I got a few questions about cashing out Membership Rewards on the heels of yesterday’s post, so now is as good a time as any to talk about the current ways to cash out Those points. Some are above board and some are, shall we say, a titch less so. First, the obviously allowed and supported options:
With the American Express Schwab Platinum card, you can cash-out at 1.1 cents per point
With the Morgan Stanley Platinum card, you can cash out account for 1.0 cents per point
Without any special card, you can always redeem directly for a statement credit at 0.6 cents per point using Pay with Points. This is a terrible deal, though, don’t do it
And now, the travel hacker ways:
Book refundable travel through American Express Travel and pay with Membership Rewards, then cancel the itinerary and it will be refunded as a statement credit at 1.00 cents per point (Hint: with the Business Platinum’s 35% rebate and a long time, like crossing over the boundary of a year, sometimes you can do better but you may end up angering AmEx)
A variation on the above: Book a ticket with American Express Travel and pay with Membership Rewards, but don’t buy a refundable ticket; instead by a ticket that can be canceled to an airline’s wallet or as an e-credit/travel voucher and use that credit sometime in the future for airfare that you’d normally pay for with cash (generally non basic-economy tickets fall into this category in the COVID-era travel world, but be sure to double check with your airline of choice). For rules on airline travel vouchers and wallets, see this post at Milenomics
Finally, the ways that are almost certain to get you in trouble eventually (Let me reiterate — these are bad ideas and will almost certainly cause you problems or catch up to you, don’t do them without understanding how risky they could be):
Sell travel to your friends and family, then book the itineraries with them using your Membership Rewards
Sell your Membership Rewards to a points broker, you’ll earn 1.3 to 1.5 cents per point
Happy hacking!
I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I’m starting to feel like I was scammed when I sold Jimmy 8,000 Membership Rewards and got this.
On Monday I was scheduled to fly home on a short-hop Delta flight paid for with 5,000 SkyMiles. As I’m sure you can figure out from the post’s title, that didn’t really go as planned. The short story is that my aircraft had big dent in the airframe from the inbound flight to the airport. Delta posted an initial delay of an hour right when we were getting ready to board.
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s dealing with IROPS when traveling. If there’s another thing I’m good at, it’s making the best steel cut oats based breakfast bowl that you’ve ever had, but why would you care about that? Let’s stay on topic people!
I have a cardinal rule when it comes to flight delays:
If the delay posted is an hour or longer, you need to have a backup option in place.
The moment the delay was announced, and I mean that very moment, I speed-walked to the SkyClub to avoid any lines at the gate, and simultaneously I made a call to Delta Reservations in case they’d come back more quickly than the SkyClub (spoiler alert: they didn’t). When I got to the SkyClub, I scanned my boarding pass and asked immediately to be “protected on the next flight” to my destination. The agent was able to do that in about 15 seconds.
Flight Protection
What is flight protection? It’s when an airline holds a seat for you on another flight without giving up your seat on your original flight. Then you’ve got the option to take either flight, whichever departs first. With most airlines, you can select a seat on both flights and you’ll be on the upgrade list for both flights too if you’re eligible.
All you have to do to get protected on the next flight is to know how to ask. And asking is as simple as “My current flight is delayed. Would you please protect me on the next flight to XXX?”
Caveat: Some airlines will cancel any remaining flights on your itinerary if you miss a flight (I’m looking at you United, the only airline that’s screwed me multiple times with this), so after I scan my boarding pass on whichever flight departs first, I double check to make sure that the other flight drops out of my itinerary in the airline’s mobile app. If it doesn’t, then I ask the gate agent or another employee to take it off of the itinerary so the rest of my flights don’t auto-cancel.
My Conclusion
As you’d probably guess, a dented airframe is more than an hour long fix. Delta ended up flying in another plane and crew to operate the flight, and it departed 6 hours and 5 minutes past the original schedule which is frankly pretty good for an event like this at a non-hub. I was already home and on my couch by the time that original flight departed though — I got there via the protected flight.
