February Buy Miles Promos – Are They Worth It?

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Tara

Let’s take a look at the buy miles promos that have been released so far this month and let’s assume that we want an award from North America to Brazil not during peak season to keep an even playing field. The award costs 60,000 in economy on the 3 main airlines serving this route – AA, UA and US. So how much would it cost to buy enough miles to complete this award?

American Airlines – to buy 60,000 miles it would cost around $1217 including tax and service charge. You would get your credit card spend miles but no category multipliers as it is processed by Points.com. This trip can be done for 40k in off-peak season.

AA Buy Miles Promo

US Airways – if you have the US Mastercard you can get a 100% bonus, otherwise you get a 50% bonus. It would cost $1128 to buy these miles including tax.

US Airways Buy Miles Promo

United Airlines has not announced a Buy Miles Promo yet so you would have to pay full price for the whole 60,000 miles – whopping $2257.50! If they did join the party and offered a 100% bonus promo, the cost would be $1128.75.

United Airlines Buy Miles

So how much would it be to simply BUY a ticket from LAX to the gateway city of Sao Paulo, Brazil? Let’s try Kayak for a generic fare quote. As we can see, economy fares start at $1015 for a multiple airline routing and go up from there. The purchase price of a ticket is at least $100 cheaper than buying miles, PLUS you will earn miles from your purchase!

Kayak Quote LAX-GRU

Fare quotes will vary depending on which city you start from and which city in Brazil you want to get to. If you are headed to the Pantanal, you would need to get to Cuiaba or Campo Grande which can be reached on Brazilian carriers GOL, TAM and TRIP. In this case, when I tried a fare quote from LAX to CGB (Cuiaba) the fares started at $1414, so in this case if you can use a partner award all the way to Cuiaba you would save around $200, but you would not earn miles.

Fare Quote Cuiaba

RECAP

Compare costs to buy miles including the promo bonus miles with how much it costs to simply buy a ticket. Use the examples I have provided to check every program you belong to for the destination you have in mind.
If your destination is not the main gateway city, try a fare quote all the way through to your final destination. Compare that with the cost of buying a local domestic ticket.
Check to see if your airline program’s partners can get you all the way to your final destination. TAM is currently in Star Alliance but will be joining LAN as LATAM and expected to join One World soon. Copa and Avianca/Taca are in Star Alliance so can be used to get you to domestic destinations in South America.
If you are planning an award in business class, you may save a lot of money using a Buy Miles promo.
Don’t buy miles if you aren’t going to redeem them within a year. The award prices could go up, airlines change alliances or even go out of business.

How To Prioritize Your Airline Miles Goals

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Tara

I have my Top 8 programs that I concentrate on for miles collection to maximize opportunities in both One World and Star Alliance. I am not lucky enough to have employer paid travel that allows me to earn “free” BIS (butt-in-seat) miles so I have to be more creative in using partners to earn miles. However with limited funds, there is only so much I can do and even within my Top 8 programs, I need to prioritize whose miles I want to earn first. Sky Team doesn’t interest me at all because I don’t like their major US partner – Delta’s frequent flyer program. If Virgin Australia joined Sky Team, they may be of interest but for now they have nothing to offer me that I can’t already get from Star Alliance and One World.

Factors that I don’t care about but you might: Business travel (employer’s preferences), paying for mileage runs and earning elite status.

KNOW WHERE YOU WANT TO GO AND WHICH AIRLINES CAN GET YOU THERE

I want to go to destinations that offer good birding with a high population of parrot species. I also have family in the USA and I attend a major parrot conservation conference in Tenerife, Spain every 4 years. If there are promos (Grand Slam, credit cards) that allow me to easily acquire miles I would spend them on business class for at least long-haul, otherwise we would fly economy if that’s all we can afford. So here’s how this all adds up.

SOUTH AMERICA – can be reached directly from Sydney on LAN with connections elsewhere. Y class is reasonably easy to get, J class is very difficult.
CENTRAL AMERICA – could reach from South America via LAN or from the USA via Avianca-Taca, Copa, US Airways, United (Star Alliance) or American and LAN (One World).
ASIA (INDIA, SRI LANKA, THAILAND, MALAYSIA, INDONESIA) – easily reached on either alliance with generally good availability in award seats.
EUROPE – has good connections with both alliances to major European cities, however only Iberia (One World) can get me all the way to Tenerife. I want to avoid using BA for long haul due to high taxes.
USA – this is the most difficult award for me to get as there is a lot of demand from both USA and Australian based frequent flyers. Award seats in business class are very hard to get, even economy is drying up on Air New Zealand. It can be possible to route via Asia but MPM (Maximum permitted miles) can cause problems. For Star Alliance, NZ would be ideal if they would just start releasing award seats! Otherwise, we need to connect in either BKK or SIN and again in NRT or ICN to get to the USA. For One World, Qantas has the only direct flights but since I am using AA miles, I also have Hawaiian and Air Pacific as potential award routes. Unfortunately no stopovers are allowed.
PACIFIC ISLANDS – We go to Rarotonga every few years so my husband can see his family. Only served by Air New Zealand (Star Alliance) and Virgin. Other islands that are on our radar with airlines that can get us there are: Tahiti (NZ), Fiji (Qantas, Air Pacific, Virgin, NZ).
DOMESTIC AUSTRALIA – One World has the monopoly on alliance based flights – Qantas. I can also earn miles on Virgin with everyday shopping and partners.
AFRICA – I have a bucket list birding trip I would like to do with stops in DAR for Tanzania, JNB and PLZ for South Africa and MRU for Mauritius. This trip would have very high out of pocket costs on the ground so would require years of saving or a Lotto win. There are options with both Star Alliance (South African, Turkish, Ethiopian, Egypt Air) and One World (Qatar, Malaysian) but once again this is a major goal I would have to save a long time for. I would most likely use United miles for this one, possibly Avios for JNB-MRU.

