Recently I did a post about pros and cons of the hotel rewards programs and people enjoyed that, so I thought I would do the same with airlines. Now there are way more airline programs that I’ve written about than hotel programs, so I’m limiting it to the 6 airline miles that make up the vast majority of our travel.
This is not about mileage programs and top tier status’. Instead this is about the pros and cons of the miles that are popular to earn via credit card bonuses and similar promotions. Some airlines pass on fuel sucharges, some are great for first class, some have fees for booking last minute, etc… These are things you may want to know about your miles, plus the best uses.
American Airlines Miles: Pros and Cons
American Airlines Pros
AA miles are easy to earn
I think I’ve earned more free AA miles than any other airline. Citi has just been rediculously generous over the years.
Current options for earning are:
AA personal card
AA business card
AA Executive card ($450 annual fee that kicks in on the second month’s statement)
SPG personal & business card (via 1:1 or 20,000:25,000 transfers)
Most of my earnings have come from the business cards and executive card.
Best award chart
American is known as having one of the best rewards programs in this crowd, but that’s not just because of the elite status benefits, but their great redemptions. In many ways AA has the best award chart around. Consistently great prices across the board, plus discounts on certain domestic trips and discount international economy tickets.
In terms of the discounted economy tickets, they offer a number of different “off-peak” prices like miles tickets that are 20,000 to Europe and 25,000 mile tickets to Japan, and many more to read about here: American Airlines Different Off-Peak Award
One reason this community loves AA is cheap first class flights. Cathay Pacific First Class can be had for 67,500 AA miles, which is pretty good for a 15 hour flight.
No fuel surcharges
The real reason I love AA miles, is that no fuel surcharges get passed on when using your miles (the only exception is awards on British Airways flights, an avoidable option 99.99% of the time). This in combination with a great award chart is killer. Or what’s actually “killer” are the fuel surcharges when you go to redeem Lufthansa miles or Avios to Europe.
AA Cons
No stopovers
This is a little picky as their prices are great enough that sometimes booking oneways is cheaper than using stopovers.
However, they used to actually allow stopovers on oneways and now they don’t. And on routes where it’s usually the same on all airlines, like flights to Europe being 30k each way, I favor booking a flight that lets me book a stopover.
Fees
I think close-in fees are one of the dumbest fees that nearly everyone but United and AA have gotten ridden of. It basically means you pay to book a flight within 21 days of departure.
See the Chart of Airline Award Fees.
United Miles Pros & Cons
United Pros
Stopovers
If you didn’t see that coming, you haven’t read this blog long. Stopovers are really the only reason I love United so much. Stopovers that I can book online.
Basically, United’s routing rules are generous and allow 1 stopover and 2 open-jaws. Stopovers, at the basic level, allow you to turn a trip to Rome into a trip to Rome and Paris, a week in each, for no additional miles. And stopovers can be as long as you want.
At a non-basic level, stopovers mean seeing the world for cheap. It could mean:
A stopover in Europe on the way to Asia
A stopover in one Caribbean island on the way to another (the Caribbean Hopper)
Fiji and Australia on the same ticket
Even a stopover in Africa on the way to Japan…
It can get even crazier too…
No fuel surcharges
United passes on zero fuel surcharges on zero of their partners. This is a very rare thing, and it saves lots of miles.
Earning United miles is easy
Like AA miles there are a number of great ways to earn United miles. Like from the following cards:
United Explorer personal card
United Explorer business card
Chase Sapphire Preferred (via 1:1 transfer from Chase points)
Ink Plus (via 1:1 transfer from Chase points)
And while the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Plus are currently the only cards to actually tarnsfer to United, you can combine points from your Freedom or Ink Cash card.
United Cons
Premium Cabin prices are too high
Not too long ago United devalued their award chart to make redemption on Business and First Class partners extremely overpriced and uncompetitive. Currently there are First Class awards that are more than twice as expensive using United miles than the equivalent using AA miles.
Stopover tricks give some opportunities around that, but in general, it’s not the cheapest option.
Fees
Like AA but worse, United has fees for everything. Booking a ticket within 21 days of travel is $75, and even basic changes to tickets can be $100. Absurd, and a nickel and dimey business model. It’s basically the world’s largest discount airliner in many ways.
British Airways Avios Pros & Cons
British Airways Pros
Best short distance/direct redemptions
No one offers consistently cheap direct award options like British Airways. Short OneWorld flights can be as cheap as 4,500 miles, and the same flight could be 12,500 miles using most other mileage programs.
Or a more extreme example is international short flights, that “region based” award charts don’t do justice to. For example, Miami to Cancun is usually 17,500 miles with most airlines, but when using BA Avios it’s only 4,500 Avios! This is an incredible redemption.
Free stopovers
To tag onto that, because Avios price per segment, short direct flights are super cheap. But ones where you need a connection are the same price if you book each separately or not. Therefore, you can have a stopover at every connection point if you wanted. Not only are stopovers unlimited and free, sometimes they can save miles.
See the Complete Guide to British Airways Avios for more details about pricing and tricks.
Easiest miles to earn
All the miles I tend to use a lot are easy to earn (since I don’t pay for flights to earn miles), but British Airways is probably the easiest miles currency to earn.