Bonus: Delta proactively gave me 7,500 SkyMiles for the delayed flight without me contacting them, making that ticket a 1.5x SkyMiles earner. If only I could replicate that at scale.
Airfares for a couple of the routes that I regularly travel are annoyingly high for the next couple of months, and my go to for short hop domestic mileage redemptions on those routes is also double what it would normally be (10,000 Delta SkyMiles versus the normal 5,000 on the days that I want to fly).
As a result, I’ve pivoted to AA bookings with British Airways Avios and the 40% transfer bonus from American Express. On short-haul domestic routes, those flights are 7,500 Avois or ~5,400 Membership Rewards points with the bonus. (Side note: I suggest Seth’s wonderful Avois Redemption Calculator when deciding whether Avios for AA short-haul redemptions will work for you and your travel patterns.)
That’s all fine and good, but after my Avois booking is complete I have a British Airways record locator and my British Airways frequent flyer is attached the ticket; that’s not ideal because I hold an AA credit card which gets me priority boarding and a few other perks. That credit card is tied to my frequent flyer account with AA, not my BA account. If I had AA status I’d be even more annoyed since that wouldn’t be attached to the ticket either because the AA status is necessarily part of your AA account.
The Trick
So, I want to book with BA Avios but have my AA frequent flyer number on the ticket. While it’s possible to call British Airways or message them on Twitter to get your AA record locator, and then to take that record locator and contact AA and hope that the agent you talk to knows how to update your frequent flyer program and number, it’s annoying and error prone. There’s a much easier, mostly unknown method: Use the “Manage Booking” section of OneWorld Alliance member FinnAir’s website and you can update all of those details yourself. The steps:
You can then enter your AA (or Alaska) frequent flyer number and click “Save”. After that your record will automatically attach to your AA account. You’ll then get all the measly benefits that your AA credit card provides, and/or you’ll get the flogging attached to your AA elite status, all without having to talk to another human.
Unless you board with AA elites, how would anyone know that you too are elite? By looking at your bag tag? Groan! Avoid that embarrassment with the FinnAir trick.
1. Do this now: Register for Radisson Americas’ current promotion, which is a free night certificate for each two nights you stay on points between now and December 31. The free night certificate is valid between January 17 and May 23 of next year and you can earn up to 5 free certificates. The certificate you earn is based on the award category:
Stay in a category 1, 2, or 3 hotel and receive a category free night 1-3 certificate
Stay in a category 4 or 5 hotel and receive a free night certificate for any hotel
2.Simon has another promotion for 40% off of fees with code SEP21FS40, and this applies to their $1,000 Visa Gift Cards. These are great for ginning up spend on your Citi cards for other shenanigans, just make sure you have a liquidation path fleshed out before you spend a bunch, and don’t use an AmEx because you won’t earn points.
3.Capital One has a new travel portal. Normally, I’d say something like: “Who cares? Booking through a third party travel portal is almost always a terrible idea. With hotels, you won’t get benefits from the rewards program and you’re likely to get one of the crappiest rooms at the property, and with flights when something changes you’re going to have to deal with the portal’s terrible customer service to make something happen.”
My response? “That’s all true, self, and great points too I might add.” However there’s a minor reason to book a flight with this portal: they say that they’ll automatically refund the fare difference if the price of the flight drops. If true, that’s pretty cool. They do use weird language “Did you book a flight to visit loved ones based on Capital One Travel recommendations?If the flight price drops, no problem.” I have no idea if that means there are only certain “recommended” flights to which this applies. If so, they’re a bunch of louses and they should feel bad about themselves. If not, this could be a nice feature. (Thanks to DDG via reddit)
I was talking to myself about third party travel booking and then… squirrel.
