The answer, like most travel topics, is quite complicated. For the most part, programs like Delta, United and American that have coupled mileage amounts to revenue ticket fares are essentially capping the value of their miles at a low, fixed redemption value - perhaps slightly over 1 cent each. This enables these programs to offer last-seat availability to all members, but at what cost? It’s often best to skip these pricey awards as partner awards are typically better value. How does that work in practice? Well, consider a hypothetical 300k AAdvantage award for AA business class LAX to Sydney. If you have millions of miles in your account, maybe that doesn’t seem like much, but most people who see 300k as acceptable probably spend a lot on AA tickets (or their employer does). If paying cash is an option to save those miles from being used poorly, it’s certainly better in the long run assuming you do find Qantas or a cheap AAward at the last minute. Otherwise why even collect miles?

To give a few more specific examples of unlocking award travel value that still work today:

• Air Canada’s flexible awards are fully refundable – and importantly, repriceable – meaning you can always call in (possibly even change online, now that they’ve added that functionality) to get that lower non-flex price after your plans have firmed up. But until then, it can be wise to secure availability on the main leg(s) of your trip using flex awards.

• If your travel plans change often, consider that award tickets with most US-based programs are fully refundable. This increases the value of miles substantially even in light of these devaluations. You can easily recoup the value of high award fares by simply repricing (or canceling/rebooking) when you find cheaper awards at the last minute (often the best time to book!) – perhaps even on a different airline. You can’t do this with cash tickets, as they’re unlikely to drop in price and in many cases, you’ll get a difficult-to-use travel credit with an expiration rather than a proper refund, like you would with an award ticket.

  • Southwest’s cheap Wanna Get Away fares can represent a great value when redeemed with points, considering they’re fully refundable, unlike the cash fares which would only produce a travel credit upon cancellation.

Unfortunately nothing has changed here, and codeshares continue to provide nothing but confusion. Passengers flying wholly domestic US routes still see codeshare flight numbers from all manner of international airlines like KLM, Singapore Airlines, and Qatar Airways displayed at gates and on departure boards. It’s an absolute mess, and as more airlines ink codeshare agreements, it’s only getting worse.

There are only a handful of ways savvy travelers can use codeshares to their advantage. As mentioned in the article, employees on government-funded trips (bounded by the Fly America Act) can utilize codeshare flights to fly “American” carriers while actually traveling on a foreign partner airline. There are also a couple fun tricks regular folks can use to get lower fares or optimize FFP earnings.

Frequent travelers will find that it’s usually best to book directly with the operating airline, using its own flight number (the “prime” flight number). You’ll enjoy a more seamless experience that airlines have most thoroughly tested. Booking codeshare flights (for example, Alaska flights with AA codes, or vice versa) will only cause headaches when it comes to making changes or enjoying reciprocal elite benefits like preferred seats and upgrades.

But sometimes, codeshares can offer different inventory on the same flights, and they can also earn vastly different amounts of miles or qualifying dollars towards frequent flyer status. For example, you may find completely different inventory on Oneworld carriers such as American, British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair. It’s possible that an AA flight under an AA code will only have mid or high level booking classes available, while the lowest O or Q booking classes might be available on the same AA flight using a BA code… which might only be bookable using an ITA Powertools deeplink for AA.com¹. You may even find different fuel surcharges depending on the codeshares used. This can cause huge variation in the final ticket price, and is often worth playing around with.

And then there’s frequent flyer program earnings to consider. With American and Delta at least², you’re rewarded based on ticket price for flights sold with their own codes, but for codeshare flights, you’re given miles and status based on the distance traveled. In this way, codeshares allow you to choose how you want to earn; naturally, it’s to your advantage to book Delta flights with DL codes on expensive and/or shorter trips so you can enjoy greater rewards for the high spend, but KL, AF, or VS codeshares would enable you earn based on distance when you find a great deal on a long haul trips.

In an ideal world, airlines would do away with codeshares, and flights would simply always be marketed by the operating carrier. This way there’s no confusion about who is taking you from A to B. There’s no need for an airline to place its code on other airlines’ flights, as interline agreements already permit combining flights on multiple airlines with a single ticket. Pricing and inventory could be harmonized, so there wouldn’t be arbitrage opportunities by finding the optimal combination of operating, marketing, and ticketing carriers. But until this changes, be on the lookout for price discrepancies you can take advantage of to beat airlines at their own game.

Airlines are pretending they’ll run high frequencies on routes that will, within the final weeks or months before departure, be reduced drastically, or cut entirely. They’re happy to sell you one thing, knowing full well you’ll be getting something inferior by the time the travel date rolls around. While I don’t think they’re doing anything illegal, this is clearly highly deceptive and unethical. They capture customer revenue early, and then once the departure date nears, passengers who booked a nonstop 1pm flight find out they’re now on a 6am flight 2 days later with a connection, with no option to rebook on another airline, just a refund. They’re kicked to the curb of non-customers who must pay the then-current fares; booking early saves you nothing in the end.

Travelers should never trust an airline’s published resumption date of a route unless it’s very close to departure. Some airlines like Allegiant had a habit of cancelling flights with just a week’s notice or less, waiting until the last minute to see if enough customers booked that it was worthwhile for them to actually operate the flight. Countless passengers were stranded and no doubt booked expensive last-minute flights on other carriers as Allegiant repeatedly cancelled flights without warning in the final week before departure.

So, what can you do when the airline changes or cancels the route you’ve booked?

Airlines like American and Delta have complex internal rules regarding how they will handle various schedule change situations, depending on how many hours the schedule changed by, or whether other airlines are involved. Generally speaking, if your trip is significantly changed, airlines will allow you to move to new flights of your choice for free within a few days on either side of your original trip dates. Airline agents are trained to say “no” to any requests beyond basic, clearly-within-policy ones at first, and ask you to pay the fare difference for anything else. But in the end, airlines have a huge amount of discretion; if they feel your situation warrants an exception, they have the power to make lots of things happen, from rebooking your trip many months into the future after you’ve been told they can only move it ±1 day, to rebooking you at no cost on most other airlines. Getting such resolutions usually requires a combination of knowledgeability, persistence, escalation to supervisors/corporate customer care departments, or contacting alternate call centers, such as Delta’s Singapore reservations department or American’s call center in Australia.

Now, most people aren’t booking speculative cheap trips during off-peak periods, hoping for a schedule change, so they can move their dates for free to spring break or Christmas. (I don’t think it’s reasonable for airlines to allow people to do this either, but I certainly encourage you to try 😉) What people ARE doing is booking trips only to have airlines change nonstops to connecting flights, or move people from lie-flat business class seats to recliner seats due to an aircraft downgauge, and then tell them that if they want to postpone their trip a few days, weeks, or even months into the future - whatever is necessary to bring their itinerary to resemble what they originally purchased again - they’d be responsible for the fare difference. Ummm, what?! How are airlines allowed to get away with this?

Side note: It’s actually quite surprising to me that airlines have such strict policies in place, because for the majority of customers (who aren’t traveling on mistake-fare tickets…) it seems like it would be beneficial for the airline to allow customers to move their trip much further into the future. Not only does it build goodwill with the customer who has just experienced the significant inconvenience of replanning their trip for a future date, but it also literally retains them as a customer, instead of just refunding their ticket, which loses their business. I’d love to see airline data on how many people in such situations choose to refund vs pay fare difference vs rebook on another carrier.

I cannot count the number of times I have been told by front-line reservations agents that it’s impossible to move a schedule-changed Delta flight more than one day in either direction without paying the fare difference, only to have a supervisor or a Delta Singapore reservations agent do it for me without hesitation. The same goes for every major airline; they all try to get you to pay at first, until someone with a smidgen of understanding gets on the line and hears you out.

One of the biggest reasons to avoid low-cost carriers is their inability to rebook you on other carriers during irregular operations (IRROPS). Since most LCCs have no airline partnerships, they will only offer you other flights on their own airline, which might be many days from your original booking, or a refund (at which point you’re back to square one and have to buy a new ticket on another airline, which is likely more expensive than when you booked the first ticket).

But a number of airlines that don’t offer a full stopover program still offer airfares which permit free (or low-cost) stopovers, and noticing this might save you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you’re planning a multi-city trip.

Far too often, I see people booking nested round trips when a series of one-way tickets, or open jaw and stopover itineraries, would be more appropriate for their goals. This extra flying adds unnecessary travel time, cost, and carbon footprint, and should be avoided. A-B-C-B-A should instead be A-B-C-A if at all possible.

What airlines or fares offer this?

You’ll see it hiding in plain sight in the fare rules, which you can find yourself in ITA Matrix. Not all fares grant stopover privileges. It varies depending on the particular airline, country, and city pair. Most airlines offer stopovers on their full-fare/flex tickets, but a number of airlines – even those not known to operate stopover programs – still DO offer stopovers on the discounted fares most people book, at least on certain routes. You need to book your ticket as a multi-city journey on an airline’s website or OTA¹.

List of airlines offering “unofficial” stopovers

The majority of airlines offering stopovers require a round-trip or open-jaw itinerary, but a handful offer very attractive fares permitting stopovers on one-ways; see TAP Portugal and Qatar Airways.

What kind of stopover can I do?

If you find a fare you like, you can always try to do a multi-city search to figure out if it allows a stopover. Perhaps the city you’re trying to connect in isn’t permitted, but another city might be. The fare rules hold the answer. You’ll want to look for Category 8: Stopover restrictions when viewing the rules in ITA. If this category is missing, stopovers aren’t permitted on the fare you’ve selected. This dictates the rules governing stopovers for your selected fare (note that your outbound and return journeys may have different stopover rules). Here’s an example from a NYC-TYO fare published by United:

  2 STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH
      DIRECTION AT USD 100.00 EACH
       NONE IN GUAM
       PERMITTED IN AREA 3.

And here’s one from a Turkish Airlines NYC-BEY fare:

  2 STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH
      DIRECTION
     LIMITED TO 1 FREE AND 1 AT USD 65.00.
       1 FREE IN TURKEY
       1 IN TURKEY AT USD 65.00.
  OR - 2 STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH
           DIRECTION
          LIMITED TO 1 FREE AND 1 AT USD 65.00.
            NONE IN TURKEY
            1 FREE IN AREA 1/AREA 2/AREA 3
            1 IN AREA 1/AREA 2/AREA 3 AT USD 65.00.

And lastly, you might get lucky and come across the following:

  UNLIMITED FREE STOPOVERS PERMITTED.

Awesome Stopovers

U.S. domestic carriers don’t typically offer stopovers on flights within North America, but a notable exception is when you’re traveling to the Caribbean.

This is perfect if you live in a hub city like NYC, PHL, CLT, MIA, ATL, DFW, LAX, SFO, etc., as you can book the return of one trip AND the outbound of your next all in one ticket. And this falls completely within airline rules (you aren’t intentionally skipping any flights).

Here’s an example on AA:

Similar constructions are possible throughout Latin America. Here’s an example on Delta.

Why can’t I stop in XYZ airport?

Valid routings must comply with ALL fare rules such as day/time restrictions, flight restrictions (specific flight numbers or carriers may be excluded), as well as routing rules, which ITA Matrix doesn’t display, but can be found in in ExpertFlyer. HIP (Higher Intermediate Point) restrictions may also prevent stopovers. If you’re unable to price out a stopover, it’s likely a problem with one of these factors.

Additional resources

The Points Guy’s Guide to Airline Stopovers

Point Me To The Plane: Free Stopover Programs

Destination I’ve been to

I cannot list just one, so in no particular order, I’d say New Zealand, particularly Queenstown and the surrounding areas on the south island, for its stunning natural beauty; Turkey, particularly Istanbul, for its unparalleled quality, high level of service, and affordability of food, accommodation, and travel options, and Norway, particularly Bergen, for its panoramic vistas, highly developed and seamless tourism infrastructure, and outdoorsy culture.

Airline

The answer is highly dependent on where you live and where you want to go. For U.S. domestic travel, all the options are pretty awful; it’s a matter of choosing which carrier will abuse you the least. I fly Delta when they’re affordable because of their reliability and consistent onboard experience, and Southwest when I need two checked bags or know I might have to change my trip (no change/cancel fees; fully refundable if you’re using points, refundable to a voucher otherwise). JetBlue is good choice as well thanks to free wifi and snacks. I pretty much only fly American or United when they offer a superior price or schedule than any other carrier, or if I have some sort of upgrade instrument to fly in business/first class in one of their wide-body aircraft.

For international trips, I typically fly SWISS, Lufthansa, or SAS to Europe; Qatar Airways, Emirates, or Turkish Airlines to the Middle East or Africa; Cathay Pacific, Singapore, ANA or EVA Air to Asia. You really can’t go wrong with any of these airlines; they are all fantastic choices, especially if you can book a premium cabin.

Hotel chain

The best hotel chain is Hyatt, mainly because of its very generous World of Hyatt loyalty program. Benefits for elite members are consistent across the chain; for Globalists, this means guaranteed free breakfast, waived resort fees, Club access, and suite upgrades (when available) at all hotels worldwide. Many people complain about Hyatt’s limited footprint, but they are rapidly expanding and the hotels they do have are generally very good. Hyatt does not have any “bad” hotels - there is a baseline quality standard you can expect even at a “low-end” brand like Hyatt Place or Hyatt House. The same cannot be said of Marriott, Hilton or IHG. And with Hyatt’s Guest of Honor program, you can even book a stay for someone else and they’ll receive all these benefits as if they were Globalist members themselves. There’s no extra charge to do this, and you can do it as often as you want, which is absolutely nuts!

Travel credit card

I always recommend people get at least a few credit cards in order to avail of benefits which are not all found on a single card. No single card is good enough to deserve all of your spending! I do not recommend any airline or hotel co-branded cards as a primary credit card¹. It’s perfectly reasonable to open one of these cards to get a sign-up bonus – and only when it’s a high number of points/miles – but there is rarely a good reason to be putting ongoing spending on any airline or hotel card. This is because these cards usually only offer 1 point per dollar on most spending, which is roughly a 1-1.5% return. Most people would be better off using a card that earns transferable points with useful bonus categories, like groceries or dining, of around 3-5 points per dollar spent. Because these points can be transferred to several different airlines, you’re hedged against future devaluations (negative changes the airlines can and will make to their programs).

Such cards include:

1. Chase Sapphire Reserve ($550/yr), which famously offers 3 Chase points per dollar spent on travel and dining, $300/year in automatic travel spend rebates, and grants you an unlimited Priority Pass membership granting airport lounge access for yourself and up to two guests with you, a must-have for any frequent traveler;
   • Pairs well with the Chase Freedom, Chase Freedom Unlimited, and/or Chase Ink Cash, all of which are free.
2. American Express Platinum ($695/yr), known for granting access to Amex Centurion lounges as well as the Priority Pass described above [although restaurant “lounges” are excluded], 5x points on airfare spend, a $15/month Uber credit, and $200/year in automatic airline fee rebates;
3. The American Express Gold Card ($250/yr), which offers 4 Amex points per dollar spent at any restaurant in the world, and at U.S. supermarkets.

Lastly, I recommend ALSO carrying a cash-back card that earns at least 2% back on all spending, and which does not charge foreign transaction fees if you’re an international traveler. A number of banks offer such cards, and you can find a nice list of them here. Churning Discover It Miles (3% for the first year) is a favorite of mine; many people also like the Citi Double Cash card.

Way to redeem my miles

Tricky question, but I’ll try to simplify it based on what sort of miles you’ve got.

Way to get cash internationally

Don’t bring your Wells Fargo debit card to Ireland, don’t convert dollars to kroner at your local Chase branch before your trip, and don’t even think about changing money at a Travelex booth, or sticking your credit card into an overseas ATM. Just talk to Chuck, he’ll hook you up. Charles Schwab’s Investor Checking account offers one of the only debit cards that does not charge a fee to use any ATM in the world, AND they reimburse any fees that might be charged by the ATM operators, with no limit. Fidelity offers something similar² as well.

In previous versions of my personal site, I found I was spending too much time reinventing the wheel trying to build everything myself, and tweak the design to make it just right. I didn’t put as much effort into posting new stuff.

So, I played around with a number of web frameworks to rebuild my site, and decided that Jekyll (using the Minimal Mistakes theme) on Netlify is the perfect setup for my needs. I love the speed and simplicity with which I was able to get this site off the ground, and as an attention to detail appreciator and pixel-perfection OCD sufferer, the simple and elegant design aesthetic afforded by this theme lets me focus on content, since the defaults tend to “just work”, and customizing where needed is a breeze. It’s also a completely free static site hosting option… no complaints there :)

La Première is notoriously difficult to book affordably, as it’s usually very expensive with either dollars or points, but I was fortunate to book a particularly good fare.

The experience began on our inbound flight to Paris–Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG). A stylish, red-gloved Air France agent directed us to our private car transfer to immigration. While she whisked us through passport control, she was also on the phone arranging our complimentary spa treatments in the lounge for the following day. I have never considered paying for airport arrival services, but in this case, I can understand why someone might do so; the attention to detail and feeling of privacy and care were truly exceptional.

Upon arrival in the La Première lounge at Paris airport the next day, we were greeted by friendly lounge agents who reconfirmed our spa appointments. While the lounge was smaller than I had expected, it was very cozy and offered everything you might desire prior to a long-haul flight.

A restaurant-style dining experience is available in the main area, with an impressive menu featuring a number of creations from local restaurateurs. I chose the elbow pasta with ham and black truffle for my starter; it was exquisite, and even more flavorful than the main course.

Once it was time to board… …we were again escorted by car directly to our aircraft F-GSQY, a lovely Boeing 77W. Air France has two aircraft types featuring a first class/La Première cabin; the A380 has nine first class seats, while the 77W only has four: two window-facing, and two in the middle. Since we were the only passengers in the cabin, we used the middle two (1EF) for dining and conversing, and the window seats (1AL) for sleeping.

Our flight attendant was fantastic in every way; always smiling and joking with us, she made an already exceptional experience even more memorable.

My only complaint is that the flight was too short; I wanted more time to rest after eating so much. Maybe next time I will try to book CDG-SFO? :)

In short, this was all-around the best first class experience I’ve been able to have so far. The comfort of the seat, attentive and kind staff, and professional ground services were all phenomenal; in particular, the intimate lounge experience was unique and personal, and the food (both on the ground and in the air) was world-class, truly unparalleled.

I am grateful to Air France for allowing me to sample their premium product for a very reasonable price. Thanks Air France!

A couple weeks before our trip, I received a call from United informing me that due to COVID-19, the Marshall Islands would not allow us to even transit, as we will have just been in China. Their proposed solution was to rebook us on a direct flight from Guam to Honolulu instead of the 4-stop island hopper flight, UA155, we had specifically booked for this trip. No thanks!

Instead, we explained, we wanted to retain the island hopper but change our destination city to something outside of China. Much to our surprise, United was willing to work with us and change the destination to Osaka (PHX-SFO-KIX) with no difference in fare collected, even though we have no status with them and were traveling on a very cheap economy ticket. Kudos to United for making such an awesome resolution possible!

I was able to score a last-minute upgrade on my SFO-KIX flight using PlusPoints. Business class on United’s 787-9 was definitely more comfortable than economy, but it’s nothing special compared to the new Polaris seats.

Our time in Japan was fast-paced, but awesome. We stayed one night at Park Hyatt Kyoto, which had just opened a few months prior, and two more at Hyatt Regency Osaka, one in a Regency King suite (I had stayed in this exact room on my previous trip to Osaka) and one in a Tatami Suite.

Park Hyatt Kyoto is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed at. I was blown away by the incredible architecture, the modern, spacious rooms, and the impeccable service. Allow the photos to speak for themselves:

Just as soon as we checked out of the Park Hyatt, we hurriedly explored Kyoto before taking the train down to Osaka. I’d been to dozens of temples and shrines there already, but I had not yet seen Arashiyama/Sagano Bamboo Forest, so I made sure to check it out on this trip.

Once we arrived in Osaka, we headed straight for the Hyatt Regency Osaka’s Regency Club, which was fully stocked with delicious drinks and refreshments, and went to bed early to attempt to fight off jetlag. The next day we explored a couple new areas of the city I hadn’t yet been to, and paid a visit to one of my favorite burger places in the world, Craft Burger Co., which is owned by a lovely couple from New Zealand.

Before we knew it, it was time to leave Japan and head to Guam.

On the beach that evening we saw numerous takeoffs and landings of military aircraft, as well as several United 787s being flown to and from SFO, which we later discovered were special maintenance flights. I definitely want to return to Guam for a proper visit in the future.

The next morning we scarfed down an unremarkable hotel breakfast and rushed to the airport at 7am; it was now time to embark on the 5-segment Island Hopper from Guam to Honolulu. Unfortunately, COVID-19 precautions were already in place preventing transit passengers from disembarking at each island, so we had to settle for views from above.

Once we landed in Kwajalein, things started to go awry. Maintenance engineers were called in to fix a potential problem with the spoilers on our aircraft. After a couple hours of work, they determined it was just a sensor issue and the plane was actually airworthy. They still needed to fix the sensor issue, however as Kwajalein is a military base and the general public is not permitted to enter, United flew us on the short hop to Majuro, without fixing the sensor problem. It was unclear at this point if we would be spending the night in Majuro or if we could still continue to Honolulu, but once flight attendants passed out customs, health, and arrival forms for the Marshall Islands “just in case”… it became clear we would be put up in Majuro for the night, and United would fly in a rescue aircraft the next morning to complete the flight to HNL.

The reaccommodation procedure was very disorganized; passengers lined up for hours waiting for information; finally, arbitrary groups of 3-4 were sent to hostel-like facilities by taxi. I heard there were not enough beds for everyone, so some people had to sleep on couches in the lobby of one of the buildings. The next morning everyone had to line up again to get our onward flights rebooked. As part of my rebooking, I unfortunately had to remove my stopover in Lihue due to the lost time, so I will have to save that Hawaiian island for a future trip.

Flight attendants on the rescue flight informed passengers that United was offering compensation for this incident, but their automated system didn’t recognize our flight as being eligible for compensation so I had to write in to customer service. They only offered a $200 travel credit. I didn’t bother pushing for more, but I do wonder what compensation MileagePlus elites received.

All in all, it was an exhilarating experience. I have a renewed appreciation for United and their special Island Hopper flights that have served this region for so many years. United in Micronesia/RMI is a whole different animal compared to your typical domestic United Airlines experience…

Longyearbyen

The main town is flanked by steep cliffs on either side. I hiked the full length of the western rim, and enjoyed some incredible views from up there.

Pyramiden

Eager to explore further, I booked a speed boat tour to the remote town of Pyramiden, which used to be a Russian mining settlement. The town has a population of just twelve, and they run a hotel here.

Cape Town. Foodie paradise, cultural centre, and hiker’s dream all in one. The highlights:

Table Mountain

This majestic mountain overlooks the whole city and is the must-do attraction in Cape Town.

Money-saving tip: Students enjoy half-price tickets on the pricey gondola ride up and down the mountain. From what I could tell, you have to speak to a staff member to purchase these tickets, though.

Lion’s Head

A fairly easy, 40 minute hike that wraps around a steep boulder. Ladders and staples/chains were needed for some parts, but it should be manageable for most people.

Radisson Blu Cape Town Waterfront Hotel

Radisson offers a fantastic flat rate of around $80/night worldwide for friends and family of employees, subject to availability. Breakfast is always included on this rate, and usually same-day penalty-free cancellation is permitted.

The Radisson Blu Cape Town Waterfront Hotel is located near the V&A Waterfront. We stayed here for 3 nights, and while the room interiors felt dated, it is still a terrific value. The breakfast here is quite good, with several made-to-order hot items available.