KNOW WHICH AIRLINES SERVE YOUR HOME AIRPORT

I use Google flights to look this up. Just type in “Flights to LAX”, replacing LAX with your home airport code. In my case, this is BNE. Now scroll through the list and pull out the airlines which are in alliances and non-allianced airlines that you have easy access to partner earnings on.

Qantas – One World
Cathay Pacific – One World
Malaysian Airlines – One World
Air New Zealand – Star Alliance
Thai Airways – Star Alliance
Singapore Airlines – Star Alliance
EVA Air – future Star Alliance
Virgin Australia – not in an alliance but able to get free points from local partners
Hawaiian Airlines – not in an alliance but partner of AA
Air Pacific – not in an alliance but partner of AA
Emirates – doesn’t partner with any airline I can easily earn miles with so not a good option for me.

CAN YOU CONNECT IN A LARGER AIRPORT WITHIN YOUR COUNTRY?

Brisbane is not Australia’s major airport, Sydney is. However, since Star Alliance does not have a partner which serves domestic Australian flights, One World is going to give me a lot more options since I can use Qantas to get to Sydney, Melbourne or Perth from where there are additional flight opportunities. Using the Google Flights tool, I now look up flights to Sydney (SYD). Now I can see that in addition to the airlines that also serve Brisbane, I could connect on:

Etihad – partner of American and Virgin Australia, but not in an alliance
Air China – Star Alliance
Air Canada – Star Alliance
United Airlines – Star Alliance
Asiana – Star Alliance
Japan Airlines – One World
Air Tahiti Nui – AA partner, non alliance
Qatar Airways – future One World

ANALYZING THE INFORMATION AND SETTING THE PRIORITIES

On the surface, it looks like I should prioritize Star Alliance and seek out mile-earning opportunities on United and US Airways. BUT, the main problem is getting award seats from Brisbane as I don’t want to pay out of pocket for feeder flights to Sydney or waste Virgin miles. Two of the 3 Star Alliance partners (NZ, SQ) that serve Brisbane rarely release business class awards and even economy can be hard to find. TG is more generous and when EVA Air joins in a few months, hopefully they will also be generous with award seats and routes via TPE will fall within the MPM for US awards. On the other hand, One World has the only domestic Australian partner that allows me to route via Sydney’s international connections. American Airlines has 2 major partners that serve Brisbane – Air Pacific and Hawaiian and also Etihad via Sydney. So here is how I prioritized my airline programs:

MAIN PROGRAMS/LONG HAUL

1. American AAdvantage – because of more flexibility and domestic Australian feeder flights, extra partners like Etihad, Air Pacific and Hawaiian, one way awards permitted and most airlines I use bookable online. Also, One World and AA partners serve more of the airports that matter to me. Can transfer from SPG at 20k SPG = 25k AA and use E-Rewards and flower partners to top up. Citibank denied me the co-branded credit card but planning to try again in 6 months for the sign up bonus.

2. United Mileage Plus – would have been first place if they had a domestic Australian partner or better flights out of BNE; but I value one way awards and online booking so they edged out US. Can get miles from Chase’s Ultimate Rewards and co-branded cards and any partners which I can’t credit to AA.

3. US Airways Dividend Miles – good redemption levels but I find the restrictions of round-trip awards and having to call them to book awards stifling. They have had the best ever promo – Grand Slam which ran every Sept – Nov 2008-2011 which allowed us to earn huge amounts of miles fairly cheap and they also can run good 100% buy or share bonus promos, making it fairly cheap to buy their miles. If they merge with AA, these miles could potentially become AA miles which I personally value much higher.

SECONDARY PROGRAMS/SHORT HAUL

4. British Airways Avios – I used them for a bargain one-way LAX-HNL and also have them earmarked for short haul domestic Australian and intra-South America awards. Can transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards and E-Rewards.

