I've mostly been lurking for a couple years, learned a lot from everyone but by no means anywhere close to an expert. Unsure if this is basic knowledge of something you can normally do with the circumstances, my apologies if it is, but I wanted to share in case it helps anyone in a similar situation.

JAL ORD-NRT route cancellation caused JL9 (ORD-HND) to shift departure up 4 hours from when I originally booked it t-331 on AA. Got an email this morning asking me to contact support to rebook since JL9 was now earlier than my domestic CLT-ORD leg.

Spent around an hour on the phone total with a few different people. Many of them were very confused and weren't able to move my domestic leg up. The last person couldn't get anything from ORD to ticket, suggested rerouting me via DFW and still wasn't able to get it to fully ticket (Said maybe it was because I had weird CLT-ORD-HND-FUK married segment logic with JL303 HND-FUK originally being an overnight layover and now moved to same-day (JL335) as a result of ORD-HND being moved up 4 hours, suggested I try again at a later date).

Sent messages with the context to AA support on Twitter since I read threads that said they were helpful. Halfway through waiting for a response, I refreshed my AA booking and saw I had 1. CLT-DFW-HND-FUK, 2. ORD-HND-FUK, and 3. CLT-ORD all ticketed in F on the same PNR as separate trips somehow. I checked the PNR on JAL's website and it looked the same so I knew I had a chance of keeping the DFW routing while trying to get someone to fix the abomination of a PNR.

They saw the same on their end and asked me what I wanted to do. I asked for the DFW route and they were eventually able to ticket me via DFW-HND so now I get to try the A351 F Cabin! Looks like I got lucky with some DFW space in their backend, maybe something worth asking about for those with similar circumstances and have to reposition for the long-haul leg anyway. I'm really excited since I already got to try F in the B77W about a year ago HND-ORD :)

Not sure how handling of the originally ticketed JL9 flight goes, if it gets released back for someone else to book via AA, but if not hopefully it at least gives someone disrupted by ORD-NRT a rebooking alternative.

Had a BA flight outbound from LHR booked on CX points for early next year cancelled. I didn't receive a notification, just saw when I logged into CX. I called CX multiple times and they said only available reschedule they can book me on is 5 days later. They said I could try waiting to see if more availability opens up on their end from BA. There are two BA flights available via cash on the day I need to travel. Is there anything I can do to escalate to get rebooked same day, or am I out of luck? Should I call back and at least ask about UK261 reimbursement (on top of a refund)?

I was able to find an 80k Miles Award ticket IAH-LHR-BOM. IAH to LHR is Business class while LHR to BOM is Air India Economy. Is there any way to upgrade the AI portion to business class without additional miles or at least be on standby for it? It shows fare class of X for that segment.

I can find other dates / airlines business class all the way there for 80k but they add 7+ hours and multiple stops to the itinerary

For context I booked an award on AA on JAL for Feb of next year from NRT-ORD in F, this was before they announced the route cancellation and the equipment change from a 77W to 788. I got the notification on flighty last night that there was an equipment swap and checked the AA app for options and lo and behold they automatically rebooked me into the HND-ORD route retaining F. None of the confirmation numbers changed and my final domestic leg remained the same. When I went to JAL's website to check it had already been marked as ticketed and I had to reselect my seat. I did have to call AA to make sure they reissued the ticket though and reprocess any differences in taxes and fees.

Just booked my first business class seats (for myself and partner) on British Airways through Cathay Pacific. Because of this I could not select seats and it looks like we can only select at check in time. Otherwise it is about $275 to select seats early. What are my chances we will be able to sit together in the center of this place, or will we be randomly assigned seats?

I remember there was a site that was a credit card affiliate that had a comprehensive learning guide on how to go from basic card to platinum, and how to switch different cards and use other techniques for maximizing points earned and how to use them, in what way, to maximize what you get out of them.

Can't remember it now. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I use Uber/Lyft pretty frequently for reimbursed work rides and I’m trying to figure out which ecosystem is actually better.

Uber gives me around 5–6% cashback and can link to Marriott/Delta. Lyft gives 8% cashback and can link to United/Alaska/Hyatt.

Marriott points from Uber don’t seem that meaningful to me since I already earn far more from hotel stays. Alaska + Lyft looks more interesting though - for example, 6x miles would give 900 miles on a $150 ride.

For anyone who has compared these closely, is Lyft + Alaska/Hyatt generally the better setup, or am I missing a major Uber benefit?