Today is your day-off between Kroger’s promotions for 4x fuel points on gift cards. I hope you’re taking advantage of it, I know I’m excited to not step foot in a Kroger for the next 24 hours. In case that’s not exciting enough, here are a couple of items that will hopefully make up for it:
First Class (Lufthansa) US-Europe or vice-versa for 66,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
Economy US-Africa or vice-versa for 31,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
Business Class US-Europe or vice-versa for 49,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
Economy continental US-Caribbean for 10,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
There are other great redemptions too. You’ve probably read on this site multiple times that one of Avianca LifeMiles’ sweet-spots is its loose definition of a region. That US-Caribbean deal is a prime example. (Thanks to TheSultan1 for digging up the LifeMiles bonus link)
2. American Express Platinum card retention offers in September have finally caught up with the new, increased annual fee. There are reports of 60,000 Membership Rewards or $650 statement credits being offered. Whenever I call for a retention offer, I say something like: “I’m thinking of closing this card because its annual fee is huge. Before I make a decision though, I was wondering if there are any spend bonuses or retention offers available?” It’s worth a shot with all of your AmEx cards at these offer levels, so don’t put this one off.
Taking a break between Kroger 4x fuel points promotions.
One of the tropes you’ll find brandished in the mainstream media is that dressing nice, letting the gate agent know that you’re on a honeymoon, or uttering the words “revenue management” will score you a free upgrade. Of course you probably know that’s all a bunch of crap. Airline upgrades don’t work that way and gate agents who play those kinds of shenanigans are disciplined and may end up losing their job.
At a hotel you can usually use the $20 trick for a an upgrade, but trying that at the gate just won’t work. Trust me. So how do you get an edge? Spoiler alert, there is an airline equivalent to the $20 trick that doesn’t involve a crooked gate agent. Let’s call it the “jump-the-bucket” trick. Catchy right? Right? Ok, I know it’s not.
Elite Upgrades in the US
All major US airlines with a first class cabin onboard have some sort of upgrade program for their elite flyers, and there’s a well defined order to which elites are upgraded to the big seat upfront and with what priority. Just because it’s well defined doesn’t mean that airlines publish specific terms and conditions though. Rather, airlines speak about priorities in generalities and as a result it can be a trick to suss out how it really works. To compound the complexity, each airline has slightly different policies and sometimes upgrade instruments get into the mix too.
The major US carriers do share one thing in common for elite upgrades: different ticket fare buckets have different upgrade priorities, and you can hack your way into a higher upgrade priority with the “jump-the-bucket” trick.
Fare Buckets
Ok, so fare buckets matter for upgrades, but 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 their 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.
Jumping-the-Bucket
And now my friends, you’ve got enough background to understand how to game the upgrade lottery. When airlines process upgrades, one of the universal tie breakers is your segment’s fare bucket. To win that battle you just have to make sure you’re in a higher bucket than the other guy. Unfortunately that’s not free, but it’s usually less than $20 or so to jump to the next bucket when you book a ticket. Even better, it’s almost a certainty that no elites on your plane have booked into anything other than the cheapest bucket that was available when they bought their ticket. (There’s a small wrench here, sometimes government contracts and big business contracts will book into high buckets per the specific terms of their agreement with the airline. That usually doesn’t matter if you’re not going to or from DC though, especially during peak leisure travel.)
Now, let’s talk about how to jump-the-bucket with ITA Matrix:
1. Search ITA Matrix for your desired flight 2. Pick your desired itinerary 3. Look at which fare buckets the itinerary has
Example: I searched for a Delta direct flight between Los Angeles (LAX) and Chicago O’Hare (ORD) on Sept 10, and picked the cheapest flight that wasn’t basic economy since those fares aren’t upgrade eligible. In this case, it was an economy flight in fare bucket V, which you can see in my example ITA Matrix search at the end of the line in parentheses after the word “Economy”:
A sample itinerary. Note the V booking code embedded in Economy (V) at the end of each leg.
