AFF on Air Discussion thread

[yeahitsme]

Absolutely, and they only charged the old rates even though it was ticketed after the new ones came in, so you win some you lose some.

The latest episode brought back some memories, good old US dividend miles, loved that program! Had some quirks like routing rules but you could often make them work in your favour, especially if you were an aviation geek like me. The first one I did was a basic RT MEL-LHR in C which ended up being cheaper to purchase miles and redeem in business than to buy an economy ticket outright, after that I was hooked!

MPM+25% was great, and one of the interesting rules was you couldn't travel Aus-Europe via the US but you could travel Aus-US via Europe. As long as your stopover city in the US was further from your origin than your stopover city in Europe, the US one counted as your destination and the European one was your stopover which was within the rules.

I booked trips like MEL-HKG-LHR-FCO-LHR-JFK-HKG-MEL, MEL-SIN-CPH-TXL-BRU-YUL-LGA-ORD-NRT-ICN-SIN-MEL, MEL-BKK-TPE-JFK-MUC-PVG-MEL and MEL-SIN-CAI-IST-EWR-BRU-ZRH-PEK-SIN-MEL for 110k/120k miles in Business.

Goodo

 

[aaa99]

Hi Matt, thanks for all the effort putting together the podcast every fortnight. I do look forward to listening to it fortnightly. I sometimes wonder if it is possible that you could make it weekly?

Anyway on to your question, I would say my favorite deal of all time was when I locked in a $1 airfare in 2010. This was part of the Air NZ Grabaseat promo that runs in NZ on a daily basis. For sure, this is not as fancy as a price mistake in BIZ class or sweet spot redemption, but as a student at the time, I really appreciated being able to get the flight I wanted at that price.


I love how it still had the $0.11 GST component in there

In the past, I also used the website to lock in similar $7, $11 and $19 NZ domestic fares from time to time. These fares still earned 8 status credits in their terrible Airpoints program, which was ok for a status run.

And they also worked well in conjunction with their trial "Flexitime Flyer membership" which was offered for a brief period in 2016 for $199 annually. With this membership, any fare booked, even the ones on Grabaseat would become Flexitime fares with inclusion of a bag, seat selection and flexible same-day changes. So, I was able to book the cheap $7 fares available to my destination and then move them on the day to a more convenient time.

Air NZ launches Flexitime Flyer - FlyerTalk Forums

Air New Zealand | Air Points - Air NZ launches Flexitime Flyer - I just got the email - $199yr for flexi + a checked bag + seat select on seat only fares Only available until 15th November.

www.flyertalk.com

Air NZ still do the Grabaseat promos these days, but haven't seen them going down to $1 in the last few years.

 

[AFF Editor]

I have some good news for Overcast fans.

Our IT expert seems to have fixed the issue and you should now be able to listen to AFF on Air on Overcast by manually adding this URL: ‎https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/aff-on-air-podcast/id1447317716

 

[levelnine]

I have some good news for Overcast fans.

Thanks so much! So nice not to have to go Spotify for just this one podcast.

 

[Charger73]

Thanks so much! So nice not to have to go Spotify for just this one podcast.

Woot woot!! Hear hear @levelnine!! Thanks so much, @Mattg and your IT expert!!

 

[JessicaTam]

Thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed, Matt. Hopefully it is of benefit to some.

 

[daft009]

Cheapest flight for me was back in 2004, when I was a uni student backpacking around western Europe.

I flew Ryan air from Linz in Austria to London Stansted for 10 euro cents + taxes etc which came to around 10€ all up

Slept on the terminal floor in Stansted then took the first flight out to Amsterdam on Easyjet

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

Great episode this week (actually they’re all really good ) thoroughly enjoyed Ron’s stories, thanks

 

[kangarooflyer88]

As someone who has been earning and churning Air Canada Aeroplan miles for many years now it was great listening to Matt's coverage of the program on this week's AFF on the Air Podcast. Whilst the episode did cover quite a few ins and outs of the program including the many airlines that have partnered with Air Canada to provide arguably the most unrivalled award route network out there, there were some finer points that I felt were glossed over and warrant further discussion.

