– Light: 60,000 miles – Standard: 75,000 miles – Flex: 110,000 miles
So what you used to get for 60,000 miles will now cost you an extra +15,000 miles. It brings me absolutely no pleasure to report that I thought we’d see a devaluation when Tiffany Funk took over as the FlyingBlue leader. I also think we haven’t seen the last FlyingBlue devaluation in the coming year. Spend any FlyingBlue miles you have quickly.
A favorite past-time in the hobby seems to be to confuse the law with the terms and conditions of a card issuer, FinTech, website, bank, or other third party. So, let’s go over a couple of ironclad truths:
You can break the law and still be within the T&Cs
You can break the T&Cs and still be legal
To crib from Mike Ehrmantraut, I’ve known good churners who break the T&Cs, and I’ve known bad churners who comply with T&Cs. Something something about the law too.
Good luck out there!
I’ve also known churners that broke the banana bed terms and conditions.
One of the most surprising aspects of manufactured spend is the sheer number of people that send six-plus figures worth of goods, gift cards, precious metals, or other consideration to someone on the internet that they know only by a handle, and if they’re lucky, a first name. This works for two reasons:
Broker reputation
Effective communications in the community about reputation
In other words, you may only know a guy as “Michael“, but if a hundred other contacts that you trust have successfully done big business with Michael, then doing business with that guy is probably slightly less risky than a random Michael you met in downtown Portland.
Of course past performance doesn’t guarantee future gains and Michael may choose your shipment as his ticket to a new life in Argentina, a risk we’ll call counterparty risk. That’s not the only kind of risk though, in manufactured spend, we’re subject to:
counterparty risk
shutdown risk
credit risk
tax and audit risk
fraud risk
cybersecurity risk
clawback risk
operational risk
concentration risk
automation risk
MCC coding risk
… amongst other risks. A quick treatise on each will make you a better and safer manufactured spender, and we’ll have a semi-irregular post here about each in the upcoming (I have no idea how many) months. Stay tuned friends.
Oh, and so you don’t walk away feeling like you didn’t get anything out of today’s post:
There’s an annual $100 airline credit that works for effectively anything. That’s not going away, but soon you’ll be paying $95 for that $100 credit which sounds like a bad deal to me.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say if you’ve been in the travel hacking community since before 2020, you know exactly what United’s Expert Mode is, and if you’re newer, there’s about a 0.20 probability that you have any idea. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am. Anyhoodles, there are a few good reasons to know about Expert Mode:
When your flight’s been cancelled, rebooking is a zero sum game with your fellow passengers; the number of free seats on later flights is finite and more aren’t going to magically appear, instead they’re going to vanish rapidly as customers rebook. Knowing which flights have which seats lets you make the best rebooking decision.
When your flight might be oversold and you want to be flexible for a travel voucher, knowing what the seat count on your flight looks like is immediately actionable. I guess it also applies if you want to be hauled off of a plane and punched if it’s oversold. Too soon?
If you want to know your chances of a Same Day Change to a better flight, knowing availability in the fare bucket you’re ticketed in will help you understand your odds and make backup plans.
With that out of the way, let’s briefly discuss fare buckets.
Fare Buckets
In the time before computers, airlines used repurposed slop buckets to hold each paper ticket they would sell. When you’d buy a ticket by telegraph, they’d send it from the bucket to your house via courier pigeon (*citation needed). The pigeons are gone, but buckets remain. So, what’s a modern fare bucket? Let’s talk to the ghost of MEAB past discussing bucket jumping:
WTF is a fare bucket? The boring definition is that each bucket is a letter (like S, or J) or pair of letters (like OW) that corresponds with a given fare on file in [airline] systems. There isn’t a standard for buckets on all airlines, but they do share a lot in common. First class fare buckets are often Z or F, and economy buckets are often S, L, Y, and B for example. Typically there are around 20 fare buckets per airline.