5. Avianca/Taca LifeMiles – Good awards within Central America and South America, sometimes offers 100% buy/share miles promos. The credit card has an anniversary bonus of 6000 miles for $75 annual fee which is a good deal and painless.

6. Qantas – Awards are expensive so prefer to use AA as main One-World program, also Australian co-branded credit cards can have higher annual fees. I can get free miles from shopping and phone bills so I just let them silently accumulate.

7. Virgin – Good for credit card bonuses, transfers from Amex and short-haul to New Zealand and Pacific islands. Can earn miles with NAB card and Virgin mobile through everyday normal use.

8. Singapore Krisflyer – Has the best award rates between Australia and Pacific Islands, can use Amex MR to get miles but otherwise no easy “everyday spending” opportunities.

So now I know where I want to look first for incidental bonuses for car rentals, hotel stays, flowers, surveys and where to credit them to!

What are your miles collecting priorities and why?

Priority Club Dishes Up Some Disa-Pointbreaks

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Tara

I had been up late last night (in my timezone) when reports of 5000 point hotels started trickling in on FlyerTalk. Since I need 3 nights in Bali, I waited up to see what would transpire. No luck for me, Bali was not included in the list finally released. Although eco-travelers came out fairly unscathed with the recent award chart devaluations (big cities got hammered), most of us were expecting a halfway decent Pointbreaks list for Feb and March to make up for it; so there was disappointment all around.

Pointbreaks

The list finally went up after a few false starts and very few people had something to be happy about. Here’s a few that may be of use:

Fiji Intercontinental – nice base to relax in between trips to outer islands and there are some bird species in the vicinity.

Auckland Airport – you’d pass through here enroute to Australia or the Pacific Islands so why not get a free night to rest up before the flight?

Crowne Plaza Johannesburg – useful if you are enroute to or from Kruger or Magoesbakloof.

Holiday Inn Sumare, Sao Paulo – inconvenient location but if you are taking a bus to the Pantanal and need an overnighter, it’s an option.

Crowne Plaza Maruma, Venezuela – with all the parrots in Venezuela, worth a look.

Crowne Plaza West Hanoi – people on FlyerTalk say it’s inconvenient to the city but it may have birding nearby so check it out.

Check out the whole Pointbreaks list.

Getting To South-East Asia With Frequent Flyer Miles

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Tara

The countries of South-East Asia’s bird populations are as colourful and diverse as you could expect from this culturally rich region. let’s concentrate on the countries which are classified as “South-East Asia” by the frequent flyer programs and have great birding and eco-tourism opportunities such as (alphabetically) Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. If you are married to or involved with a non-birding partner, this is a great region to plan a trip to as they will find plenty to do while you are off chasing birds. Unfortunately, being so far from everywhere except Australia, it can be very expensive to get there whether you use miles or cash. Let’s look at a few options.

South-East Asia

ONE WORLD ALLIANCE

AMERICAN AADVANTAGE

For most people, joining American Airline’s AAdvantage will be the best option. They have quite a few credit card options to quickly build your miles stash and a few partners such as E-Rewards and various hotels where you can transfer points in. The region is called “Asia Zone 2” on this chart and includes Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Saipan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam. Airlines which serve this area include Cathay Pacific and Qantas with Malaysian Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines and Qatar Airways joining very soon.

Peru Award2

These figures are one-way so double if you want a round trip. The nice thing about AAdvantage is the flexibility, you may choose to go one way in economy and one way in business, or do an open jaw where you fly into Bali (DPS) for example and out of Bangkok (BKK). Please note that awards between South-East Asia and South America Zones 1 & 2 are not available so if you want a route like that you will have to join up two awards such as Asia-North America and North America – South America.

USA and Canada: Each way is 35,000 economy; 55,000 business; 72,500 first. You can use Qantas, Cathay Pacific, and Malaysian but there are no stopovers allowed.

UK and Europe: Each way is 35,000 economy; 52,500 business; 70,000 first. You can use British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Etihad or (coming soon) Malaysian Airlines and SriLankan Airlines; or use Finnair, Air Berlin or Iberia to get to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere Qantas flies.

Australia and New Zealand: Each way is 25,000 economy; 35,000 business; 45,000 first. You can use Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Malaysian.

QANTAS

For Aussies who have easy access to Qantas points via their employer or Everyday Rewards, it’s worth checking out QF’s awards to South-East Asia. Use their points calculator as the awards are distance based, not by country. A long distance award such as Brisbane – Bangkok will cost more than a short one like Darwin – Denpasar/Bali. The awards look expensive compared to AA, UA and US but if you got your points for free, might as well enjoy them!

Qantas Awards

AVIOS (BRITISH AIRWAYS AND IBERIA)

By the time you read this, Malaysian will have joined One World, though the booking engine may not be online yet. Look for bargains in one way awards between Kuala Lumpur and nearby cities such as Singapore, Jakarta, Bali, Bangkok, Vientiane and Manila. In the examples below, the awards will range from 4500 Avios to 10,000 Avios.

