Frequent Flyer Rewards

DeAnn-we have been happy with Delta's Business Elite seats for sleeping. They are almost flat seats and they will give you almost real pillows & a big blanket too, not to mention good food, video on demand, drinks, etc. We also flew Virgin Atlantic on their premier class (? can't quite remember what it was called but it was basically their first class) and found it very comfortable as well.

This is mostly subjective.

As a general rule an aircraft is split into 3 sections.

Economy / Business ( or premium economy or 'whatever ya wanna call it ) / First

In Economy you don't get much leg room and your choice of in-flight meals and entertainment are limited and cabin crew offer a reasonable service but don't tend to fuss over you too much.

In Business you get reasonable leg room ( I'm 6'2" ) more choice of meals and entertainment and cabin crew are always around and offering you something.

In First you get ultimate comfort from your seat, you get a wide choice of meals, champagne, great single malt scotch, a wide choice of entertainment and anything your heart desires, within the realms of legal and moral.

As for airline prices going down on Tuesday nights - utter bunk ! Airline pricing is a reactive process ande any airline that waited for Tuesday to roll around would go broke.

If you're using FF points to buy a ticket - buy early. The earlier the better

I'm not familiar with the Capital One program, so there may not be problems with finding a seat, but typically frequent flyer seats are limited on each plane with different airlines having different policies on how many seats are available. Because of this most people recommend booking as soon as seats are released (330 days out). Perhaps with the Capital One program there are no seat restrictions, which would be great!!

Generally, the accepted point where it's considered a good value for miles is if the ticket you redeem cashes out to $.02 per mile. For instance, if it costs 25,000 miles to book a ticket, if the ticket generally costs more than $500 then that would be a good use of miles.

Also, don't forget that you typically have to pay some taxes for the tickets regardless of using points or not. We had to pay close to $300 for our award tickets to Europe for this summer.

DeAnn,
In my "prior life" I was on the road 250-275 days a year racking up "millions" of points with major hotel chains, airlines, rental cars, etc. I would, by my company's direction, stay in the Holiday Inn, the Marriott Courtyard, The Hampton Inn, etc.

Yet when my wife and I traveled, three to four times a year to Europe, WE NEVER PAID for a single hotel, flight, or rental car - for more than 8 years! In addition, all those nights in Hamptons were parlayed into Conrad's... those Courtyards were JW Marriott's (like the one on Capri!), and those older Holiday Inn stays were used to stay at beautiful Intercontinentals! I used AMEX points to stay at the Danielli in Venice, a room that started at $950 a night! So there's a lot of strategy in how to use your points.

Airlines are by far the most difficult place to use points. Flights are available 330 days in advance - and on the night (330 days in advance) that I needed a ticket I was online at 12:01 AM to get those seats! There are a limited number of awards seats available - regardless of any credit card "black-out" policy. The airlines determine the number of seats, no one else! (One of my goals has been to fly free on Singapore Air using Skymiles, but usually they allow only 2 seats a flight - been trying to land that ticket for 5 years!)

You MUST book award seats early. If you're not able to get them, keep checking back!! Sometimes you have to take the "scenic route" with reward tickets - often two, maybe three legs to your flight... but once you're booked, if you keep checking back, you can move those "multi-leg" flights to non-stop - especially if you have "status" with an airline.

You can purchase a "full price" ticket in economy and then use points to upgrade. I don't recommend this as it's almost as cheap just to buy the first class ticket - and a waste of points and money. I flew Delta, as I was based in Atlanta, and used ALL the Skymile partners to book my rewards flights.

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST!

If you get on the phone with a reservationist and BE NICE, the operators will work out the "hops" for you! Once you find one "over the water" (From US to Europe and back) the rest is pretty easy!

If a flight has not sold many seats there is a possibility that a few weeks before departure they WILL open up more FF seats but I just never counted on this.

I used most of my "points" to stay in INCREDIBLE 5-star hotels, sometimes flying over on coach to save points. It just depends on your priorities, but we've stayed in places I COULD NEVER (nor want to) AFFORD! Have a great time - start planning and making those reservations well in advance!

