Category: Travel Hacking

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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?
  3. 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.

Based on my personal observations from watching hordes of travelers stare at flight board delays and cancelations in abject horror yesterday, approximately 104.4% of travelers flying in the US had their flights either delayed or cancelled over the weekend. In no particular order, let’s talk about what a good travel hacker does when their flight is, err, impacted:

  • When your plane is delayed more than an hour, or when your captain tells you that they’re returning to the gate to “….” (it doesn’t matter what the “….” is, trust me), book a backup non-basic economy award flight on another carrier immediately. Why an award flight? So you can cancel it fee-free. If you don’t do it right away, inventory might be instantly gone when the cancellation is official. Why another carrier? You don’t want it cancelled as a double booking. Once you’ve done that, do it again on a third carrier if there’s an option.
  • Do three things simultaneously and immediately when a cancelation is official, and when one of them works you can cancel the other two:

    – Reach out to the airline on twitter X and ask to be rebooked
    – Call the customer service line and ask to be rebooked
    – Go to the airline lounge and ask to be rebooked

    Note that none of these are waiting in line at the gate or the customer service counter. Don’t do it, it’s not going to go well for a dozen reasons, not the least of which is the garlic burger from Carl’s Jr shoved in the person’s now-translucent-from-grease backpack in front of you.
  • If you have a forced overnight, don’t take the airline’s hotel voucher; in the best case it’s going to be at an airport Marriott Courtyard overlooking a dumpster and the room’s smoke detector will beep once every 42.5 minutes, but only when the lights are off. We’re not going to talk about the worst case.

    This is why you booked with a premium card for travel insurance, right? Let them pick up the hotel and your extra elite night credit too. Oh, and on that note, this will probably be a rare paid stay for you, so use up those FHR credits, Bilt stupid hotel credits, Citi hotel credits, etc. Don’t use points or a free night certificate though because you’ll have to fight with insurance about the value.
  • Meal vouchers often work on Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Chick-fil-A wallet loads, and if you want to cosplay a Paze churner, Dunkin too. You can do these from your FHR room too, no need to do it at the airport.
  • Sure, travel insurance will cover a replacement $3.94 tee-shirt from Walmart, but it’ll also cover a $39.40 shirt from American Eagle.

Good luck, and at least be thankful you didn’t have travel between TN and CO via TX and CA, that is, unless you wanted to because reasons. Have a nice Monday!

PS: Special thanks to everyone in Denver over the weekend (and the ones still stuck there today!)

Ok, maybe the beeping isn’t the most concerning part of that Courtyard smoke detector.

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in integer multiples of $600
    – Look for the lower fee “Everywhere” cards if you can liquidate them

    Remember that zero is an integer too if you’re exhausted by $200s. These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  2. The original American Express Blue Cash, unavailable to new applications since 2018 (!), is being transitioned to a Blue Cash Everyday card on March 4, 2027.

    It’s not too hard to spend $56,500 at grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores in two months and American Express doesn’t care about cycling for seasoned accounts, so send it.
  3. The Synchrony Plus World Mastercard has a targeted offer for 10% back on spend for 60 days. If you don’t have a mailer, you’ve got a few options:

    – According to the Javascript on the site, a promo code is two letters followed by nine numbers
    – Remember that zero is also a percent and opt for the alternate, zero bonus multiplier
    – Try and browbeat a Synchrony representative into a code

    For no reason at all, here’s a friendly reminder that Synchrony cards shouldn’t be cycled, at all, ever.
  4. A long useful travel hack is about to become less useful, so smoke ’em if you got ’em while you still can. Also, learn from this trick because travel hacking across different loyalty programs, or even different aspects within the same loyalty program, often rhymes.

Happy Monday!

More lessons in rhyming.

Generally the value of loyalty points goes down over time. There are lots of reasons, but one that eventually affects all programs is inflation:

  • As general costs rise, the number of points you earn with your credit card for buying the same thing also rises
  • As airfare and hotel rates increase, the number of points you earn for the same price increases
  • The dollar amount that hotel loyalty programs pay to a property for an award, typically tied to room rate, increases over time

Other reasons like decreasing liability on corporate books, a desire for increased profits, and a lack of understanding about long term loyalty motivations contribute too. (Marriott: You’re not going to be the corporate king forever even if it feels like it now.)

So what do we do with that? There’s a 101 and a 201 level answer:

  • 101: Earn and burn
  • 201: Sell excess now, buy needed later

Have a nice day friends!

301: Burn and Earn

You’ve no doubt heard it in 1,000 other places so I won’t belabor the point, but Spirit shutdown over the weekend. I’m sure any of you that had Spirit plans had a backup, and I’m sure you already know to do a chargeback for outstanding fares if you don’t already have an automatic refund. For those keeping score at home, my prediction was wrong: I’d guessed in January that we’d lose them by April, but they held out until May 2.

  1. The Citi AA Platinum Select personal Mastercard has an offer for 80,000 AA miles after $1,000 spend in three months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Any random six digit number will work on the application, but I’m partial to 311437 for reasons.
  2. The Chase IHG personal cards have a targeted bonus of 3,000 bonus points on $1,000 spend through June 25.
  3. Staples has two Visa gift card promotions:

    – $200 Visas for $199.05 online
    – $200 Visas fee-free in-store through Saturday

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has two transfer bonuses:

    – 65% to Marriott Bonvoy through May 15
    – 20% to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through May 27

    The 65% transfer bonus to Bonvoy brings it into the realm of an ok deal, but still not in the range of a speculative transfer.
  5. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through May 31. This one has great utility for Emirates First redemptions specifically.
  6. Major US airlines have airfare deals for stranded Spirit passengers for travel in the next week or two. Most of these work whether or not you’re actually a stranded Spirit passenger, and some of them are actually sort-of a good deal.