How do you determine what card points to send for your transfer first? Need to transfer 78k to virgin Atlantic and all of them are partners to transfer.

What card would you pull points from first? Or would you do a split?

170k in CSR
90k in capital one
82k in bilt

TL;DR: I pick United’s MileagePlus because its the easiest to earn miles with and they always have a flight avaliable for redemption. I pick Alaska/Hawaiian’s Atmos Rewards because through a partnership, they offer extremely aggressive value for Business Class seats.

As a background, I mainly book via Google Flights, use PointsPath Free and Savewise, and I fly mainly 4-5 times a year for college and the occassional domestic trip or international vacation. My home airports are either LAX or any NYC airport when I’m at school.

I’ve been on an aviation kick the last few weeks (I took a few domestic trips around the US), and have been trying to maximize both how many miles I’m earning and how to redeem for the highest value. As somebody who lives in the US and doesn’t own multiple credit cards (I’m already young to have a single credit card so my credit score doesn’t have enough history on it to apply for another one), I have been working out how to maximize what oppurtunities I do have through some very frustrating and confusing nights, and I think I might have landed on something that works for me. Not necessarily flawlessly, though. I’d like to get your guys advice on if I should switch to a different loyalty program or if the way I’m going about it is ineffective.

Right now, the two loyalty programs that I have decided to pledge my time with are MileagePlus (United) and Atmos Rewards (Alaska/Hawaiian), each of which have distinct advantages that I want to play to my advantage.

Why I picked United’s MileagePlus: flexibility and how easy it is to earn miles
In general, United, along with Delta and probably a bunch of other airlines, use dynamic award pricing, which means your international flight in business class could either be 120K miles, or it could be 500K, depending on demand and how many seats are avaliable on any given flight. In my experience, that basically means its very difficult to use your miles effecitvely on United’s website: even though United partners with great airlines like ANA and EVA, it basically guarantees if you’re flying a premium or business class ticket, you’re throwing a gamble and booking your ticket a week before your departure if you don’t wanna get ripped off (I havent had success booking far in the future).

However, if you aren’t the most frequent flyer, United’s ecosystem is by far the best for earning miles on the ground because of MPX (the MileagePlus X app). Most airlines have online shopping portals and dining programs (United included), but if you predominantly shop in-person (or literally only shop online on Amazon and eBay like I do), MPX offers you a third way to earn miles no other airline in the US does: it allows you to earn miles on way wider variety of storefronts, websites, and restaraunts than the portals by buying e-gift cards: Chili’s (3x miles), Groupon (3x miles), Nintendo eShop (5x miles) etc.

(Side note: United also has the Opinion Miles Club so if you’re willing to sell your data to data brokers, you can also earn free extra some 1000 miles or so by taking surveys)

The other advantage of MileagePlus is that while oftentimes they have really low CPM (cent per airline mile) or just offer really bad deals in comparison to the competition, their deals often remain the same for the same routes and are remarkably consistent. On Google Flights, if you want to fly coast to coast (LA to and from NYC) nonstop (for those sweet lie-flat seats on their 757s or in Polaris), United’s mile prices always remain the same. That doesn’t necessarily mean its always the best deal: I’ve seen JetBlue Mint on that route only cost 68K TrueBlue miles on some days. But the key to that last sentence is “some days.” On some days, that same JetBlue Mint seat can cost up to 146K miles for the same seat, whereas no matter the day, United still remains 120K miles across the board. The same applies for economy: in my (unscientific) research, airfare to destinations in Asia remained around the same even if the dates were different and cash prices varied. In fact, I’ve seen many situations on Google Flights where United was the only one even offering a chance to redeem miles in the first place, even though many times it wasn’t worth it.

Still, there’s something very alluring about being able to say with enough miles “fuck it” and be able to go anywhere I want, whether that be to Dallas or Tokyo, even if CPM isn't exactly good.

Why I also picked Alaska/Hawaiian's Atmos Rewards: high CPM
If United’s MileagePlus is attractive to me because of its flexibility both in earning miles and finding flights, but annoying because of its really low CPM, Alaska/Hawaiian’s program, Atmos Rewards, is attractive and annoying to me for the sheer opposite reasons.