Ciao,
Ron

Thank you all for your advise. With Capital One Frequent Flyers I purchase my tickets from anyone (directly from the airline, Travelocity, whomever) with my Capital One card. That means I am not controlled by the FF seats available on the plane because they don't even know (or care) that I am using FF points because they are paid in full immediately. Then, when the charge shows up on my account I indicate to Capital One that I want that charge covered with my reward miles. Currently, I am receiving anywhere between 2 and 7 points per dollar spent on the card and I multiply the purchase price for flights or hotel by 100 and that is how many points I need to cover that purchase. I paid for a trip to NYC this way and will soon be covering a trip to Disneyland, including the hopper passes, for four of us. Since I pay my card off in full each month it really isn't costing me anything except the $150 yearly fee. I think the card is worth that.

As for the different "classes" on the airplane, I hope to get a seat that I can really sleep in. Which "class" would allow that?

DeAnn,

We are using our points on British Airways and flying in Club (their Business class). Haven't flown Club before, but have been so excited for our trip I've looked at a lot of the amenities in Club and these include flat beds. It's costing quite a bit of points, but based on the cost to fly Club with them (our flights combined for both my wife and I are over $15000!) we would never be able to afford it. We had preferred to use Northwest (KLM) because it took a lot less miles, but even 300 days out we couldn't get availability.

If you can afford the points, I'd go Club or First! Of course Ron had great suggestions about using your points for great hotels too, so that's a tough one!

Jed, you are so lucky! We got upgraded to Club World on BA in 2005 and it spoiled us forever. The seats not only lie flat, but with the foot rest they must be nearly six feet in length. The service is fantastic and we got to sit in the Club Lounge at Heathrow during a layover.

DeAnn,

I just have to ask, is this just the regular Capital One, or an upgraded version? I currently use Citicard Advantage and the points are sometimes difficult to redeem. I've only been successful once so far. I get Capital One offers in the mail all the time, but never took the time to review the info.

Thanks

My husband and I own two small businesses and use Capital One Business Platinum Cards for everything we can possibly charge. We actually have three cards between the two of us for the two businesses. Capital One makes it amazingly easy to redeem points and they aren't kidding about "no restrictions." You can also buy gift cards with your points. My husband got a pocketful of Best Western cards and traveled all over the UK with them last summer. As always with credit cards, the important thing is to pay off the balances every month or the interest and penalties charged far outweigh the benefits. BTW, my parents got a Capital One card to use specifically for buying materials for building their new house. (Brother is a contractor). They earned loads of points. I think it is worth checking into even for individuals w/o businesses. We do, however, pay that $150 annual fee and I'm not sure I would be willing to pay that if I didn't charge so much to the card.

Thanks Sherry! We are So looking forward to our flight. We figured that since it's our first time flying to Europe we might as well do it right! We plan on going to the airport early so we can use the lounges. Since it will probably be our only time on BA Club might as well take advantage of all the wonderful amenities! Though I'm not super excited to fly through LHR, we'll at least get to use the new T5 lounges!

We'll have to check out the Capital One card too DeAnn! Sounds like you are getting great rewards for it! We've always done what you do with our Alaska Visa, but it does limit who you can fly on and the seat availability.

Thanks DeAnn. We too use our card for almost everything to accumulate the points, but also pay in full every month. Unfortunately in 3 years I've only been able to get free tickets to Paris once.

Thanks for the info, I'll definately take a closer look at Capital One!

Just an FYI, Capital One is one of the few cards that charges NO CONVERSION fees when you use it in Europe. Most others will add 1-3% to your purchase as a bank charge.

My AMEX is about 2.5-3% depending on the country... Many vendors here do not want to see an AMEX card! So when I was in the States, I'd use AMEX Platinum - but once I came to Europe I used my Capital One Platinum.

I was very fortunate to work with folks who were experts in "how to maximize" their points and learned many lessons. They paid off when we went on vacation!

Ciao,
Ron

Even better! I'm liking my Capital One more and more!