AVIOS AWARD CHART

STAR ALLIANCE AIRLINES

No matter where you live, the two best programs to use in Star Alliance are United and US Airways. Both have their pros and cons. With United, you can book partner awards online, book one-way awards and get lots of miles via several Chase credit cards; but if you can’t get these cards it can be hard to get miles in United Mileage Plus. With US Airways, the major drawbacks are you have to book round-trips and you can’t book online, you have to call them. The advantage with US Airways is that they offer frequent “Buy miles, get 100% bonus free” promos and in the past, they had the wonderful Grand Slam promos where it was possible to do partner transactions and with careful planning you could get about 120,000 miles for $400-600 incremental cost. The US Airways Grand Slam hasn’t been seen since Sept-Nov 2011, unfortunately they didn’t do it in 2012. Depending on where you live, Avianca/Taca Lifemiles could be useful too, but it is hard to use their booking engine for complicated routings so I suggest saving them for USA-Central/South America where they offer better value and ease of booking.

US Airways Chart

US AIRWAYS (round-trip only) Region is South & Central Asia which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Chagos, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

USA and Canada: Economy 80,000; Business 120,000; First 160,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Air New Zealand (hard to get) or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). US has recently started enforcing MPM (maximum permitted miles) so some Asian routings may not be acceptable.

UK and Europe: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 110,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. Some airlines do not give US Airways business or first class awards such as Singapore, Lufthansa and Swiss.

Australia and New Zealand: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 120,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.

UNITED AIRLINES (can book one-way or round trip.

The award chart is too big to copy paste here so please follow this link to see the whole chart.

USA and Canada: (each way) Economy 40,000; Business 62,500; First 80,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Air New Zealand (hard to get) or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). You can easily see the routings via their online award booking engine.

UK and Europe: (each way) Economy 55,000, Business 75,000; First 90,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. You can easily see the routings on their online award booking engine but be careful if you are looking at business or first class awards as sometimes they offer mixed class awards and the long-haul section could be in economy with a short sector in business or first.

Australia and New Zealand: Economy 30,000, Business 45,000; First 60,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.

Here’s an example of London to Bangkok, as you can see they quote both the miles and taxes and the business class award are “mixed class” and if you hover over the fare, you can see which flight is in which class.

United Chart

You can see how much cheaper it is to fly from Brussels due to the very high UK departure taxes.

United Award ex-Brussels

These are just a few examples, please feel free to ask questions in the comments.

If you need ideas on how to acquire frequent flyer miles, please see the Resources tab and Miles and Points tab. which I will update with new offers for free or cheap miles.

LIST OF PARROTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES

Planning Your Trips In Advance

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Tara

WHY YOU SHOULD PLAN

Successful ecotourism trips are a bit more complicated than the usual trip to Hawaii or Europe so it is best to plan them well in advance. In most cases, you will be going to a much more remote area and way off the beaten track. Eco-lodges are small and can only take a certain number of guests so it can be very risky to just grab a last-minute fare to Brazil, Australia or Bolivia if you can’t also book your lodge. The best lodges book up well in advance. And if you are relying on frequent flyer miles to get there, it can be hard to get availability so you are better off booking as soon as possible after flights open up their award seats. In most cases, this will be at 330-335 days depending on your airline’s program and when the partner airlines make their flights available.

Before you can even book the flights, you need to know you will have enough miles on hand. Long-haul trips such as USA to/from Australia, Australia to/from Central and South America and North America to/from Asia can be costly even in miles and it may take you several years to save up enough depending on how you source your miles. If you want truly free trips, you need to source your miles from re-directing your everyday spending through credit cards and shops that give you miles but take care not to buy things you don’t need or overspend on your credit cards to the point where you can’t pay the bill in full each month.

WAYS TO SOURCE FREQUENT FLYER MILES

Credit card sign-up bonuses can be very lucrative but mind the annual fees and minimum spending requirements.
Spending on credit cards, even better if you can use a category bonus (office supply stores, restaurants, etc) for increased bonuses. An example of this is buying a gift card at an office supply store that gives you 5 x bonus miles and using the gift card to buy your groceries.
Manufactured spending such as using a miles earning credit card to buy reload cards (Vanilla, Green Dot, etc) that can be loaded on a card where you can access the funds via an ATM or withdrawal to a bank account. These methods do have their risks so I would study them carefully in FlyerTalk.
Surveys such as E-Miles and E-rewards, also some are available on MyPoints. They can be slow going, but if you are saving for a major trip, they do all add up. In the past, E-Rewards required an emailed invitation but now you can get a link to join in the “Earn Miles” section of your frequent flyer program.
Use the click-through link from your frequent flyer program to buy flowers. They often give 30 miles per $ on special occasions like Mother’s Day, Christmas and Valentines Day.
Transfer extra hotel points to your frequent flyer program.
Take advantage of promos. In the past, US Airways Grand Slam and Club Carlson’s Free Night Giveaway gave huge bonuses. Follow this blog by rss feed or email subscription as I will blog about any good promos that come up.
BIS (butt in seat) miles. If you are lucky enough to fly for work and have it paid by your employer, that’s free miles that also earn status!
Half-price buy miles promos. US Airways and Avianca Lifemiles are pretty good about offering promos where you double the miles you get when you buy them through their portal.