In particular, I direct readers/listeners to the perk where you can add a stop-over for just 5,000 miles. Now I know what you are thinking, what's the big deal here? So what if you can stop over in Perth en-route to Europe? Well there's a couple of benefits to this approach. First, this stop over feature lets you effectively force Air Canada to provide you with a routing where there is business classic award availability. Case in point, I was looking for a flight from Los Angeles back to Sydney for next year. The fact of the matter was no such flight could be found on the dates I wanted to travel in May. However, I was able to find Los Angeles to Seoul and then a couple days later Seoul to Sydney in business class. So I spend 5,000 miles and maybe a couple hundred to for hotels enabling me to visit a new country and get the award seat I want? Not bad!

A related item that can be a real boon for us Australian Frequent Flyers is the fact that we can visit multiple continents for essentially 5,000 miles more. To give you a concrete example: Sydney to London costs 110,000 miles one-way in business class (supposing you find partner business award availability). How much do you reckon a trip to New York is with a stop over in London? 200,000 miles? 250,000 miles? Even more? Nope! It's just 120,000 miles and it is computed as follows: origin: Sydney (Pacific region) destination New York (North America region). Per the award chart the distance flying that routing is over 11,000 miles so we would use the highest bracket in the award chart there 115,000 miles + 5,000 miles for the stop over in Europe. We are literally getting an extra continent for 5,000 miles more. Not bad! And of course you could do the trick in reverse as I did, flying from North America to Asia then continuing on to Australia. Plenty of ways to really stretch those miles out for maximum value!

Like anything miles related there are T&Cs and some ins and outs to get the booking you want. It's not all cakewalk. But there are some really solid value redemptions you can get out of Aeroplan!

-RooFlyer88

 

[Scr77]

As someone who has been earning and churning Air Canada Aeroplan miles for many years now it was great listening to Matt's coverage of the program on this week's AFF on the Air Podcast. Whilst the episode did cover quite a few ins and outs of the program including the many airlines that have partnered with Air Canada to provide arguably the most unrivalled award route network out there, there were some finer points that I felt were glossed over and warrant further discussion.

In particular, I direct readers/listeners to the perk where you can add a stop-over for just 5,000 miles. Now I know what you are thinking, what's the big deal here? So what if you can stop over in Perth en-route to Europe? Well there's a couple of benefits to this approach. First, this stop over feature lets you effectively force Air Canada to provide you with a routing where there is business classic award availability. Case in point, I was looking for a flight from Los Angeles back to Sydney for next year. The fact of the matter was no such flight could be found on the dates I wanted to travel in May. However, I was able to find Los Angeles to Seoul and then a couple days later Seoul to Sydney in business class. So I spend 5,000 miles and maybe a couple hundred to for hotels enabling me to visit a new country and get the award seat I want? Not bad!

A related item that can be a real boon for us Australian Frequent Flyers is the fact that we can visit multiple continents for essentially 5,000 miles more. To give you a concrete example: Sydney to London costs 110,000 miles one-way in business class (supposing you find partner business award availability). How much do you reckon a trip to New York is with a stop over in London? 200,000 miles? 250,000 miles? Even more? Nope! It's just 120,000 miles and it is computed as follows: origin: Sydney (Pacific region) destination New York (North America region). Per the award chart the distance flying that routing is over 11,000 miles so we would use the highest bracket in the award chart there 115,000 miles + 5,000 miles for the stop over in Europe. We are literally getting an extra continent for 5,000 miles more. Not bad! And of course you could do the trick in reverse as I did, flying from North America to Asia then continuing on to Australia. Plenty of ways to really stretch those miles out for maximum value!

Like anything miles related there are T&Cs and some ins and outs to get the booking you want. It's not all cakewalk. But there are some really solid value redemptions you can get out of Aeroplan!

-RooFlyer88

Thanks for sharing. What’s the main way you currently earn these points? Amex? The new start alliance card may help.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Thanks for sharing. What’s the main way you currently earn these points? Amex?

