Using a points booking service, are these companies worthwhile?

[Flying Sailor]

Hi, my wife & I are still to book flights to the US for a trip leaving end of September, returning early November.We have 390k Qantas points (and growing) between us and want to use these, plus pay option if required for a better itinerary. Would love to travel at least some of it Business.

I have spent hours on forums and have yet to book. Did a quick search for points booking services and came up with some articles out of the US that mention upgrd.com and Points Pro. For $250 they research the options and make recommendations. Has anyone used these services? I think this forum has a service too, is that correct? What are flyers experiences.

It may seem counter intuitive to pay someone else to find flights that we intend to book using points to save money. However they could well find something better than I can, and $125 each to have a better experience sounds like it could be a worthwhile investment.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[Mwenenzi]

From where and to where are you trying to get ?
From Australia look at SYD, BNE and/or MEL if you live on the east coast
At times it can be better to leave/arrive at a large airport and the pay for domestic flights

Another thread with the same question as yours http://www.australianfrequentflyer....e-paid-concierge-service-available-49726.html

Also have a look at AwardGrabber

Edit:
Have found your other post http://www.australianfrequentflyer....gram/perth-san-francisco-return-la-48561.html
Phone QF and as about Cathay / JAL / Malaysian. (poor web award availability)
Or pay $ to fly to Singapore with award flights SIN SFO
With PER & SFO your options are limited using QF points www.oneworld.com for route maps

 

[Flying Sailor]

Thanks Mwenenzi,
Flying from Perth on or about the 29th of Sept 2013. heading to San Francisco. From there we overland in the US ending up in Las Vegas on the 27th of October 2013. We were thinking of returning pack to Perth leaving LA on 1st Nov but happy to consider other options including RTW.

 

[aikman]

I can see good availability on your dates and for your itinerary but not in business class. I’d say that a 140k point oneworld award will suit your needs quite well. Fly up on QF, fly some internal USA flights with AA, and fly back on CX. You should be able to easily book this via the call centre.

 

[Flying Sailor]

I can see good availability on your dates and for your itinerary but not in business class. I’d say that a 140k point oneworld award will suit your needs quite well. Fly up on QF, fly some internal USA flights with AA, and fly back on CX. You should be able to easily book this via the call centre.

Thanks Aikman, do you know if they do a points plus pay option for RTW?

 

[mrsmajor]

I have my own free 'Points Booking Service' commonly known as "Major" - if we could get $250 for every time we talk to friends about the best method to go where, which airline to use etc, then we'd be rich!
I didn't realise there was such a service out there but if someone is clocking up thousands of points and doesn't know how to make the best of them, then yes, I guess it could definitely be value for money.
but from what I gather there's heaps of good advice through this forum anyway.
Second thoughts, maybe a good business opportunity?

 

[spudwa]

My wife and I have used Ben at PointsPros a few times and we find his service outstanding. When you consider than for an extra $250.00 on an outlay of around $5,000.00 for 2 people, its not much. When you consider that the first time we used Ben our emails to and fro were around 25 with more than 5 routings offered, changed and tweaked its not too much. When you consider that on our first booking he explained to us why we "should" spend a few hours in the Thai F lounge in Bangkok rather than racing through as you do in economy, its worth it. When you consider that all flight legs are confirmed and he picks the best seats for you (I remember laughing when I heard that some seats in F are bad!) its worth it. When he pays all the fees for you on the second trip and lets you pay later, its worth it.

 

[wafliron]

I have spent hours on forums and have yet to book. Did a quick search for points booking services and came up with some articles out of the US that mention upgrd.com and Points Pro. For $250 they research the options and make recommendations. Has anyone used these services? I think this forum has a service too, is that correct? What are flyers experiences.

It may seem counter intuitive to pay someone else to find flights that we intend to book using points to save money. However they could well find something better than I can, and $125 each to have a better experience sounds like it could be a worthwhile investment.

Whether it's a "worthwhile investment" or not really depends upon whether a points booking service will manage to achieve a better outcome (route, schedule, airline, whatever) than you would achieve on your own, and how long it will take you to find and book the itinerary on your own vs how you value your time. For the former it can be a case of not knowing until you try, but do bear in mind that at least some of the points booking services out there don't charge unless they find an itinerary that you're happy to proceed with. For the latter it's clearly a case of YMMV.

Personally, I wouldn't bother for a relatively simple itinerary like the one you propose using a relatively simple program like QFF, but again this is again very much a YMMV call. That said, I reckon if you're feeling unsure about the whole thing just try one out - you will hopefully get an outcome you're happy with, and at worst it's a relatively small cost that you can write off as a learning experience.

