Need some guidance using miles and reward points

This is a loaded question with multiple answers. I have played the FF mile game for a long time and it has evolved and become more tricky. Just recently some airlines have devalued their FF miles and to further complicate things, with the dynamic pricing model it is hard to answer your question with an easy answer. I would start by playing around on the various airline websites and see how much the routes you want cost. After some trial and error, you can narrow down which airline gets you where you want for the cheapest.

I can't help with your specific question, but I have a couple of tips that could be pertinent in the end:

Check the taxes involved if you fly into or out of the UK. Every time I've looked, they've been so high that it didn't make sense to use miles for that trip.

Some airlines (maybe all) set their mileage charges separately for each leg of the trip. That means you can use Brand X miles to fly to Europe and Brand Y miles to fly home. That's helpful if you have miles scattered among several airlines' programs. Most of my miles are on United, but at least twice I've headed over to Europe for a long trip with no return flight booked. I'm getting ready to do it again in a couple of days. It hasn't burned me yet...

The SkyMiles are the lowest value of all your points. If I were you I’d look to just spend them down and then move your earning to another ’currency’.

Using one airline’s points to book on another airline can get a little intricate, but it can be part of a strategy for using those chase points efficiently. The credit cards/miles blogs are the best place for primers on the topic.

Very easy in your case. Log into Flying Blue and search from MSP. Delta/KLM/Air France hub out of MSP to London, Amsterdam, and Paris.

Flying Blue has very good value for points to Europe, but you need to look around for saver fares. I've used Flying Blue the past three summers ('19, '21, '22) for lie flat seats for 4 people (one way - I'd rather sit up going home. Low price per ticket 52.5k miles, high price 63k miles. You can book miles flights up to 330 days ahead, and its smart to get on it early as the cheapest tickets sell out fast.

If need be you can easily transfer Chase points to Flying Blue at a one to one ratio, but don't transfer until you know for sure what you are booking as you can't transfer back and Chase points are more flexible.

Chase points can also transfer to United's or British's partner networks, but availability and usually prices aren't at all as good as Flying Blue lately.

So yeah, use Flying Blue and you ought to be fine right out of MSP.

I've churned a lot of different points programs for a long time now, happy to answer any questions the best I can. Searching effectively if you can't fine an obvious flight from your home airport can get a little tricky, but there are ways to ferret out the best flights and prices if need be.

Acraven "taxes" vary widely by airline and airline network. British to London is highway robbery (like $850 for business class); KLM to AMS can be less than 20 bucks. Definitely worth knowing before you transfer miles and/or buy.

Oh and Mardee Flying Blue always has a rewards flight sale available for short term (like book and use within a couple of months) awards. There are always some select long haul flights on that sale, and the sale is always going - destinations just change. It's a good way to stretch your miles if you didn't book 11 months ahead.

Might not be the best for your situation, but I have bought airline tickets with Chase points via the Chase travel portal. I purchased Delta flights. The Chase points are worth 1.25 when booking through the portal and the flight cost was the same as booking directly with Delta. I have had an instance where I cancelled a flight and received full credit, which I used towards a different flight. I am not a guru with the points game, but this has worked for us.

Charles, thanks - I have been doing that (one reason why I came here as that led to some confusion), but will definitely keep checking and using the good advice here.

acraven, that's a good idea - I never thought about splitting up the miles between trips.

Scudder, good to know. I've sort of been doing that - on my most recent trip, I used my Chase Sapphire card for all my purchases, except my Delta ticket (which wasn't much, since I used credits for most of it).

Hank, thanks for this! That is very helpful! I will check Flying Blue for tickets (and flight sales) and also make sure I'm getting notifications from Flying Blue so that I can stay on top of that. And that's also interesting about the taxes - I will definitely keep that in mind.

salbeachbum, that's interesting. I'll look at that as well.

Thank you all so much! I really appreciate the knowledge and experience you all have! Sometimes my brain just falters when it comes to numbers, so it's nice to know I can come here for help. 😊

The game of miles and points can be confusing.

First, I would identify the time period when you want to use the miles and the route(s) that you want to use them for. Bear in mind that mileage tickets generally aren't available for redemption till approx. 330 or 355 days before your desired departure date.

Second, check if KLM or Delta charges more for peak season. Check the dates if desired.

Third, compare required award miles for your desired flights across the two programs.

Fourth, book when the airline first opens the booking window. This is very important as you will be competing with travelers all over the world for those scarce seats.

Hi Mardee, I also have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. If you have enough points, you can book any travel through the Chase portal (which is Expedia). I have done this several times and it's super easy. I always use up my points for hotels (just recently we had four nights "free" in Germany booked through Chase) so never have enough points for flights.

Tammy hi

Before booking hotels through the Chase Points travel portal, it might be to your advantage to check Hyatt and search for rewards nights. I'm not sure why, but some hotels under the Hyatt umbrella can be incredibly cheap for rewards points. I have found rooms in perfectly nice properties for down two 3,000 points for instance.

3000 Chase points will at best get you $37.50 through the Chase Points travel portal. But Chase points transfer to a Hyatt rewards account instantly at a one-to-one ratio. So often you can get a room in a Hyatt property for half as many points, or a third or even a quarter than you would use purchasing through the portal.

So Hyatt rewards can be really quite the deal compared to all the other chains. The big qualifier being that Hyatt has the smallest network of hotels out of major hotel chains - significantly less chance of finding one where you want it. But sometimes when there is one the room feels like it's almost free by transferring points from Chase to Hyatt.

Check the taxes involved if you fly into or out of the UK. Every time I've looked, they've been so high that it didn't make sense to use miles for that trip.

