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Frequent Miler on the Air

Wringing value from United miles | Ep228 | 11-11-23

Frequent Miler on the Air

Frequent Miler

Aviation, Places & Travel, Society & Culture, Leisure

4.9638 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

United Mileage Plus is an extremely popular program, but how can you get the best value out of the miles? This week, we talk about using flexible awards to your advantage, cheap intra-European awards, the Excursionist Perk, and a lot more.

00:00 Intro

01:20 Giant Mailbag #1: Can we get a Delta-free podcast?

02:35 Giant Mailbag #2

03:48 What crazy thing . . . did Delta do this week?

https://frequentmiler.com/deltas-window-seat-shop-of-horrors/

06:46 Card Talk: United Quest card

https://frequentmiler.com/uaq/

11:33 Mattress Running the Numbers: Citi transfer bonus to Accor Live Limitless

https://frequentmiler.com/50-transfer-bonus-from-citi-to-accor-live-limitless-get-1-6-cents-per-point/

17:34 Award Talk

18:00 Bilt adds Marriott as a transfer partner

https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-bonvoy-added-as-bilt-rewards-transfer-partner/

19:40 Marriott's secret award chart

https://frequentmiler.com/marriotts-secret-award-chart/

23:03 Marriott Choice Benefit changes

https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-say-quiet-part-out-loud-with-new-upgrade-award-enhancements/

https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-choice-benefits-now-give-1000-off-mattress-bed-rather-than-40/

29:24 Book JetBlue with Qatar Avios

https://frequentmiler.com/book-jetblue-including-mint-with-qatar-avios/

https://frequentmiler.com/uh-oh-did-qatar-create-a-new-jetblue-award-chart/

35:56 Main Event: Wringing value from United Miles

37:00 First up: the bad stuff

40:20 Higher award prices, but not bad value

41:40 Best uses of United miles

41:46 Dynamic pricing can work in your favor

44:35 Free changes and cancellations

48:55 Cheap intra-Europe flights (from 6K miles)

50:04 Sao Paulo to/from South Africa for 50K miles in business class

50:40 Fly across the length of Africa for less than 25K in economy or 50K in business class

52:15 United Excursionist Perk

https://frequentmiler.com/maximizing-and-understanding-united-excursionist-perks/

https://frequentmiler.com/saving-thousands-of-miles-with-united-excursionist-perk/

https://frequentmiler.com/united-excursionist-perk-maps-visualize-regions-to-optimize-awards/

https://frequentmiler.com/leveraging-the-united-excursionist-perk-to-save-miles/

57:42 Question of the Week: Will a bank extend the minimum spending requirement period?

Music credit: Annie Yoder

Mentioned in this episode:

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is a Voyescape podcast.

0:03.9

You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com.

0:10.7

Let's get into the giant mailbag.

0:13.5

What crazy thing did City this week?

0:17.5

It's time for mattress running the numbers.

0:19.8

Ready for the main event? The main event.

0:21.6

Frequent Miler on the air starts now.

0:24.6

Today's main event, ringing value from United Miles.

0:30.6

United doesn't necessarily have the most valuable miles out there, but there are good ways to get great value from those miles. We will dig into that in today's main event. It's going to be fun because, you know, I, United does have some great sweet spots, although like you said, I don't usually think of them these days apart from using their site because it's got a good search tool. But then it's because I don't have a lot of United Miles. And a few times lately I've regretted that I didn't have enough United Miles. So we'll talk more about that a little bit later. But first, I want to remind you that if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit like, subscribe, enable notifications. We appreciate all of those things. And remember that we keep the timestamps in the show notes. So if you want to

1:11.2

skip over a section, you don't really want to hear one or you really want to hear another,

1:14.9

or you want to go back and listen to something again a second time in order to totally take it in

1:20.0

or remind yourself of a detail. Just check the show notes wherever you're listening to this or

1:24.3

watching the show. We always have links to those different

1:27.9

timestamps. So check that out. So let's get into today's giant mailbag.

1:33.2

All right. Today's giant mail. We've got two pieces of giant mail today. First comes from Tom.

1:38.3

Tom says podcast 225, 90% about Delta.

1:45.2

Podcast 226, card talk is about Delta cards.

1:50.0

Podcast 227.

1:52.1

Guess what?

1:52.9

Card talk is about Delta cards again.

1:54.6

Can we get a Delta free podcast someday?

1:59.1

Oh, gosh, I hope so.

...

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