MAKE A WISH LIST AND TRACK HOW MANY MILES YOU NEED

I use an Excel spreadsheet to track my personal wish list. It contains too much personal data to post it here but basically it is something like:

Indonesia – Using Virgin Australia miles sourced from credit card spend. Need 110,000 miles for 2 people. Economy. Booked
Central America – Using US Airways miles sourced from past Grand Slam. Need 240,000 miles for 2 people business class. Booked
Western Australia – Using AA miles sourced from credit card signup. Need 40,000 miles for 2 people economy class. Acheived.
Spain – Using US Airways miles sourced from past Grand Slam. Need 240,000 miles for 2 people business. Achieved.
India/Sri Lanka – Using US Airways miles from past Grand Slam and US Mastercard. Need 180,000 miles. Have 165,000 so 15,000 miles outstanding. I know I will get another 10,000 from the anniversary bonus on the credit card so I need around 5000 more miles. Easily achieved with a couple flower purchases and E-Rewards.
Caribbean Islands – Could do one way on United (90,000 economy) and one way on American (125,000 business for the return). Need to work on this one so now I know which credit cards I need to concentrate on next. Citibank AA cards, Chase United Explorer and SPG will serve my purpose.

Once that goal is achieved, I can start saving miles for other goals. I have my eye on French Polynesia and Fiji, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mauritius, Bolivia and Peru for future trips.

DON’T HOARD MILES, ENJOY THEM!

I have seen a lot of people get caught up in the excitement of the “chase” or pursuit of status so they go overboard on gift card schemes, buy miles they don’t have a plan for or just keep collecting miles without spending them. We never know what life has in store for us. We may be fit and healthy (and alive) now but who knows what will happen in the future. Airlines could go out of business like Ansett, SpanAir and Mexicana. Don’t be the person who ends up with a million miles in their account they can’t use because their health worsened, they lost their job or whatever. And you don’t get brownies points in heaven if you have left over miles. Earn ’em burn ’em and most of all enjoy ’em!

Hotel Point Devaluations On Starwood And Priority Club – Should Eco-Tourists Care?

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Tara

Well it all depends……………since you can’t book eco-lodges on points (though you can get pretty close). I’m sure no one has missed the hubbub in the travel blogosphere and FlyerTalk. The Priority Club devaluations were expected as they had been announced in advance. The SPG devaluations on the popular cash and points rates were a surprise, although they at least gave notice that you can book the old rates until 5 March. The most frustrating thing is that not all of their hotels offer C&P rates or they only put them up a few weeks in advance like the Maui properties. Some people are liking the new option to use more SPG points to book upgraded rooms or suites. Loyalty Traveler has an excellent analysis of the new rates.

So, do I as an eco-traveler care? Not really. Although we do plan to stop in Maui on the way home from Central America and were planning to use either SPG or Hyatt (via Ultimate Rewards) points; we may just Priceline it. Otherwise, we only really use chain hotels in gateway cities such as Lima, Peru to rest up between an international flight and the domestic leg to the national park we are headed to. SPG is a big part of my miles and points earning plan but I have better use for the transfers of points to airline miles and I prefer to use other programs such as Priority Club and Club Carlson for gateway hotels. If they stopped giving the bonus 5000 miles with every block of 20,000 points sent to an airline such as AA, THEN I would be pretty upset!

Moving on to Priority Club…………..FlyerTalk had been speculating for days and in some cases, the devaluations were huge, but there were some bright spots. Once again, Loyalty Traveler has an excellent blog about it. Another hotel point specialist blogger, Loyalty Lobby has a great PDF with ALL the Priority Club properties on it which makes it very easy to see the potential gateway cities for our eco-adventures as well as his intended purpose of tracking the new point requirements.

We will be visiting Bali after 2 weeks of birding in West Papua in a couple months. Nice little treat after hiking through rainforests and sleeping in small guesthouses! Priority Club gaveth (HI Baruna went from 25k to 20k) and tooketh away (IC Bali went from 30k to 35k). I still have my fingers crossed for a PointsBreak here when the list goes up probably next week.

Most Australian properties went up, bad news for birders and everyone else since the AUD is so strong right now, last thing anyone wants is something else to go up! Gagudju Crocodile in Kakadu National Park which is one of the top eco-tourism destinatons in the world (and you can stay there on points!) went up from 15k to 20k – Ouch! Alice Springs went down from 25k to 20k but it’s really just a jumping off point to better birding in the Outback.