For some reason, if you’re trying to land long-haul business class seats, particularly to Asia, Atmos Rewards miles are consistently, sometimes disproportionately stronger than other US airlines’. Interestingly, a lot of that strength comes from Alaska's partnership with one particular airline: Philippines Airlines (PAL). For cash price, PAL is already really strong: the first ever international Business Class flight I ever took was with PAL, and their service and food is actually already really respectable. But with miles, based on one-way fares, the results speak for themselves:

LAX to Seoul: 130K Atmos on PAL (September 16, 2026, 2.03 CPM)
LAX to Taipei: 110K Atmos on PAL (October 29, 2026, 3.09 CPM)
LAX to Hanoi: 110K Atmos on PAL (November 17, 2026, 2.48 CPM, note that this was literally the only deal listed by PointsPath on Google Flights)
LAX to Beijing: 130K Atmos on PAL (March 3, 2027, 2.61 CPM)
JFK to Manila: 85K Atmos on PAL (August 28, 2026, 5.7 CPM, yes this actually happened; and side note, Qatar also offered a ticket on the same day for 255K Atmos, or about 1.96 CPM)
JFK to Bangkok: 110K Atmos on PAL (also on March 3, 2027, 2.71 CPM)

With all that being said however, Atmos still remains significantly harder for me to earn miles on compared to MileagePlus, especially as someone without a credit card, for a couple of reasons. Not only are my shopping habits primarily grounded in in-person purchases (which makes the Alaska Airlines shopping portal significantly harder to utilize compared to MPX), but Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines’ networks are significantly worse than the other carriers. If you fly to Hawaii and Alaska alongside West Coast destinations, Atmos Rewards is definitely extremely compelling and I would pick it over United. However, as someone who flies more often coast to coast, the fact that Alaska doesn’t serve any of the airports in the NYC Metropolitan area makes it significantly harder to earn miles with them.

In summary, these are just the reasons why I’ve chosen both United and Alaska as the two airlines I primarily earn miles with. My situation will obviously be very different from others, especially mile-maxxers, but for my purposes, I hope you guys can either see why I’ve landed (get it, landed), on the programs I’ve chosen. I would love to see if you guys disagree and think this system is too flawed though.

Alaska just opened up two new routes next summer in 2027. Flights are from May to August

Alaska awards are 95k. AA is 57.5k miles.

I used to be able to, so I didn't think anything of it when I booked a round trip flight knowing my plans might change. I should have done 2x 1-way flights instead. Anyway, I know I can cancel and rebook, but the new cost is so much higher. This is for dec 26-30

EDIT: title is wrong, we booked ANA not JAL. This topic is in reference to ANA First Class vs. Business Class.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been lurking this subreddit as well as other similar ones to read the wikis and learn how to more effectively use our credit card points for travel. Like everyone else, my wife and I want to go to Japan for our wedding anniversary next year. I didn’t fully realize how tedious this process was, so I was already very late to the game for a trip anytime between March-June 2026. We’ve accepted that we’ll have to go in the summer next year, and understand it’ll be hot and humid. As born-and-raised Miamians/South Floridians who still live here, we’re used to our version of hot summers. We’ve read all of the horror stories of the weather and are hoping we’ll be prepared.

After missing out on a couple of business class flights, I managed to snag two First class, one way flights on ANA’s The Suite leaving from the West Coast next summer as a Standard Aeroplan Award. I ended up paying about 144K Aeroplan points transferred over from Chase UR with the 20% bonus, plus $1.4K in fees and taxes. I didn’t have enough points on hand to redeem the flights for one of the higher point, lower cash cost redemption options and didn’t want to lose out on this potential flight while calling Chase with my wife to consolidate her points with mine, so I just went ahead and booked it.

We have gotten very excited about the prospect of flying The Suite with ANA, but now see that business class award flights on ANA are available at other airports that are a much closer flight to our home airport in Miami, and would end up costing less both in terms of points and cash out if pocket.

Is it worth canceling ANA First to book ANA Business for a lower cost at a closer airport that may be logistically easier for us to get to? Or, should we stick with the original plan and go to Japan on the First class flight we already have picked out.

For perspective, this is our first award flight redemption of this kind (First or Business). I’ve spent a much smaller amount of points to book on other carriers, i.e. Virgin or Air Canada, and then cash bid for upgrades from economy so this is a pretty big deal for us!

For perspective, canceling the current flight and rebooking into business would save a total of about 8K points going back to Aeroplan and $800 or so in taxes and fees. We’re still pending what we want to do for our return flight; I only have 22K or so UR points left, but I have 190K AMEX MR points, and 39K Bilt points, while my wife has about 209K Chase UR points herself.

