Tips for booking Positioning Flights | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep253 | 5-3-24
Frequent Miler on the Air
Frequent Miler
4.9 • 640 Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2024
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sometimes you book an award ticket that requires you to do some positioning in order to catch that flight - for instance if the flight doesn't depart from your home airport. There are a few best practices to keep in mind when booking these "positioning flights", which we'll discuss in today's Frequent Miler on the Air episode.
(01:08) - One reader writes in: "If you have Platinum Honors, I would rank the BofA Premium Rewards Elite card the highest for Priority Access by far. The airline credit offset is very easy to use and you get them all at once so there's no obnoxious coupon book"... (Mail Bag)
(03:20) - BOA Premium Rewards (not elite) card (Card Talk)
Learn more about this card: https://frequentmiler.com/boaPR/#Goto
Revisit Frequent Miler on the Air Episode 204 here: https://frequentmiler.com/how-would-we-spend-1-million-dollars/
(04:57) - Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite card (Card Talk)
Learn more about this card: https://frequentmiler.com/BOAPremiumRewardsElite/#Goto
(11:17) - Cardless launching two Avianca LifeMiles cards (Card Talk)
(12:35) - Marriott Homes & Villas 50K (Mattress Running the Numbers)
(16:12) - Transfer bonuses (Award Talk)
(21:29) - United increases prices on partner biz class awards within Europe & Asia (Award Talk)
(24:06) - Nick: able to change Aeroplan award (Award Talk)
(29:50) - Daily Getaways (Award Talk)
Main Event: Tips for booking Positioning Flights(32:26) - Award discovery tools like PointsYeah DayDream Explorer tool and Seats.Aero make it easy to find awards such as "business class for 4 from "North America" to "Europe"
(36:22) - Avoid checking bags!
(37:37) - Departure positioning tips: what NOT to do
Read Greg’s mad dash story (What NOT to do) here: https://frequentmiler.com/my-award-alert-flight-change-and-a-risky-layover/
(40:33) - Day before is best
(41:36) - Non-stop is best (less chance of delay)
(41:56) - If not night before.... book primary positioning flight with long airport layover
(43:15) - Useful to have lounge access for layover
(46:02) - Book freely cancelable alternate positioning flight
(49:20) - If back-up positioning flight isn’t an option, consider booking back-up for entire one-way trip
(50:18) - Best options for free last-minute cancelations
(56:48) - Back to Greg’s story. How he somewhat protected myself:
(1:08:29) - Are there any certificates (like companion certificates) that disappear when you cancel the card? (Question of the Week)
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Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Voyescape podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. |
| 0:10.8 | Let's get into the giant mailbag. |
| 0:13.6 | What crazy thing did? |
| 0:15.9 | City this week. |
| 0:17.5 | It's time for mattress running the numbers. |
| 0:19.9 | Ready for the main event? |
| 0:21.1 | The main event. |
| 0:22.3 | Frequent Miler on the air starts now. |
| 0:26.7 | Today's main event, tips for booking positioning flights. |
| 0:30.7 | Sometimes when you book great award flights, they don't go from the airport you want to start at or to the airport you ultimately want to go to, |
| 0:38.9 | but nevertheless, they can be great deals. And in order to get to them or from them, you need |
| 0:44.1 | to book positioning flights. And we've gotten a lot of questions from listeners about how best to do |
| 0:49.4 | that. And so we'll dig into that in today's main event. But before we do, don't forget that you |
| 0:53.5 | can always find the timestamps in the show notes. |
| 0:56.0 | So if you want to jump ahead to a specific segment or come back to something later on, you can find that there. And wherever you're watching or listening to this, don't forget to like it, give it a thumbs up, leave a comment. We appreciate all of those things. and also I'll mention at the end, |
| 1:09.2 | but don't forget to go to Frequentmiler.com |
| 1:10.9 | slash subscribe to join our email list |
| 1:12.8 | and you can get all of our posts in your inbox. things. And also, I'll mention at the end, but don't forget to go to Frequemiler.com |
| 1:10.9 | slash subscribe to join our email list. And you can get all of our posts in your inbox |
| 1:15.1 | and get more information that way too. But right now, it's time to drag out this week's |
| 1:19.3 | giant mail bag. Today's giant mail comes from Zeph, who wrote, if you have platinum honors, |
... |
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