British Airways miles can be transferred from Chase points, Amex points, and SPG points. Plus, the British Airways card has a 50,000 mile sign up bonus. (In the past it has been as high as 100,000 miles).
British Airways Cons
Fuel Surcharges are bad
British Airways is a mileage program that passes on fuel surcharges when you use their miles, and the prices can be high. So I only use BA Avios to redeem on airlines that don’t have fuel surcharges to pass on; like Air Berlin, LAN, or any flight within the Americas.
Otherwise fuel surcharges can be really high, especially if you use your BA miles to actual fly on BA.
See the Chart of Avoiding Airline Fuel Surcharges
Expensive Business/First Awards
Business class is now exactly three times the price of an economy seat, and First Class if four times the price of an economy seat. Therefore a 20,000 mile flight to Europe would be 60k in business class and 80,000 in first for a oneway. So it’s hard to find a good redemption in premium cabin using Avios, but it’s always way more than economy.
Alaska Miles Pros & Cons
Alaska Miles Pros
One of the best award charts
Like AA, Alaska has one of the best all around award charts. They match AA’s off-peak prices for economy, and have generally good prices.
First Class lovers also appreciate Alaska’s awards as they have decently priced awards on Emirates and Cathay. In fact, Alaska is unique with having partners like Emirates, which has the famed shower in the sky and really gaudy suites. Pretty cool and it’s actually a decently priced award at 100,000 miles for a oneway to Africa. Sounds like a lot, but Africa flights are expensive and a lot of flying.
See Best Uses of Alaska Miles.
Stopovers (even on oneway awards)
Alaska is super generous in that it allows 1 stopover on oneway awards and 2 on roundtrips. I often book in oneways, so this is super helpful for me. As I say in the Best Use of Alaska Miles post, there are a ton of great routes to try this on, like a stopover in Fiji on the way to Sydney.
Card is BOA
The fact that the Alaska card is with Bank of America is good news because it’s not asking more favors from the same bank, plus they are super generous in giving out the bonus to people who have already applied for the card.
Alaska Miles Cons
Can’t mix partners
Alaska is unique in that it is part of an alliance and it prices each award out differently depending on the relationship with the partner. This means that you can’t mix partners, which is sometimes inconvenient getting out of the US if you don’t live on the west coast to connect on Alaska. It also means stopovers are limited to the hubs.
Southwest Miles Pros & Cons
Southwest Miles Pros
Companion Pass is a killer deal
If you haven’t heard about the companion pass, it is one of the best airline deals for those of us who can take advantage of southwest routes as a couple. Amazing deal that means any time Caroline books a flight, I – as her designated companion – get to fly with her for free. Not just once, but for every flight. And not just on paid tickets, but tickets bought with points as well.
You can earn this bad boy by getting 110,000 Southwest points, which can be done by getting both their personal and business credit card.
Read: Maximizing the Southwest Companion Pass
Great sale prices
The way southwest gets the price of an award ticket is basically like this: take the cash price of a ticket and multiply it by 60. A $100 flight is usually about 6,000 points.
Somehow, Southwest has been able to have amazing sales on cash tickets making some of our fligths as cheap as 3,000 points, or even a ticket to Mexico for 6,000 points. Actually, we flew from Dallas to DC for less than 2,800 points last month. And because of the Companion Pass, that was 2,800 points for two people. Have you heard of a better flight deal? … that’s not a mistake fare…
Great short domestic flights, and cheapest flights to the Caribbean
As mentioned I’ve booked flights under 3,000 points (for 2) domestically, and a little over 6,000 to Latin America and the Caribbean.
NO FEES!
One of my favorite things about Southwest is that they don’t have any booking fees, close-in fees, change fees, cancelation fees, and you get two free checked bags.
Isn’t it interesting that United has fees for every one of those things… and they aren’t the discount airliner? Seriously, I’ve canceled and changed plenty of Southwest flights easily online and for $0.
You do pay the difference in the price, but often that works in your favor. After booking a Southwest flight, I’ve checked again to find lower prices, and online I change my flight to the lower price and it automatically deposits the miles I saved.
Southwest Cons:
No alliance = few international flights
Southwest is not part of a greater alliance and doesn’t have tons of global partners like Alaska. Instead your only reward options are for Southwest flights which only flies to places in the US and in Latin America and the Caribbean.
If your goal is to fly to Greece, Bali, New Zealand, Paris, Italy, etc… then Southwest points are the only ones on this list that won’t help you.
Conclusion
Luckily I’ve used all these programs enough that I was able to write this one on a long haul flight (just like the hotel rewards pros and cons post). But if you have any questions please feel free to ask, as I’ll be able to google things by the time this posts. :-p
There are other airline miles I’ve used, but that would go on too long to list all the options. However, I have written about the smaller programs as well. Here are few posts that come to mind:
Best Use of Flying Blue miles
Best Use of Singapore miles
Best Use of Lufthansa miles
Best Use of American Express points
Best Use of Chase UR points
The reason I chose the 6 I did, is because those mileage schemes make up 95%+ of our flying/miles strategy. 6 programs is more than enough to travel the world, so hopefully this post is helpful for those looking for the pros and cons of the miles they have or will have soon.