Now I need to find which bucket has a higher priority than V. On Delta, that would be X. (See the next section for priorities. I don’t memorize this and I bet you don’t want to either.) So, to continue with the prior steps:
4. Determine the next higher fare bucket (see next section) — in my case X 5. Return to the main ITA Matrix booking page 6. Enter your desired cities and dates again 7. Click “Advanced controls” to turn them on if they’re not already on 8. Tell ITA Matrix that you want a specific fare bucket (booking code) by entering “f bc=X” in the “Outbound extension codes” and “Return extension codes”. Replace X with the appropriate fare bucket as needed. 9. Click through to find your itinerary 10. Cut and paste your itinerary into bookwithmatrix.com to book
Side tip: Remember how I glossed over searching for a flight that wasn’t basic economy in my example? Well, basic economy on Delta is fare bucket E, and you can enter “f ~bc=E” to tell ITA matrix to ignore any fares in the E bucket. The tilde means “not”.
In this particular example, an X bucket fare was $145.20 which is exactly $13 more than the V bucket. If I book this itinerary, I’ll be ahead of similar leveled elites that booked the cheapest fare they could, which is probably all of them provided the bucket was available when they booked.
The same itinerary after jumping-the-bucket. The higher bucket with a better shot at an upgrade costs an extra $13.00.
Cool eh? Cheaper than the $20 trick, and personally I’ve had great success with this technique in the past.
One last gotcha: Sometimes different segments each have their own fare bucket. That’s ok too, just use the Multi-city tab on ITA Matrix and enter fare codes segment-by-segment and you’ll get what you’re after.
Airline Fare Bucket Priorities
How do you know the order of fare buckets for a given airline? First answer: Ugh. Second answer, visit cwsi.net. To save myself the hassle I’ve written them out and I guess I’ll share them with you too (ordered highest to lowest):
Delta: W, Y, B, M, S, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X, V, E (highest first, lowest last, E is basic economy)
United: O, A, R, Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L, K, G, N (highest first, lowest last, N is basic economy)
American: Y, H, K, M, V, Q, S, N, L, O, B (highest first, lowest last, B is basic economy)
Alaska: Y, B, H, K, M, L, V, S, N, Q, O, G, X (highest first, lowest last, X is basic economy)
Caveats
A few things to watch out for:
As flights get closer, lower fare buckets may sell out or get zeroed out by the airline, pushing close-in bookings into a higher fare bucket. So if you book 5 months in advance and jump-the-bucket at the time, you may not be ahead of everyone by the time you fly
There are other criteria for upgrades too, and they vary by airline. Your status level for example is almost always a higher priority than your fare bucket. (Unless it’s a special Y-up bucket, but that’s beyond today’s post)
Using certain upgrade instruments trumps all fare classes. (SWUs on AA, RUCs on DL, GPUs on UA)
Conclusion
There’s an airline cousin to the hotel $20 trick, and it’s called the jump-the-bucket trick. For a few extra bucks you can often up your chances for an elite upgrade. #winning #twirlingtowardfreedom
The United “basic economy” fare bucket. Or, is that the Economy+ bucket on an ERJ-145? It can be hard to tell.
1. The Citi ThankYou Points (TYP) 25% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles has been extended through August 27. LifeMiles have a few sweetspots that involve strange definitions of regions, and other good deals like Central or Eastern US to Europe in economy. If I’m headed to Europe or Asia I’m going to do it in a lie flat bed like a diva though. So allow me to illustrate how I think about this bonus:
60,000 TYP = 75,000 LifeMiles = One way business class between Europe and North America
64,800 TYP = 81,000 LifeMiles = One way business class between Asia and North America
Those rates aren’t bad, especially given Avianca’s Star Alliance partner availability. Just avoid those old United Business class 2-2-2 configs.
2. Clip this coupon in all of your Meijer MPerks accounts for a $10 Meijer GiftCard with $50 in Happy Gift Cards. I’d buy a Happy Treats card and use it online or in-store at GameStop to buy a Steam gift card for resale. I wrote a quick Happy gift card guide a few weeks ago that may be helpful if they’re new to you. (Thanks to GC Galore)
3. Check your Kroger digital coupons for 300 fuel points when buying a Visa or Mastercard gift card. These coupons often work multiple times, just make sure you clip it before buying the first one. (Thanks to co_trout_slayer)
Pictured: United’s old 2-2-2 business class configuration.