HIX in Cuiaba, Brazil stayed the same. This hotel can be useful as a jumping off point to the Pantanal but be mindful that Cuiaba is undergoing a lot of roadworks and it’s easy to get lost getting out of the city. I got it last year on a Pointsbreak but regretted going so far from the main highway to the Pantanal. I got lost and had to pay a local R$20 (about $10 USD or AUD) to escort us to the highway! Also in Brazil and useful to eco-travelers is the Crowne Plaza Belem which went down from 25k to 20k.

The Pacific Islands fared a bit better. The IC Fiji stayed the same at 30k, but the HI Suva went down from 20k to 15k and Suva is where you have to change planes on Air Pacific (soon to be Fiji Airways) hops around the islands. Over in Tahiti which I plan to visit in 2015 to see the Ultramarine Lorikeet in Ua Huka, the IC Papeete stayed the same at 30k but the much more pleasant IC in Moorea went down from 30k to 25k – hope it stays down!

If you are dreaming of Echo Parakeets in Mauritius, good news, the IC stayed the same.

I was happy to see CP Jerusalem go down from 25k to 20k as we plan to visit the Holy Land after the World Parrot Congress in Tenerife next year. (More on that as the time approaches, but it’s every 4 years and I hoard miles for it).

Anyone want to see the endangered Puerto Rican Amazon? The IC which is the closest to El Yunque Rainforest and an easy day trip stayed the same at 50k ( I would use a Chase free night for this one) but if you don’t mind a bit of a drive the HI Mayaguez is still only 15k.

It was also noted on Flyertalk that Wyndham has been quietly devaluing their hotel redemptions. My answer is: Who cares? The best use of WR points is airline miles!

Has anyone else noticed any devaluations I missed that would be of interest to eco-tourists?

Wyndham Rewards – Best Uses for Eco-Travelers

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Tara

WHICH HOTELS DO THEY HAVE?

Wyndham Rewards is the frequent guest program of several different hotel chains.

Wyndham Hotels

The largest presence is in the USA with over 6500 hotels. This can come in handy if you are connecting to an overseas flights and want a budget hotel for the night near the airport. The odds are great that Wyndham will have several hotels near most major airports with free shuttles.

They also have a number of hotels overseas, some of which are in countries that will attract eco-travelers and birders. I have highlighted these in yellow.

Wyndham Overseas Hotels

HOW MANY POINTS DO YOU NEED?

It varies widely depending on the chain. Hotels overseas tend to be more expensive than those in the USA.

Wyndham Awards

For example, LAX has several hotels all ranging between 14,000 to 16,000 redemption.

Wyndham LAX Awards

Same hotels if you pay cash/credit – notice that they are not expensive! Not a good use of points!

Wyndham LAX $$$

Now let’s look at Brazil as an example. Most people will use Sao Paulo as an entry or exit point for Brazil and I do recommend spending your last night here to make sure you don’t miss your connection home. Linhares is prime birding country but there are better options to stay which I will be blogging about later. The Parana property is near Curitiba which also has good birding in the area.

Wyndham Brazil

HOW DO YOU EARN POINTS?

1. Stay at Wyndham chain hotels.

Wyndham T&Cs

Wyndham T&Cs

2. Get the credit card.

Wyndham Credit Cards

3. Rent a car.

Wyndham Car Rentals

4. Use their other partners. Out of these 3, the rate for flowers is pretty bad compared to other programs. The Energy one doesn’t look very good either. The Liberty Mutual quote can get you 500 points within a month if you are trying to top up to another level.

Wyndham Other Partners

WHAT IS THE BEST USE OF WYNDHAM REWARDS POINTS?

The best use, especially for eco-travelers is transferring them to an airline. Why? Because in most countries, the Wyndham properties aren’t too expensive and Wyndham often has bonus promos going on. You can acquire a lot of points very quickly. I will blog about any promos that come up. Here is the list of redemption to airline miles partners. 3 of our top 8 frequent flyer programs are available as transfer partners – American, United and US Airways.

Airline mileage transfer rates
8,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 3200 airline miles
17,500 Wyndham Rewards points = 7000 airline miles
30,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 12,000 airline miles

Wyndham Airline Mile Transfers

WYNDHAM’S SECRET WEAPON

This is not a hack or a trick, it is in the T&Cs of the Wyndham hotel program. What this means, is when there is a very lucrative promo running and you don’t live near any Wyndham hotels, you can simply book ANY hotel participating in the promo, give your credit card to pay for it and then simply not show up! I have seen some really good promos in the past such as one where you get 16,000 bonus points for staying at specified hotels that could be booked for around $60. This gives a huge discount to buying airline miles if you maximize such a promo and transfer as I said above! I will let you know when such promos are running.

Wyndham T&Cs

IN SUMMARY

I recommend that eco-tourists pay cash (credit card) if they are staying at a Wyndham hotel, accumulate the points and transfer to an airline. The hotels that we would be using are generally not expensive so the airline miles are a much better value.

Avianca-Taca LifeMiles & Best Uses For Eco-Travelers

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Tara

Avianca-Taca’s frequent flyer program is one of the newest to the Star Alliance but given that it’s hubs are in countries rich with birdlife, it’s a program that all eco-travelers should get to know.

BASICS OF AVIANCA-TACA LIFEMILES

1. First thing to do is join the program if you haven’t already. LifeMiles has frequent buy/share bonus miles promos and they always restrict them to people who are already members as of the day the promo begins. It’s free to join so no reason not to!

2. You only need to have 40% of the miles required to redeem an award. Then you can buy the remaining miles at $15 per 1000 miles. For example in this flight from LAX to San Jose, Costa Rica; the normal price is 12,000 miles but if you are willing to pay $90, you can get away with only using 5000 miles. You have effectively bought 7000 miles for $90 at a cost of $15.00 per 1000 miles. (The price has increased to $15.00 per 1000 miles since July 2013.) The technique remains the same is pictured.

3. The normal price to buy miles is $30 per block of 1000 miles. If LifeMiles is running a 100% bonus, this becomes $15 per block of 1000 miles. You will only need to buy enough to get you to the 40% redemption level, then use the “More money” button to buy the miles even cheaper.

4. The normal price to share miles is $15 per block of 1000 miles. If LifeMiles is running a 100% bonus, this becoomes $7.50 per block of 1000 miles. Bear in mind that the miles come out of your account and go into your friend’s account. There is a maximum of 50,000 miles transferred per calendar year.

So let’s say you have 20,000 miles because you got the LifeMiles Visa card. You transfer these miles during a 100% share miles promo to your spouse. You pay $300 for the transfer of 20,000 miles and your spouse gets 40,000 miles in his/her account. You have basically paid $300 to create 20,000 new miles (since you already had 20,000) so you bought those miles at $15 per block of 1000 miles. Now your spouse transfers the whole lot of 40,000 miles back to you. He/she pays $600 for the transfer. Now he/she has 0 miles and you have 80,000 miles, so again you bought the miles at a cost of $15 per block of 1000 miles.

4. You can kickstart your LifeMiles by getting the LifeMiles Visa (US Bank) with a bonus of up to 20,000 miles with first purchase.

SAMPLE BARGAIN ROUTES WITH LIFEMILES

For eco-tourists, the best uses of LifeMiles are to get you between airports in the birding hotspots of Central America and South America, or from the USA to Central/South America preferably on an Avianca or Taca flight. Here are some examples, please note the difference in base price and the price when you spend 40% of required miles and add cash.

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA TO PANAMA CITY

There is a special on business class which makes this the cheapest way from A to B if you are paying cash.

Now if you don’t really care which class you are in, let’s compare with the price of the flight in miles and cash.

Depending on how many miles you have in your account, you can spend as little as 3000 miles plus $62 cash. If you used the bonus promo above, these 3000 miles would have cost $45, so your total out-of-pocket is $107, rather than $307.

LIMA TO SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA

If you are enchanted by the blue-throated macaws at Barba Azul, here’s how you can get there. First, the cash price-economy.

Now let’s see what it costs in miles. The normal price is 9000 miles which during the promo would be $135 to buy the miles. Or you can buy 4000 miles during the promo for $60 and another $66 for the remaining 5000 miles you need for a total of $126. Nice savings over the cash price of $435!

PANAMA CITY TO LAS VEGAS (STAR ALLIANCE AWARD ON COPA

$510 for the one way ticket using cash.

Now let’s see how much it costs with miles! Normal price is 15,000 miles. Using the 40% minimum to pay with 6000 miles plus $114 cash and $25 redemption fee we have paid (using a 100% buy/share bonus) $90 for the minimum miles plus $114 plus $25 plus $28 tax for a total of $257, about half the cash price!

GETTING LIFEMILES IN EVERYDAY LIFE

It’s a fairly new program so there aren’t too many opportunities yet, though this may grow.

1. Get the credit card and use it for purchases, get 1 mile per $.

2. LifeMiles shopping portal. They are having some problems with this and miles haven’t been posting while they work out the bugs. Hopefully they will and this will become a nice source of LifeMiles. Don’t buy things you don’t need just to get miles, but if you do need something, start at the portal and get free miles!

3. Buy flowers or a gift at FTD.com.

4. Transfer hotel points. These are not the best use of hotel points but if you have some orphaned points you need to get rid of, it’s one option.

HiltonHonors: 10,000 HHonor Points for 1000 LifeMiles.
Best Western: 5000 Best Western points for 1000 LifeMiles.
Marriott: 10,000 Marriott Rewards points for 1500 LifeMiles.

IN SUMMARY

1. Best uses of LifeMiles for eco-tourists are on Avianca or Taca flights, or some partner flights like Copa.

2. Credit card can kickstart your miles account.

3. Wait for Buy/Share bonuses to buy miles at a discount.

4. Only buy enough to get you to 40% of your desired award, then use the miles plus cash tool to buy the remainder at $12-13 per block of 1000 miles.

Anymore questions, please ask in the comments? Does anyone have plans to travel to Central or South America and planning to use LifeMiles for a cheap ticket?

Getting To Australia With Airline Miles

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Tara

Australia is a major draw card for birders and should be on most eco-travelers dream trip list. Unfortunately, being so far from everywhere else, it can be very expensive to get there whether you use miles or cash. Let’s look at a few options.

ONE WORLD ALLIANCE

For most people, joining American Airline’s AAdvantage will be the best option. They have quite a few credit card options to quickly build your miles stash and a few partners such as E-Rewards and various hotels where you can transfer points in. This is my first choice for travel to/from Australia as you can book your award to anywhere Qantas flies domestically and not be dependent on gateway cities only. Example: Dallas-Los Angeles-Honolulu-Sydney-Alice Springs.

Peru Award2

These figures are one-way so double if you want a round trip. The nice thing about AAdvantage is the flexibility, you may choose to go one way in economy and one way in business, or do an open jaw where you fly into Brisbane (BNE) for example and out of Perth (PER). Australia is in the South Pacific region so you can see the miles required for most departing cities.

USA and Canada: Each way is 37,000 economy; 62,500 business; 72,000 first. You can use Qantas, Hawaiian Airlines, Air Tahiti Nui or Air Pacific but there are no stopovers allowed. AA no longer allows you to use Hawaiian Airlines between mainland USA and Hawaii and if you want to travel beyond Hawaii to the South Pacific you will pay 2 awards – USA-Hawaii + Hawaii-South Pacific.

UK and Europe: Each way is 45,000 economy; 60,000 business; 80,000 first. You can use British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Etihad or (coming soon) Malaysian Airlines and SriLankan Airlines; or use Finnair, Air Berlin or Iberia to get to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere Qantas flies.

STAR ALLIANCE AIRLINES

No matter where you live, the best programs to use in Star Alliance is United. With United, you can book partner awards online, book one-way awards and get lots of miles via several Chase credit cards; but if you can’t get these cards it can be hard to get miles in United Mileage Plus. Depending on where you live, Avianca/Taca Lifemiles could be useful too, but it is hard to use their booking engine for complicated routings so I suggest saving them for USA-Central/South America where they offer better value and ease of booking. Singapore’s Krisflyer also offers Star Alliance awards.

UNITED AIRLINES (can book one-way or round trip.

The award chart is too big to copy paste here so please follow this link to see the whole chart.

Here’s an example of London to Perth, as you can see they quote both the miles and taxes and the business class award are “mixed class” and if you hover over the fare, you can see which flight is in which class.

You can see how much cheaper it is to fly from Brussels due to the very high UK departure taxes.

These are just a few examples, please feel free to ask questions in the comments.

If you need ideas on how to acquire frequent flyer miles, please see the Resources tab and Miles and Points tab. which I will update with new offers for free or cheap miles.

OTHER AIRLINES

If you are from the USA, you may also want to try Virgin Australia awards booked with Delta miles or Qantas awards booked with miles sourced from the Citibank Premier Thank You card. It is virtually impossible to get J class awards these days on QF with AA miles as members of Qantas Frequent Flyer have access several weeks earlier and snap them up.

LIST OF PARROTS IN AUSTRALIA

Mileage Earning Credit Cards – Asia, Latin America, Middle East And Africa Edition

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Tara

There are probably locally based blogs for these areas which would cover how to earn miles from credit card sign up bonuses so what I will do here is create a reference for the major airlines so you can see who partners with what bank, then Google for a local blog that tracks special offers on these cards. No matter which country you live in, always check with American Express as they have the Membership Rewards program available in most countries but the partners vary widely.

A good rule of thumb no matter where you live is to sign up for your local airline’s program (preferably one in Star Alliance or One World) to get credit card miles and any possible points from everyday living such as shopping, phone, internet, petrol, insurance, etc. While you are looking at the credit card pages I linked below, always check for any other “everyday” promos.

Then join the 5 main programs I recommend for eco-tourists as I will be concentrating on these when I post special promos. These programs have the best redemption levels to places where people usually want to go birding and offer the best promos throughout the year.

ASIA

Asians will have a lot of choices as it seems that the main Asian based airlines have partners not only in all Asian countries but some have partners in Australia and the USA as well. The links below will take you to the airline’s credit card page. Also check on FlyerTalk in the airline’s forum as people will usually post any new signup bonuses there. This blogger specifically caters to Indians with mileage earning credit cards and he would be more familiar with that market.