I had a chance to to head out to California on business and, in keeping with tradition, decided it would be fun to bring the family.\u00a0 Work will pay for my flight, the hotel, and rental car, however it is up to me to get flights for the family.\u00a0 Its precisely for moments like this that we like to keep 50-100 thousand points laying around, usually the result of a sign-up bonuses for credit cards.<\/p>\n
This time around I had an arsenal of 100k southwest points, about 40k american airlines points, and 50k avios points.\u00a0 I wanted to save the southwest points, so i focused on aa and avios.\u00a0 Here’s what I did:<\/p>\n
First, I looked for flights on avios and had mixed luck.\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out, as the “Points Guy” points out, that it is because the avios website doesn’t work well with multi-hop routes. In my case the route was IAD -> DFW -> SFO.\u00a0 The trick is to look up the individual legs and book them separately.<\/p>\n
BA.com showed that I could get three family members from IAD to DFW for 30,000 points, then with my remaining 20,000 i could get two people from DFW to SFO, meaning I’d have to pay for the third person for that leg.\u00a0 Before booking i checked on prices and found that the price tag for DFW->SFO was $530!\u00a0 In contrast, IAD to DFW was only $78.\u00a0 I quickly switched the order, using 30k points to pay for the more expensive DFW->SFO leg\u00a0 Then I booked 20k points for the IAD->DFW link for two members.<\/p>\n
Things got a little interesting when I tried to buy tickets for my daughter (the third member of the IAD->DFW.)\u00a0 Since she is under 16, AA.com would not let me book her alone.\u00a0 Of course, she wasn’t alone, but aa.com doesn’t let you link her to another person on the same flight (which, incidentally, i had booked with ba.com).\u00a0 So i called aa and, after bypassing the annoying robot, found a helpful lady.\u00a0 She let me know she was waiving the $25 phone reservation fee, then helped link my daughter to my wife so she could get a ticket.<\/p>\n
My opinion of avios is not so great, at least for cross-country domestic flights.\u00a0 I ended up barely getting 50% as far as I would have with delta, aa, united, etc. for the same points.\u00a0 To be fair to avios, I’ll just chock this up to ignorance on my part.\u00a0 I think one can “work” avios better, but i didn’t find a way.\u00a0 In the end, excluding 9\/11 fees (which you always pay, regardless of your points program), the trip cost me around $78.\u00a0 If I had purchased it on my own dime, it would have cost over $800 (excluding my flight, which is paid for by work).\u00a0 This is why getting points is so worth it.<\/p>\n
Based on my research avios just works “differently” than most other domestic programs (like aa or delta); avios are “distance based” – in theory they are fantastic for short-haul flights, since they charge less points than, say, aa might charge.\u00a0 For example, i consider it standard to that 12.5k points gets one person one way in the US.\u00a0 Since most credit cards that are worth getting have a 50k sign-on bonus, i expect to get two round-trip tickets per card.\u00a0 In the end, with my 50k avios points, I got a family of three only MOST of the way from virginia to california.\u00a0 Kinda crumby!\u00a0 However if I were hoping from, say, virginia to new york, avios might charge less than the standard 12.5k points, and therefore be a better deal.\u00a0 So the theory goes.<\/p>\n
One last thing: I was planning on using aa points to fly back to virginia, but in order to align with flights allowed by work ended up having to go with southwest.\u00a0\u00a0 Before i decided on using southwest, i thought I would book with points from a pair of AA accounts.\u00a0 Unfortunately I found I was short about 800 points in one of my aa accounts.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 I had an excess of several thousand points in another account.\u00a0 AA lets you “share” points, but at an exorbitant (IMHO) cost.\u00a0 To transfer 1000 points between accounts ended up costing over $30 ($12 for the 1000 points, and a flat $20 processing fee.)\u00a0 sheesh!\u00a0 But i now have the points where i need them, and can send my family in one direction anywhere in the USA.<\/p>\n
So there you have it – a coast-to-coast trip for the whole family for under $100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a chance to to head out to California on business and, in keeping with tradition, decided it would be fun to bring the family.\u00a0 Work will pay for my flight, the hotel, and rental car, however it is up to me to get flights for the family.\u00a0 Its precisely for moments like this … Continue reading Avios Adventures<\/span>