To be honest, the main way I am earning those those points is by simply buying them when Air Canada runs one of their promotions! I bought 160,000 miles back in July during their 80% promotion for $2,800 CAD. In a distant second, I do have a Canadian AmEx card that will let me transfer membership rewards points at a rate of 1:1 to Aeroplan, so I transferred another 60,000 membership rewards points over to Aeroplan

The new start alliance card may help.

In terms of raw earning power, I'm not so sure. If you're like me and put everything on your credit card, the value drops quite rapidly after the first $3,000 you put on the card. Compare that with AmEx Platinum where you are earning well over a frequent flyer mile per dollar spent uncapped. At the same time, I'm ineligible to apply for credit cards given my visa status.

-RooFlyer88

 

[Townsend]

Thanks for a great year of podcasts Matt. You will be missed until the podcasts return. Merry Christmas to you and may 2023 be a great year for you.

 

[Big John]

Thanks for a great year of podcasts Matt. You will be missed until the podcasts return. Merry Christmas to you and may 2023 be a great year for you.

+1 !

Not sure how I'm going to survive without my fortnightly fix of AFF on Air, but Matt fully deserves having a break.

Hope everyone has a good Chrissie and is back in the air in 2023.

 

[_flyer]

Does anyone know what date the podcast series returns?

 

[AFF Editor]

Does anyone know what date the podcast series returns?

We haven't decided on an exact date yet, but to set expectations, it will probably be sometime next month.

We're taking a longer break from the podcast than usual this year while I work on some other things in the background.

In the meantime, for those who haven't listened to all 98 existing episodes yet, please feel free to go back and have a listen to some of our previous episodes! And for the latest news, we are still publishing the Frequent Flyer Gazette twice per week.

 

[Townsend]

I have listened to them all and canno wat wait for Matt’s return.

 

[markyb]

Hi Matt and others - I've just listened to the latest episode (#98) and wonder how one hears about new award seats being released? It's as if Matt and James (and others) are getting notified somehow...

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Hi Matt and others - I've just listened to the latest episode (#98) and wonder how one hears about new award seats being released? It's as if Matt and James (and others) are getting notified somehow...

There is some notification if you have a ExpertFlyer subscription and set up award alerts when availability appears on flights you are tracking but in general I would say we encounter these awards by simply doing those searches regularly for ourselves or colleagues (my friend calls it award aerobics). In my case I travel a lot and so tend to mix revenue tickets with award flights depending on how the math works out. In some instances buying points at a discount and then turning around and redeeming it for a valuable business class seat on a long haul route like SYD to DFW or SYD to YYZ (in my case) can really make a lot of sense versus buying an economy cash (revenue) ticket from the airlines.

-RooFlyer88

 

[markyb]

There is some notification if you have a ExpertFlyer subscription and set up award alerts when availability appears on flights you are tracking but in general I would say we encounter these awards by simply doing those searches regularly for ourselves or colleagues (my friend calls it award aerobics). In my case I travel a lot and so tend to mix revenue tickets with award flights depending on how the math works out. In some instances buying points at a discount and then turning around and redeeming it for a valuable business class seat on a long haul route like SYD to DFW or SYD to YYZ (in my case) can really make a lot of sense versus buying an economy cash (revenue) ticket from the airlines.

-RooFlyer88

OK thanks. Am trying to book a one world award for 4 people (like a did in 2019) and finding the challenge daunting. Will keep trying whilst considering alternative ways to use QFF points for a family trip.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

OK thanks. Am trying to book a one world award for 4 people (like a did in 2019) and finding the challenge daunting. Will keep trying whilst considering alternative ways to use QFF points for a family trip.

I think the key is to look where everyone else isn't looking. For instance, heading to Europe, many people would think of the obvious like QF to FCO or LHR, or perhaps QF to SIN, then connecting on with BA to LHR but there are many more destinations covered by OneWorld partners. One tool I found that is useful in constructing a routing with availability is FlightConnections which provides a route network for the various airlines. For instance, did you know that Qantas classic award partner, China Airlines flies between Taipei and Sydney? Or that Emirates flies between Mexico City and Barcelona? Well, now you know!

-RooFlyer88