Happy Monday!

The MEAB prediction machine.

I’m an optimizer; frankly, I think most of us are or we wouldn’t be doing this on a day to day basis so I guess misery loves company, right? We’re all rather adept at optimizing credit card category spend multipliers, payment windows, new application timing, and new account bonuses.

Optimizations aren’t perfect though and it’s easy to get stuck in local minima. I regularly see newbies and experienced churners alike make an optimization mistake with their time: spending minutes or even hours chasing a deal that’s not worth very much. An extremely successful salesman once gave me some simple advice:

It takes about the same amount of time to do a small deal as it does to do a big deal.

The obvious lesson is to spend your time on bigger things instead of on smaller things. An alternative way to think about this is to consider the minimum you need to make for different manufactured spend and travel hacking opportunities, and don’t bother with the ones that don’t have a big enough return on time. To that end, I’d suggest having a mental set minimums, much like pilots have a set of weather minimums. In case you’re a visual learner, here’s a sample table that you can fill in for “fun”. For extra “fun”, compare with your neighbor:

ActivityMinimum Profit Needed ($)
Leaving home for in-person manufactured spend
Manufacturing spend at home (something quick)
Manufacturing spend at home (something less quick)
Calling customer service for a retention offer
Tracking a card linked offer over couple of months
Social engineering a customer service rep
Trying to find a spot in Costco’s parking lot

Happy Wednesday!

There’s a spot right there, see?

Introduction

Holding any loyalty currency in your account for anything beyond what you’ll use in the next 18 months or so is generally a recipe for disaster because:

There’s still a great case to be made for holding some points though, specifically for when “life doesn’t care about your booking window” happens, also known as that time you need to travel immediately regardless of how many seats Delta has available in their “Main Basic Extra Minus Enhanced Lite” fare class.

The Emergency Fund

When life hits, you may need to be on a plane or in a hotel room in the next couple of hours, for example:

  • You need to travel immediately to care for someone
  • A war started nearby
  • Your house flooded
  • You ran out of flour from a specific mill in France and don’t have time to ship more

At that point, “getting out” is more important than whether or not you have a lie flat bed or whether you’ll get a free sandwich in main cabin extra. It also means that you won’t have time to earn new points to cover your stay, so what you’ve got banked is exactly what you have to work with. In other words, holding a baseline level of points in a few programs can serve as the points equivalent of your cash emergency fund.

In Practice, MEAB Style

I keep a baseline of around 100,000 points in most US airline programs and hotel programs for emergencies. Why 100,000? Well, humans like round numbers, and because that’s generally enough to ensure I can get anywhere in coach and have a night or two in a hotel while I figure out next steps or earn more points as needed. It’s also a level that I’m comfortable losing without any real heartache if my account is shutdown because reasons.

Fin

Hoarding is bad, except when it’s good, naturally. Just keep those hoard levels in check and call them an emergency fund so you can sleep better at night.

Happy Wednesday!

Next time: Building your strategic reserve. (Also eww, Diet Coke)

  1. The Bank of America Premier Rewards program is changing in May. The program is famous for its ability to combine $100,000 in assets for a 75% rewards boost with the Unlimited Rewards credit card 1.5x earning to make a 2.625% everywhere card. Or at least, that’s why it will have been famous through May. At that point, bonus tiers become:

    – 10% bonus: Up to $29,999.99 in assets
    – 25% bonus: Up to $99,999.99 in assets
    – 50% bonus: Up to $999,999.99 in assets
    – 75% bonus: $1 Million in assets or greater (used to be $100,000+)

    I guess $100,000 isn’t what it used to be. You can still earn status with Merrill linked brokerage assets, so consider ACATS of a portfolio into Merrill if you’re really good at 2.625% spend and it’s accessible. If not, it may be time to spread your existing Bank of America assets elsewhere for better use. It’s also probably time to learn about how the fast track program works.
  2. The Chime FinTech platform has a $300 sign-up bonus after $200+ in direct deposits in the first month for new account holders.

    These are churnable if you try.
  3. Spirit announced a new rewards debit card issued by Mezu/Alviere bank (lol). The card’s vitals:

    – $6.99 monthly fee (it’s Spirit after all)
    – 0.5x earning
    – 4,000 bonus points monthly based on some minimum balance to be determined
    – Group 2 boarding
    – 200 points on sign-up, 200 points monthly for 12 months or until Spirit fails, whichever comes first (the latter, duh)

    This one isn’t issued by Sunrise like the recent United, Southwest, and Wyndham debits, which means it’s probably got vastly different behavior. On the other hand, I’ll bet you $100 in Pepper coins that Spirit won’t be around before your 12 months of 200 point bonuses run out.
  4. The Blue Board is a fun tool built for tracking United flights and hub statuses. It’s also a great tool for figuring out the right trip to book your way into a travel credit refund. (Thanks to David)

Happy Tuesday!

Positive news: Retired BankAmeriGuy was on-hand for the press conference.