43. Flying Smart: What, Why, and How to Book a Positioning Flight

Points Talk with the Travel Mom Squad

Alex, Pam and Jess

Places & Travel, Education, Society & Culture, How To

4.9 • 734 Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we cover positioning flights—what they are, why they're important, and how we use them to our advantage. Positioning flights can be a smart way to maximize travel rewards and ensure we get to our desired destinations efficiently.

At its core, a positioning flight is a short, separate flight that helps travelers reach a major hub airport (often times with better deals). The beauty is, you don’t necessarily need to stick to the same airline.

Alex stresses that timing is crucial when it comes to positioning flights. Since they're usually on different airlines and aren't connected itineraries, missing a flight could spell trouble.

Another perk of positioning flights is the flexibility it affords when using points and miles. In the face of delays or system outages, being able to switch airlines quickly using your rewards points can be a lifesaver.

Alex tackles the topic of traveling with a family and its challenges, especially when it comes to positioning flights. For many, arriving a day early and staying at a hotel near the airport can alleviate the stress of long airport waits, especially with kids.

So, fellow travelers, positioning flights might be an extra step, but they're often worth the effort for the savings and options they unlock. Curious about more insider tips and strategies? Hit play to hear the full conversation and immerse yourself in the world of traveling on points!

Links For All Things Travel Mom Squad: stan.store/travelmomsquad

Episode Minute By Minute:

01:00 What is a positioning flight?
03:50 How positioning flights can effectively be used to get better deals
07:58 Alex gives us her best positioning flight tips
14:48 How to tackle positioning flights with kids
18:15 Pack less luggage and avoid checking a bag to make travel easier
22:27 Pam shares about her idea of “reverse positioning"
27:41 Best tips on where to position your flights to!
30:18 Pam gives a cautionary tale of a positioning flight gone wrong
34:58 If you enjoyed this episode, remember to check out our course Award Travel Academy!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Points Talk with the Travel Mom Squad, previously known as the Travel Hacking Mom Show.
0:05.8	Follow the links in the show notes to stay up to date with what the Travel Mom Squad has been up to.
0:10.4	Do you think that just because you live near a small airport, that travel hacking won't work for you?
0:15.4	Think again. In today's episode, we're taking a deep dive into positioning flights.
0:20.5	Keep listening to hear all
0:21.7	about how positioning flights are a powerful tool that could save you thousands of points of miles.
0:27.6	Welcome to the Travel Hackey Mom Show. We are three moms who've discovered how to leverage
0:31.9	credit card welcome offers to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses for
0:36.4	nearly free. We've used credit card
0:38.4	points and miles to take vacations to places like Hawaii, Paris, Greece, the Maldives, Italy, and so
0:44.4	much more. And the best part? We each still have an 800 plus credit score. Imagine being able to book a
0:50.1	vacation without having to check your bank account. It's totally possible and we're here to show you how.
0:55.2	Hey, I'm Alex. And I'm Pam, Alex's mom. And I'm Jess. We are travel hacking moms. In today's
1:03.0	episode, we are covering positioning flights, what they are, why they're important, and how we use them to our
1:09.6	advantage. So first, we're going to start at the
1:12.3	very basic level and talk about what exactly a positioning flight is. So a positioning flight
1:19.6	could be when you fly from a smaller airport to a hub airport for better award availability or to save points and miles because maybe the
1:32.8	flights from the bigger airport have more award availability or the points in miles are lower
1:39.3	and it offsets, you know, the difference in the cost to fly there. And so that's an example of when you
1:46.0	might want to use a positioning flight. Another one is if there is a specific flight that you
1:52.7	want to take that only flies out of a city, obviously you're going to need to position to that city.
1:58.9	So some popular fifth freedom route only fly out of certain hub cities.
	...

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