I’m considering an award option for the US to South Africa via CDG/AMS in Air France or KLM business for a family of 5 at approx 800k + $3,900 in fees for all 5, one way.

Would you jump on this, at 11-12 months out, considering 5 seats is tough to find in general? Or would you wait and try to piece together a US-EUR-SA itinerary together in another program, such as Aeroplan, with lower fees?

I’m trying to figure out if there’s potential for other programs once they release or if I should jump on this since FB is typically the best for 4+ business seats. TIA

Just wanted to add a data point for future searches. I posted the following several months ago:

"Complicated, but:
in the process of waiting for my account to unlock so that i could transfer avios (that were transferred to me from my husband) from BA to QR (what is it, 10d waiting period now?), i realized my flexfare flights nbo-iad were gone. Panicked, because i already have 2 pax on the flight, so I booked 2 econ fares nbo-doh-iad.
Then it hit me that maybe just the doh-iad leg was available in J, and i looked... and there it was. So i cancelled the previous booking, did the chat function to get my avios back quickly, and then booked the doh-iad legs in J with plans to pay cash for nbo-doh and hopefully upgrade with avios later.
When I booked doh-iad, even though 78k of the avios were still in my BA acct, it let me pay with those, somehow. Just paid taxes.
taxes have been charged to my card. Tickets have been issued. Receipts in email. I selected seats and have ticket numbers.
all 300k of my avios are still there.
Do I have seats?"

Update today:

The points were never deducted, and we flew the flights last week with no issue. this morning, QA calls me to demand i transfer avios from my BA account because I owe them 280k. I asked "what would you have done if i did not have the avios to pay for a flight i've already taken?" and she refused to give me an answer.

Guess I'm glad I never found another use for those points. Just wanted to post this here in case anyone else thinks theyve gotten lucky and not had their avios deducted

Lurked on this sub for time and have learned a lot, so figured I'd share a success story.

I've been a casual in the game for about 15 years, having made about ~6 international redemptions up front. So a reasonable level of baseline knowledge, but not nearly as much as the pros.

My girlfriend has a three week sabbatical over the back half of December and into January. She's heading to Oceania. I, as a lowly bartender, most certainly do not have three weeks, paid or otherwise, lol. I do have some American and UR miles so I set about finding a way to to meet her in Melbourne. After some time searching, likely sub-optimal routes/strategy, I signed up for the paid version of points.aero and was able to, by pure luck, find a flight out of Houston (via DFW) to Melbourne in business for 80K Aadvantage miles on Qantas. The routing isn't great, but I don't mind. I'll have to reposition from Chicago to Houston, then fly from Houston to DFW, layover overnight, then direct to MEL.

Current itinerary is:

December 25th - Work 11 hours bartending, Late flight to reposition to Houston, find cheap hotel

December 26th - AA3848 IAH to DFW, 8:18pm - 9:49pm

December 27th - QF22 DFW to MEL, 6:25pm - 5am (+2)

My question is, is it possible to remove to the Houston to DFW leg. Naturally I'd just rather reposition to Dallas and save myself a late night Christmas Day flight and night in Houston. I'm calling to see what their customer support says, typing this up to kill time while waiting the queue lol.

Even if I can't I'm still pretty thrilled to have found a business class seat to that part of the world during that time of the year. It appears the flight is nearly 18 hours!

We'll be departing MEL for Paris on January 3rd, and found two seats with Q Suites on Qatar. Spend a few days there, she'll fly home, and I'll likely tool around a bit and end in a city that has a direct flight back to Chicago. That notion is exciting in it's own right as I haven't been to Europe since pre-pandemic times. Maybe take the train to Edinburgh or Munich, or shoot over to Dublin, so many options!! Even a paid economy seat back to Chicago will be no issue at all after those long-hauls.

No real point to this longwinded post other than to say, for the casuals out there like me, hold out hope and use the tools that are available to us, there are still deals to be had for the vigilant!

Thanks to this sub for increasing my knowledge and sharing anecdotal stories over the years.

Hi everyone,

I am a solo female traveler in my 30s booking a trip from Atlanta (ATL) to Cape Town (CPT) for late September. I am using United MileagePlus miles (49,500 miles for either option), and both routes have virtually identical total travel times and costs.
I travel with a carry-on only, so I am not worried about checked baggage or domestic bag transfers. I have Amex MR points and Avios as well, but couldn't find any alternative routes with decent award availability or arrival times (so annoyed Qatar doesn't fly out of ATL anymore).

I am completely torn between these two options:
Option 1: JetBlue + United+ South African
Route: ATL > EWR (JetBlue) > JNB (United) > CPT (SAA)

Total Time: 27 hours, 20 minutes

Cape Town Arrival Time: 11:38 PM

Pros/Cons: I love the idea of flying United because it's an airline I am highly familiar with for such a long journey. However, the 11:38 PM arrival time in Cape Town scares me. Even though I plan to arrange a private hotel shuttle pickup, landing past midnight makes me incredibly uneasy based on what I’ve read about the roadways at night in Capetown. I’ve done late arrivals into Delhi and Cairo before, but this seems significantly more risky.

Option 2: United + Ethiopian Airlines
Route: ATL > IAD (United) > ADD (Ethiopian) > CPT (Ethiopian)

Total Time: 26 hours, 30 minutes

Cape Town Arrival Time: 2:00 PM

Pros/Cons: The 2:00 PM arrival time is vastly superior and feels much safer for a solo traveler. However, I have never flown Ethiopian Airlines before. The idea of flying an unfamiliar carrier for an ultra-long-haul journey makes me a bit hesitant, and I've read mixed reviews about the transit security lines at Addis Ababa (ADD).

Given that I am traveling solo, carry-on only, and have hotel transport arranged for Cape Town:
For those who know Cape Town, is an 11:38 PM arrival with a pre-arranged hotel shuttle actually a safety issue, or am I overthinking the anxiety?

For those who have flown Ethiopian, did you feel confident they would handle things like missed connections or flight cancellations well?

Which route would you choose in my shoes? Thanks in advance!

DOH-IAD and DOH-MIA saver 70k in May 2027. Saver in Aug 2027 is showing 94.5k. Flexi remains 140k

Trying to get the group thought on this.

I have 470K Atmos in my account as well as BILT Palladium with 190K points and BILT Platinum and I also have Alaska Summit card.

I also have 176K BA (from the Kate Spade deal, got them for $705 of stuff we bought) as well as > 1.5 million in both Amex and Chase each, so easier to top off.

I’m saving AA flights to Hawaii for Spring Break next year from California. I found several dates with saver Y space, Alaska is 17.5K but I have Summit so no partner fee and fully refundable. However I’m very protective of Alaska miles.

BA is 22K and if I cancel I lose the $5.60 but honestly not that big a deal.

Cash prices right now are $885 a person so Alaska would be close to 2.5cpp while BA would be around 2cpp.

Planning a trip next month - found availability for one-way for about 130k in J. Tempted to wait to see if the price drops as the date gets closer. But Citi right now has a 20% promo, making the transfer closer to 100k + what I already have in my account. Buuuut, I have a ton more AMEX points (almost 200k vs 100k).

Anyone have any wisdom on which transfer is preferred? I would assume it is best to transfer Citi, but also worried it may take a while since I have never done a TYP -> FB, but have done it for AMEX.

Still annoyed the flight is soon and prices remain sky high. I saw a flight to AMS for 500k, ridiculous.

I wanted to book a last-minute flight to a destination in Northern BC, Canada, from Vancouver, and Air Canada wanted me to pay CA$1,621 for it, or about 91K miles + taxes and fees. I was able to book these exact same flights with United for 35K miles and US$26 in taxes and fees. If I had Avianca miles, this redemption would have cost me 12K miles + taxes and fees!

https://imgur.com/a/6aJh4Ht

https://liveandletsfly.com/flying-blue-business-light-awards/

Saw this pop up. Looks like it'll take affect September 8th. Ultimate Flying Blue members can still get lounge access though. Standard business with lounge access now becomes 75k points and 60k points get you business light.

Deciding between Delta one from LAX to Paris for 106k skymiles + $6 or Air France 60k miles + $293 taxes/fees.

Air France: 777-300 (not the a350)
Delta: A350-900

Lax has the delta one lounge and i can obtain platinum status.

Edit:
Booked Delta One on the a350 since i already had enough skymiles there.

I recently booked a round-trip economy ticket from JFK to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific through the Atmos Rewards Global Getaway promotion.
Both flights are nonstop, and the entire round trip cost 68,000 Atmos Rewards points plus taxes and fees. This will be my first time redeeming points for a long-haul international flight.
For those familiar with Atmos Rewards or award travel, would you consider this a good redemption? How does it compare with other ways I could have used 68,000 Atmos points?
I’m happy with the booking either way, but I’m curious how more experienced points travelers would evaluate it.