Fare buckets also have a hierarchy. F > Z, and Y > B > M. See the pattern? Nah, me neither. That’s ok though. You don’t need to memorize the hierarchy, just know that it exists and how to find it.
I promise this is going to become important shortly so stick with it. On United, you’ve got three types of revenue fare buckets:
First and Business: J, C, D, Z, P
Premium Economy: O, A, R
Economy: Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L, K, G, N
Yeah yeah, there are quasi-buckets too like RN and PN, but let’s chill for a second ok? They don’t matter for this conversation. Just have the above table handy when it’s game theory time.
Expert Mode
United’s Expert Mode shows you which fare buckets are available when you search for flights using united.com. After enabling expert mode and clicking “Details”, you’ll see something like this:
For this flight, there are (at least) 9 seats available in First, as seen by J9, the highest bucket in the First and Business group. The people of Lubbock don’t like to pay for first, I guess. The same flight has (at least) 9 seats available in Economy as seen by Y9, telling us that the Lubbock-ites don’t like to pay for economy either. (Side note: 9 is the maximum number that will display. So 9 really means “9 or more, idk I’m just a computer”)
So how do you turn Expert Mode on? Navigate to your Special accommodations settings under your profile and scroll to the bottom where you’ll find the setting “Enable expert mode”. Check that and click “Save”.
Using The Info
With the caveat that the number of seats for sale doesn’t always equal the number of seats available (ask Dr. Dao if you’re unsure why that is), looking at the number of seats available in the highest of each of the classes of fare buckets (first, economy, etc) to find the approximate number of seats available on the flight gives you actionable information. Once you get there, it’s time to “game theory and chill”.
Good luck friends!
Next up: Expert mode for banana hacking, how to see if your banana is simultaneously overripe and green.
Unless you have a specific award redemption in mind, 1 Hyatt point is probably worth more than 1.2 or 1.3 Aeroplan miles so speculate at your own risk.
– $100 off of $100+ in hotels booked through Capital One Travel – $100 off of $100+ in rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
Of course $100 off really means $100 worth of gift cards that are worth an average(ish) of $90 on the resale market. If you don’t have a Capital One Shopping account, use a friend’s referral and you’ll be in, even if you’re banned from Capital One Bank.
– AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue at 1:1 – Qantas Frequent Flyer at 1:1 – Ethiopian Sheba Rewards at 1:1 – Accor ALL at 2:1
They’re using a landing page at points.com for transfers, which means they’ll likely have access to many more transfer partners in the future.
The Impact
Because this is U.S. Bank where mediocrity is a way of life, this launch turns out to be … mediocre. Here’s some two-day-late Monday morning quarterbacking:
Accor ALL points are worth a fixed two eurocents each so that partner is relatively lame at 2:1. With current exchange rates, that’s effectively a fixed 1.15 cents per point
Ethiopian Sheba Rewards isn’t common, so let’s chat about it:
– Ethiopian is part of Star Alliance – The Sheba Star Alliance Award chart is decidedly mediocre (to match U.S. Bank) – Redemptions on Ethiopian metal are zone based: Same zone: 15,000 miles in economy and 45,000 in business Two zone: 30,000 miles in economy and 60,000 in business Three zone: 🤷♀️ – Ethiopian has 22 fifth-freedom routes (routes between two countries that aren’t Ethiopia). Pricing on these routes can be good
Because transfers are handled by points.com, I expect we’ll see more added rapidly after U.S. Bank figures itself out, but I really mean rapidly in U.S. Bank terms which means slowly in regular terms
The card is basically 1x everywhere on the earn side generally speaking, but it’s one of the best way to earn Lufthansa miles so I guess you win some and lose some? Did anyone notice that lose rhymes with floosies?
There’s also an offer for the Gold Star Membership, but you’d be making TeddyH cry if you chose that option. Of course Groupon may still be better because reasons. (Thanks to FM)
Happy Tuesday!
Leaving half eaten bars of chocolate ice cream in the fridge also makes TeddyH sad, reportedly.
