Welcome To The Canny Traveller And Let's Start With The Basics: 101, Part 1

Travelling, and more to the point, travelling well, need not cost the earth. Being well organised, motivated and prepared to spend some time on internet research, really does pay dividends.
In this series of blogs, I hope to share my experiences of good travel at good prices and help you too to become a Canny Traveller.

Today is Canny Traveller 101, Part 1, starting with the very basic rule that all good travellers should adhere to. Most of you are doing this already, but are you using it to its best advantage?

Become A Member Of A Frequent Flyer Program!

This may seem incredibly obvious, but it is very important and it’s not just about joining a program: it is about optimising its potential. You should join the frequent flyer program of all the airlines with whom you fly, but try and use just one airline and its partners. That airline is generally going to be the one that has a hub in your home city or at least has a good number of flights with convenient connections. Try and be loyal to that airline and weigh up the costs/benefits. Sometimes you may find a flight to your destination on another airline that is cheaper. How much cheaper? If it is a lot, go with it. If it’s just a little, fly with your primary carrier and earn those valuable points.


Maximise your frequent flyer program earning potential. Get a credit card that earns miles. Sign up all your credit cards for dining programs that give miles. Check what other mile earning partnership opportunities your airline has. Visit the website of your carrier regularly and sign up for whatever bonus mile offers they have going at the time eg. double miles for flying between certain dates. Do be proactive on this one. They may send you some emails detailing such offers, but they don’t always so it is important to visit them.

Keep an eye on your miles account, how many miles you have and how many you need to reach an award or elite status. There are a number of free online mile calculators you can use to work out in advance how many miles a flight will earn you eg. WebFlyer
http://www.webflyer.com/travel/mileage_calculator/

Or Airtimetable.Com
http://www.airtimetable.com/Air_mile_calculator.htm

It can make a huge difference. I have two flights scheduled for the remainder of this year. As I was booking the second one, I realized that I was going to be left just 9 miles short of reaching Gold Status on American Airlines. The return leg of the journey was going to have to be a connecting one anyway, so I changed the connection city to make the journey slightly longer and get my miles and guarantee the status. It makes it a slightly inconvenient journey but well worth it for the benefits it will bring for the year ahead - like not having to pay for checked baggage (there will be a future blog on how to travel smartly with just carry on and a quart size bag of toiletries in order to avoid those hefty baggage fees).

Airmiles are a good thing to have, but when you get them, maximize their value. The different airlines all have slightly different programs, requiring different numbers of miles for journeys in different geographical zones and impose different restrictions. For a round trip economy flight on Continental in the contiguous United States it costs 20,000 for a distance of 1,500 or less or 25,000 for over 1,500 and you have to stay a Saturday night. It goes up to 35,000 if you don’t include a Saturday. On American Airlines it costs 25,000 off peak for any distance or 35,000 for anytime. They also now offer one way airmile trips for half.

Watch out for the service fees. American charges $20 for flights booked more than 21 days in advance, $50 for those booked 20 to 7 days in advance and a whopping $100 for flights booked less than a week before departure. So book early – there will also be more availability of the cheapest airline awards.

You may want to use airmiles to upgrade your paid economy trip, but these days that tends to come with a large copay. On American it’s 15,000 plus $50 each way. If you have enough airmiles, you get better value from just spending more of them on a round trip first class flight in the first place.

Don’t waste those airmiles on a cheap trip! If it costs 25,000 points to fly anywhere in the US, don’t use them for the $120 flight, use them for the $500 flight.

You might want to save up your points because better value is to be had using them to fly internationally. It costs 60,000 on American for a transatlantic trip. Business class to Asia and Australia represents the very best value. I flew from Dallas to Sydney to Hong Kong and back for 130,000 – plus tax of course.

If international travel is important to you then make sure your frequent flyer airline has good international partnerships. American Airlines is part of the One World Alliance that includes British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas. Delta and Continental are members of SkyTeam which includes Air France and Alitalia. However, Continental is planning to move to Star Alliance which includes Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. United is also a member of star Alliance.

Earning airmiles is just part of becoming a member of a Frequent Flyer Program. Earning elite status is another huge bonus, especially now many of the airlines are charging outrageous baggage fees. Getting to the lowest rung of status eg. Gold on American, will give you first class check in, fast track security, no checked baggage fees, reductions on airline club membership, bonuses on miles earned, upgrade vouchers and dedicated travel help lines.

The higher the status you get, the better the perks. But be realistic. Gold status is manageable for many – you need to fly 25,000 miles in a year and if you find yourself just short of that, then it maybe worth your while to take a cheap flight just to make up the miles. Executive Platinum on American gives tremendous benefits but you have to fly 100,000 miles in a year to achieve it, which is impossible for almost everyone except the most well travelled of international business people who are flying on someone else’s dollar.

I hope this has been helpful. Stay tuned for The Canny Traveller 101, Part 2, in which I discuss hotel rewards programs. Future blogs will include in depth looks at travelling in the UK (my native country), Spain and Portugal, and a favourite destination of mine, the Riviera Maya in Mexico.