As for recommendations, I've used Award Travel Consulting ([email protected]) for a couple of Dividend Miles bookings in the past and have been very, very happy with the service - fast response, good suggestions/advice, and good outcomes in terms of options found. They (he? I think it might be a one-man operation?) charge $100 USD per pax to find the itinerary, only payable if you're happy and proceed with the itinerary, and $50 USD per itinerary (i.e. $50 no matter how many pax) to actually make the booking on your behalf. You can use both the finding and booking service, or either one individually if you wish. I still use their booking service for DM redemptions even though I now find the itineraries myself (as I've gotten more familiar with how to do it), as I'm happy to pay someone $50 USD to offload the hassle of dealing with a US based call centre - plus I've found on a couple of occasions that they've been able to achieve "favourable" outcomes for me that I don't think I would've achieved on my own, largely because of their experience in the area.

Good luck!

 

[markis10]

Probably worth mentioning that AFF members get a free Award Nexus account, with tools such as that its hard to see value in paying someone.

 

[Flying Sailor]

Thanks to Mwenenzi, Aikman, Mrs Major, Spudwa, wafliron, Markis

After doing some research that backs up Points Pros as being legit, I have emailed Ben from Points Pros. Spudwa, your feedback was a definite positive!. Mrs Major, there could be a business opportunity, mind you I think you would have to be pretty passionate to learn all of the airline FF programs and tricks of the trade.

It will be interesting to see what he/they come back with. I will let you know via this post.

While I could do it my self, I am pretty confident that this will yield a better and certainly more interesting result than I would come up with. Plus, I am flat out at work so the value of my time is a factor, although a secondary one.

Ben's blog is onemileatatime, interesting reading if you have not checked it out.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[coles525]

Probably worth mentioning that AFF members get a free Award Nexus account, with tools such as that its hard to see value in paying someone.

Do you have a link or more info regarding Nexus?

Using my phone to search, but no direct results.

What is it, does it workout where your current points can take you?

 

[RooFlyer]

markis10 will no doubt give a more thorough answer, but with Award Nexus you basically tell it where you want to go From and To and/or Via (with options for leaving one of these 'open'), plus the date (+/-) and class of travel wanted and it goes off to various Airline or Alliance Award Search engines and returns the results to you.

It costs per search via points which you buy on subscription (if you are a Premium subscriber).

You then go off and contact the airline to redeem.

 

[mrsmajor]

"While I could do it my self, I am pretty confident that this will yield a better and certainly more interesting result than I would come up with. Plus, I am flat out at work so the value of my time is a factor, although a secondary one. "

I am definitely a fan of delegating some things to others who know better (i.e. faster and more effectively!). Nice to learn about Points Pro though.

 

[wafliron]

Probably worth mentioning that AFF members get a free Award Nexus account,

A free "community" membership? Or one of the premium levels?

with tools such as that its hard to see value in paying someone.

Still YMMV IMHO - especially if you're time poor.

As I mentioned above, I've used a points booking service a couple of times before. The first time was for both searching and booking my first-ever USDM redemption - while I could no doubt have figured out how to do it on my own (and have, since), at the time I needed to make the booking ASAP and due to work craziness had no time to figure out how to search and book, learn the program rules, etc. So spending $250 to have someone do it for me was absolutely worth it. Beyond that first time, again as mentioned above, I've used Award Travel Consulting to just book USDM redemptions after I've found the itinerary myself - personally I regard $50 USD as a bargain to have someone handle the booking for me regardless of whether I could do it on my own or not.

 

[markis10]

Do you have a link or more info regarding Nexus?

Using my phone to search, but no direct results.

What is it, does it workout where your current points can take you?

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....nexus-community-account-50124.html#post817648

A free "community" membership? Or one of the premium levels?

Still YMMV IMHO - especially if you're time poor.

LOL, if you cannot even find the answer to that question I would suggest your in the time poor category Everybody has difference preferences as to what their time is worth, or what value is their piece of mind when you did the work yourself.

 

[wafliron]

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....nexus-community-account-50124.html#post817648

Thanks.

LOL, if you cannot even find the answer to that question I would suggest your in the time poor category

No, just the "lazy" category this time

Everybody has difference preferences as to what their time is worth, or what value is their piece of mind when you did the work yourself.

And that is exactly my point! "YMMV"

 

[Flying Sailor]

Hi, bit of an update. After my initial inquiry to Points Pros I did hear back, however they basically said that, with the qty of points we have, there weren't options for business class flights on Qantas or other one world alliance partners. I was hoping that they would investigate ways to at least get us on business for one leg. They did not seem interested.

That was not a bad thing as it turned out, we have reconsidered and decided that we will continue to accumulate our points to 280k each for One World RTW business flights and have another holiday in a year or so. So we payed for economy flights.

Thanks for all your input.

Cheers,

Jason