest learning curve due to how many options there are and how different they are.

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So big point number one earning flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards are going to give you the most options when it comes to booking award flights.

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You'll be able to book through Chase Travel if you find a cheap cash fare and want to incorporate your taxes.

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You'll also be able to transfer to airline partners if you find a better routing or better flights that way.

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Quick caveat to say that there are some situations when earning points directly with an airline will be another really great, even the best option, I'd say, for domestic flights.

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We personally pretty much always fly Southwest due to the amazing Companion Pass deal and I'm pretty much always stockpiling American Airlines miles with their American Airlines credit cards, but this season is about ultimate rewards specifically.

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If you want more information on other ways to be earning points for flights, I'll link a few more resources in the description.

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The first thing I will link is my free course In this.

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I have more information on booking flights with points and even a sample search.

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That's at learnkatiestraveltrickscom.

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Next resource are the regional guides on my website.

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We are in the process of adding more of these until we've covered every major region in the world.

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Right now we have Hawaii, europe, japan and Southeast Asia.

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Our Africa guide will be ready any day and Australia and New Zealand are next.

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With these guides, our team has done almost all of the comparison work for you, so you can go on there and see the actual cost of booking flights with different programs and the actual cost of taxes, so you can quickly do a side-by-side comparison and know where to start your search.

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We also highlight strategies we recommend for the average person, including which exact cards you could open to earn those points.

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If you've tried searching for information on the best ways to book flights to any given region on points, you'll find that pretty much every article focuses on business class.

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I really wanted to build out comprehensive resources for economy class, since that helps us personally stretch our points so much further and it is also so much easier to book economy, since there's always a lot more available seats.

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It was also really important for me that the guides include screenshots with actual taxes and fees for round trip flights, because those taxes can vary so much by airline and even on the direction of the flight.

00:24:15.476 --> 00:24:23.897
So if you have a certain goal in mind, those guides are a great place to start to figure out the easiest ways to book it with points.

00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:34.731
Next big point here it's best to compare using points for a cash fare with transferring points, instead of just assuming that one is best.

00:24:34.731 --> 00:24:41.893
Some easy tools to compare would be, first of all, google Flights for cash fares For award flights.

00:24:41.893 --> 00:24:47.794
I'd recommend starting with pointsyeahcom because it is free, even though it doesn't include all airlines.

00:24:47.794 --> 00:24:50.943
It also lets you set a few free alerts.

00:24:50.943 --> 00:24:56.738
If you want more advanced options, you can look at seatsaero, which is $10 a month.

00:24:56.738 --> 00:25:04.116
You don't really need a paid option like that unless you're actively searching or if you wanna have a lot of alerts set up.

00:25:04.116 --> 00:25:09.538
Remember that the best flight deal isn't a simple cents per point calculation.

00:25:10.329 --> 00:25:13.419
Personally, we value routing as our highest priority.

00:25:13.419 --> 00:25:19.654
Booking a nonstop route is worth a lot to us If plans aren't set in stone.

00:25:19.654 --> 00:25:22.041
My next priority is free cancellation.

00:25:22.041 --> 00:25:33.678
If we really are set on a trip, I will skip over cancellation costs because I know that if I cancel for an unexpected covered reason, like illness, my credit card trip protection kicks in.

00:25:33.678 --> 00:25:40.743
After that I typically prioritize overall cost out of my pocket, weighing points and fees.

00:25:40.743 --> 00:25:45.961
If cost is similar, I move on to airline quality and inches of legroom.

00:25:45.961 --> 00:25:49.460
But for us that's towards the bottom of the list.

00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:58.605
We'd rather book a non-stop and we'd rather book a cheaper option than prioritize what is ultimately just a few hours of comfort on a plane.

00:25:58.605 --> 00:26:01.618
And yes, sometimes it is uncomfortable.

00:26:01.618 --> 00:26:06.040
Our United flight back from Japan was pretty uncomfortable.

00:26:06.040 --> 00:26:07.875
We're a tall family.

00:26:07.875 --> 00:26:12.340
My husband is 6'3", I'm 5'8", even my 11-year-old daughter is already 5'5".

00:26:12.340 --> 00:26:20.519
But we survived and I think it was still better than having to take multiple connections for a cheaper flight on American.

00:26:21.330 --> 00:26:26.542
Your priorities may be different and they may change over time or based on the trip.

00:26:26.542 --> 00:26:30.681
So let's talk about what you can do for actionable steps today.

00:26:30.681 --> 00:26:33.439
If you have a trip goal, this will be easier.

00:26:33.439 --> 00:26:40.183
If you have a goal, I'd recommend that you take some time to make some notes of your options.

00:26:40.183 --> 00:26:44.961
If it is one of the areas that we have a guide on, that should make it easier.

00:26:44.961 --> 00:26:52.983
If our site hasn't covered the area where you want to go, send us an email and we will add it to our list to make sure we cover it in depth soon.

00:26:52.983 --> 00:27:01.565
But either way, run a few searches on pointsyacom and Google Flights to just start to get a sense of pricing.

00:27:01.565 --> 00:27:11.109
Run searches on a few different seasons to see if there is any major differences and just make a note so you can know what to expect.

00:27:11.651 --> 00:27:20.351
You can also download my Travel Points 201 guide, which has screenshots and more information on transferring points from a bank to airlines or hotels.

00:27:20.351 --> 00:27:26.482
Or, for more in-depth information, check out my course at learnkatiestraveltrickscom.

00:27:26.482 --> 00:27:29.634
If you're new to listening, welcome.

00:27:29.634 --> 00:27:33.772
I'd also encourage you to go back and start from the beginning of season one.

00:27:33.772 --> 00:27:43.542
I'm preparing these episodes to be listened to in order so that all of the information builds on other information to reduce confusion as much as possible.

00:27:44.349 --> 00:27:54.965
As a quick reminder, I keep all my guides and course free, and I'm able to do so because when you sign up for a credit card and use my affiliate link, I get paid a cash commission.

00:27:54.965 --> 00:28:03.076
These cash commissions help support the business but don't cost you anything, so I really consider this model a win-win.

00:28:03.076 --> 00:28:12.854
You can find my affiliate links on my website, but if I know of a better non-affiliate offer, I put those on my website instead, so you know you're getting the best deal.

00:28:12.854 --> 00:28:15.559
I appreciate your support so much.

00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:18.253
Thanks so much for being with me today.

00:28:18.253 --> 00:28:20.200
I can't wait to see you next time.

00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:23.881
We will continue to unlock these secrets of travel points together.

Avoid These Mistakes Booking Flights with Points

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Avoid These Mistakes Booking Flights with Points

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