The Extra Mile

Your Choice: Cheap Tickets or Frequent Flyer Miles

Q&A: Best Days for Award Travel?

June 23, 2002 - Getting the lowest fare and frequent flyer miles is like having your cake and eating it too... you usually can't.

Airline policies differ around the edges. But there's agreement at the core: opaque-fare tickets do not earn frequent flyer miles. What's an opaque fare? It's a ticket purchased blindly, without knowing which airline you'll be flying.

Think Priceline and Hotwire, two popular online discounters. In exchange for rock-bottom ticket prices, both require that consumers hit the "Buy" button before knowing which airline they're choosing, when the flight departs, or how many stopovers they'll be making. And both include in the fine print the same caveat: No frequent flyer miles.

Is the trade-off worth it? It depends on your priorities. Here's how I evaluated options for a trip later this summer.

On Hotwire, I found an advance-purchase roundtrip ticket between Los Angeles and New York for $249. On Orbitz -- which sells branded tickets, eligible for frequent flyer miles -- the same trip was priced at $291 on National, with a change of planes in Las Vegas, and $335 on Delta or United, both nonstops.

Because I don't collect National miles, the miles-or-savings choice came down to Hotwire's $249 fare or Orbitz's $335 fares, an $86 difference. Do the miles (4,950 roundtrip) justify the extra cost?

For me, yes. As a rule of thumb, I value frequent flyer miles at $0.02 each. So the miles alone are worth more than the potential cost savings. And when you factor in the ability to choose a convenient departure time and avoid the time wasted during a stopover, I consider the $86 well spent.

But that decision reflects my very personal criteria. If miles are not a priority, and you're willing to sacrifice some time and convenience to save money, you could rationally choose the $249 ticket from Hotwire. We might even find ourselves sitting next to each other on the same flight.

Readers: Miles on their Minds

Question from Burnett

I have accumulated a good amount of Delta's 800-mile upgrade certificates, but have found them difficult to use. Do you know what are the best days of the week to travel in order to use them? Thanks.

Answer

As I do in the case of other frequent flyer awards, I recommend a contrarian approach to using upgrades.

Most upgrades are earned by business travelers. So the best time to use an upgrade will be on those days when business travelers are least likely to be competing with you for the few empty seats in the front of the plane. Since business travel peaks during mid-week, your best chance of using those upgrade certificates would be for travel on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday.