These 7 tips had come in really useful for my recent 2 trips this year, and I hope you found them useful too! If you know of any other tips & tricks I missed, share it with us below!
Honestly, I’ve never considered buying miles before, but this shows a really good use case for doing so. There are so many little ways to get more value from our points and miles and these were some great tips to do just that!! 👊🏼
1:35 The actual value is higher because you paid $1,392 for 55,000 points to book a $4,000+ flight. Hence the actual value of those points is (4,000 - 1,392)*100/55,000 = 4.75 CPP
Thanks for the video. Regarding Lounge access, I have both Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital One Venture X, but some lounges in Asia only allowed me to use one not both for more guests.
I have to pull the thesaurus and dictionary out. I booked a flight to Asia and would have gladly paid $1300 ish. I have to learn about this buying points thing. Sounds like I buy from another company (aeroplan) who's linked or affiliated someway to my credit cards. This is all Greek to me at this point. Great info to look into.
@@KevinYang Yeah, man. 1. AEROPLAN is hugely undervalued IMO for rewards redemptions. 2. As odd as it may be - I've never considered buying airline pts to pay for a rewards ticket like in your example. I've always focused on getting max value via transfers from AMEX/Chase. Huge game changer. Thanks!!!
Lived thus video.. i just got my return flight from Japan using Alaska miles... another tip i used BA website (which opens calendar 355 days in advance) to see what flights would be coming onto AL website.snagged it up the first day available on AL because from there they go fast as its also open on AA and others then. Now i need to find my flight there. 😂 might book an economy and try to snag business last minute. Great tip!
As someone who wants to travel internationally as much as possible, but hasn't done a ton of aspirational trips in terms of First/Business Class flight redemptions, these tips were super helpful. Definitely see how buying points could actually be worth it in some cases if you don't have the points and have a specific award flight that makes sense. I've been doing a bunch of searches on Aeroplan recently (it's been really helpful) for business class availability for my trip to South America in January. Great tips in this one Kevin!
Glad you enjoyed the tips Matt! Have you found any good routes with availability for that upcoming trip? January 2024 is only a few months away so it might be hard.. unless you mean 2025!
@@KevinYang I have found some good routes! It seems like business class availability pops up consistently 1-2 weeks away from the date (I've been tracking it every week) for United & Copa Business which is what I'll do to have access to the United Polaris Lounge in Houston.
Hey man I just wanted to say thank you for all the information you put out. I just made my first big redemption for some business class seats to Europe. It's tricky but it worked!
@@KevinYang one way from Boston to Barcelona for my player 2 and I on TAP Portugal. Booked via Air Canada with points transferred from capital one! Got about 4 CPP. I actually bought 15k miles as they had a discount so in all the tickets cost under $1k.
@@GenericmemberNice 4cpp is amazing, especially given its like 2x the "average" most people give. And definitely, buying points can be really effective to get good value too! Congrats Aaron!
Great tips except for repositioning flight. Unless you do not live near any metropolitan city, it’s not worth it to reposition. The extra costs and stress added is just not worth it. Right now the US domestic delay and cancellation rate is extremely high and so unpredictable. For me repositioning is bending the gist of award travel backward and will likely cause bigger loss.
Can you upgrade your seat using different miles programs? For example...bought economy seat using Lifemiles but then you find a business seat on same flight on aeroplan?
Excellent video. What credit card do you recommend for traveling and some lounge access? I do have Chase sapphire preferred and I m looking for 1 more credit that I can combine with CSP to get travel bonus ( Amex, Venture X, upgrade to Chase Sapphire Reserve ??). I don’t travel a lot but I do 1-2 international trips in addition to local trips. Thanks
Personally I think the Venture X is the best sweet spot that will give you decent lounge access. The only one better imo is the Amex Plat, but it's a lot harder to justify
@@KevinYang Thank you, I will look into Venture X. Does it give access to Lounge restaurants as well? Or it is access to Lounges but I will have to pay for restaurants? If Capital One pull from all 3 credit bureaus, does it mean that the credit score will go down 3 times more than pulling from 1 credit bureau?
Honestly, great question! I was able to cover all 700k points without any referral bonuses. But that's also with over 5 years of accumulating and this year being my first and second times booking major redemptions!
@@KevinYang thanks for the note. I always wonder how many points y’all get from referral links. I’m at about 700k points in earn this year that’s with 3 new card bonuses though. Thanks for the tips!