Lots of Options!
I have now looked into booking my flights to Chicago multiple different ways. First was using the USBAR travel credit, but I always planned to cancel that one. See my blog post for more details.
Next, I looked at booking the flights using United Miles. I looked more closely at the value that I was getting out of my miles, and it was just slightly less than 1.5 cents per mile. That’s pretty much the floor that I’m willing to accept. The flight cost $1254 or 85,000 miles. I could use my Airline Credits to get Economy Plus seats, and that would be another $260+. I could also use the United Airline credits for food and alcoholic beverages on the flight. Since I don’t have a good use for my Airline Credits on United right now, this would be a good way to burn them.
The third option was to use my large Travel Bank balance, which I’ve accumulated over the years from using the Airline Credit on many Platinums to fund it. That’s what I have booked now.
I prefer to fly American because I have lifetime Platinum status, and that gives me Main Cabin Extra (MCE) at no charge. It’s better than Economy Plus because MCE includes complimentary alcoholic beverages. I had looked at American earlier, but the flight times for the Outbound were very early in the morning, and the pricing wasn’t great.
But last night, I received a Google Flights alert that the price for my flights on AA had gone down. I also remembered that I had $400 in AA Gift Cards from many, many years ago. I don’t even remember how I purchased them- but I’m sure it was a credit on some long ago forgotten credit card.
The flight cost $595. I did look at paying with Miles, but that was 53.5K miles, meaning only slightly more than 1 cent per mile- even worse than the United redemptions.
If I used the $400 in Gift Cards, I would only have to pay $195. If I used my Chase Ink Preferred card, I’d earn 3X on all travel. Curiously, my Citi AAdvantage Business card only earns 2X on AA flights, which seems stupid.
The big point of this post is that there’s nothing wrong with rebooking flights when you find alternatives. Today, US airlines let you cancel paid fares within the first 24 hours for a full refund, and after that refunded for a future flight credit. Flights paid with Miles can be refunded up until the last minute. Travel Bank would also be refunded if I cancel before the departure date.
Right now, I’m leaning towards keeping my booking on United using my Travel Bank. I usually fly Business using Miles, so I rarely have a use for the Travel Bank, and the funds do expire. The Outbound flight on United is at a more civilized time: 10:05AM vs 7:54AM on AA, and both would get me to the conference in time. I’ll use my Amex Airline credits for the Economy Plus seats and probably a few drinks on the way home. I’m hoping to use one of my United Club passes in Chicago on the way home, too.
In the meantime, I've tracked my United and the potential AA flights using Google Flights. Also, I’ll look into what changing my “Preferred Airline” on Amex would do for me. That nerfing of funding the United Travel Bank option is very annoying.
P.S. I really wasn’t sure how I was going to book my Chicago flights, but writing this post convinced me that using the Travel Bank was the best alternative. I rarely pay cash for Flights, and usually use Miles for business-class flights. I never would pay cash for Business, but paying cash for Economy makes sense. And I still have over $3,800 in my Travel Bank.
P.P.S. I even created a spreadsheet to compare booking the AA flight with cash+gift cards vs. using the Travel Bank for the UA flights. The Travel Bank option came out slightly ahead, so I’m sticking with it.
P.P.P.S. United just implemented their new award pricing that gives discounts to credit card holders. So my redemption became 1.6+ CPP (Cents Per Point), so I went back to Miles for my Trip to Chicago. The real message of this Blog post is things change!