A forced routing is one of the simplest travel hacking concepts out there. All it means is that you want to buy an airline ticket, but you only want to pass through certain hubs or use certain carriers to do it.
I use forced routings to the following airports at times:
ORD in the spring (Tortas Frontera, AA and UA hubs and a DL focus city)
My destination airport for hidden city ticketing, which we’ll address another day
I use forced routings to avoid:
ORD in the late summer and early fall (delays run rampant)
SFO most of the year (delays run rampant when the fog sets in or a runway is under construction, which is approximately always)
PHX in the summer (aircraft are often weight restricted and have to kick people off to meet reduced takeoff weights)
ATL in the late fall and in January (delays run rampant)
ATL the rest of the year (I really dislike the airport)
MIA/PHL/CLT when traveling to Europe (I want my time in the wide-body plane to be long enough to sleep, not just a short hop so I’d rather connect further west)
United when I know they’re flying a regional jet on a particular route
Forcing Routings in ITA Matrix
How do we use forced routings in ITA Matrix? It’s actually really simple.
Turn on “Advanced controls” if they’re not already enabled
Enter the airport abbreviation in “Outbound routing codes” as appropriate:
Enter “ATL” to force routing through ATL
Enter “~ATL” avoid routing through ATL (the tilde means “avoid”)
Enter “DEN,ORD” to route through one of DEN or ORD, either way is fine
Enter “~DEN,ORD” to avoid routing through either DEN or ORD
Enter “DEN ORD” to route through two hubs, DEN and ORD in that order
Enter the rest of the data as needed for the trip
Click “Search”
Here’s a screenshot showing a trip that avoids passing through DEN or ORD (scenario 4):
Sample forced routing from San Diego to Orlando, avoiding Denver or Chicago O’Hare as layovers.
Forced Routings and Carriers in ITA Matrix
Not bad, eh? Let’s get a little more complex though. With a little elbow grease you can force yourself to be on specific carriers and route through particular hubs. Let’s say I want to fly Delta to ORD and United to ATL on the same ticket. No problem, carriers just go before and after the hub as carrier codes.
Let’s look at this example:
Turn on “Advanced controls” if they’re not already enabled
Enter carriers and hubs in “Outbound routing codes” as appropriate:
Enter “DL ORD UA” for a direct flight on Delta to ORD, then a direct flight on United to the destination
Enter “DL+ ORD UA” for a direct or connecting flight on Delta to ORD, then a direct flight on United to the destination
Enter “~F9 ORD UA+” to fly a direct flight on any airline but Frontier to ORD, then a direct or connecting flight on United to the destination
Enter the rest of the data as needed for the trip
Click “Search”
The carrier codes for the major US airlines are: Delta: DL, United: UA, American: AA, Frontier: F9, Southwest: WN (though Southwest is different and doesn’t show fares through ITA Matrix, so that one is just trivia for now). Also, in case you didn’t glean it above, the “+” means “one or more legs”.
My example (Delta to ORD then United to ATL) will look like this:
Forced routing through O’Hare on Delta from SLC to ORD and United from ORD to ATL, all on the same ticket
Booking the Results
Ok, so you’ve now got your convoluted, forced routing itinerary priced out. How do you book it? Simple, copy the results page and paste it into bookwithmatrix.com, which will then let you forward the itinerary to several booking agencies (in this case my options were Delta or Priceline, but that varies based on the itinerary).
The “I hate my in-laws” routing. Just enter “IAD JAX” as your advanced routing codes in ITA Matrix to book this one.
Fun fact: Once I really did connect in JAX between IAD and MCO on purpose. The ground crew was incredulous that anyone would connect in JAX.