On a U.S. based airline, flying into the UK (and terminating your flight there), the taxes are usually quite low. However, flying from the UK back to the US, you incur the UK departure tax which is quite high. For example, I recently checked United to London with FF points. Taxes were about $5 to fly to London and about $200 to fly home.

It is a different story with some of the non-US airlines. For example, BA tacks on a fuel surcharge. US airlines aren’t permitted to do that.

If you plan to book your flight with miles, you would probably be better off to fly into London at the start of your trip and home from Paris.

Barkinpark, thanks, that sounds like good advice. I guess I will have to hunker down and do some math. :)

Tammy, that's not a bad idea! I can use the Flying Blue points for the flight and Chase reward points for hotels.

Hank, I know you intended that for Tammy but that is very good to know and makes a lot of sense. I'll check to see what's out there.

Laura, very sage advice and I really wish I could do that. My problem is that I'm staying with some friends for part of my stay in France (they recently bought a place in the Pyrenees) but they're only there right now from January through mid-April. They've applied for a residency visa but no clue as to when they get it, and I don't want to wait too long to book my flights. So that's why I'm think I would head to France first and then the UK. Plus it sort of makes more sense to head north as April progresses.

Mardee, it makes really good sense to checks carefully flights that depart through LHR because of the high taxes. If using miles for business, it might be worth it, but if flying economy sometimes the tax is as high as an economy ticket for me - PLUS the miles. So makes no sense.

Also if using the Chase portal, decide if you are willing to book third party, since in essence that’s what it is.

Regarding "taxes" on mileage flights and why they seem to very so radically:

These taxes are actually mostly made up of "fuel surcharges," which are charged by the airline in whatever amount they feel like, not by an airport or municipality.

There are airport/municipal taxes on incoming passengers, but these are uniform set amounts, and reasonably low.

When you book a frequent flyer flight and the "taxes" are low, this is because there is no "fuel surcharge" added and you are actually paying just the required taxes/fee.

But when the "taxes" are high, that is usually almost entirely because the airline is actually hitting you up for a "fuel surcharge." In quotes because the charge actually isn't correlated to any sort of portion of fuel usage, but rather is essentially just an amount of money the airline feels like it can or ought to tack on to your "free" miles ticket.

British Airways really puts the screws to you for a fuel surcharges, particularly if you book a ticket above economy class -- in first class these "taxes" can triple or quadruple.

Emirates high fees as well. I think in Emirates case high fees on mileage tickets keep the t-shirted rabble who accumulate miles through credit cards and domestic partner airlines from showing up in the first class pod next to CEO's and various other rich people who've (or whose companies) have paid full freight.

But anyway, the large fees on some mileage tickets are mostly not actual taxes, and are assigned to some extent arbitrarily.

When departing from England specifically, there is a tax (not just a fuel surcharge) on using frequent flier miles. My British friends told me this was one of chancellor Gordon Brown's ways of increasing tax revenue when Tony Blair was prime minister.

Yes Elizabeth, the money you pay with a miles ticket includes taxes, and those taxes vary municipality to municipality.

But the thing that makes British mileage tickets to London and many other places more expensive than they're worth is fuel surcharges.

Fuel surcharges — also known as carrier-imposed surcharges or YQ
surcharges — are an important issue for award travel enthusiasts.
After all, these extra fees can make your award flight cost hundreds
(if not thousands) of dollars in addition to your miles redeemed.

In 2022, multiple airlines, including ANA and Emirates, increased fuel
surcharges. In some cases, fuel surcharges are so high that they can
match or even exceed the price of an economy-class ticket.

In many cases, fuel surcharges aren't necessarily related to fuel
costs. Instead, fuel surcharges often include various additional fees
that airlines add to their tickets.

The full article at pointsguy.com breaks down which airlines charge the most and least.

Thanks, TexasTravelmom, Elizabeth and Hank (again)! I will check out the Points Guy article as well (although I am not nearly as enamored of that site since I read the article on Brian Kelly and what a horrible person he is).

Is it just England that has the higher taxes? One thing I could do is fly out of Edinburgh. Once I head to England from France, I want to eventually make my way up to the Borders, so it would be relatively easy to fly out of Edinburgh. But of course, a lot will depend on flights there, too.

I know what I will be doing this weekend and that's trolling for flights, which made me think - does anyone else plan weekends like you are still working, even though you're retired and can do it any day? Or am I the only weird one?

Thanks for the article on Points Guy Mardee - not surprised but as always disappointed.

I was able to book two Virgin tickets in Upper Class from pdx-LHR for next May by transferring points to Air France Flying Blue. It was 116k miles plus $208 per ticket. I think that is a good redemption.

We booked the return from Dublin using Alaska Miles for a flight in business on BA. It was 65k miles plus $279 each.

Shannon, thanks - is that common to book a flight over with one airline and then another one on the way back? Do you purchase 2 different one way tickets?

Yes, two one ways. My friend had points from her Chase Sapphire and I had points in Alaska Air Mileage Plan. You can't transfer from one to the other so she booked us there and I booked us home.

Unlike paying with cash, most reward tickets are priced as one-ways with no penalties.

The UK Air Passenger Duty fee applies to departing flights only. And it only applies to flights originating in the UK, not to flight connections. So I you land at Heathrow and transfer to another flight on the same ticket, I does not apply. However, if you land at Heathrow and spend a day or two before continuing on to the Continent on a separate flight, it does apply. But the fee is based on the distance of the departing flight, so it only gets really high if your departing flight is bound for, say, the US. And it is higher for direct flights to the west coast than to east coast cities.

https://onemileatatime.com/guides/uk-air-passenger-duty/

So it won’t help to fly home from Edinburgh, although if the flight is direct from Edinburgh to the US it won’t be as bad as a flight with a change at Heathrow. LHR has the highest departure fees and taxes of all.