Lesson 5: Diversify — It helps with long -
haul premium awards This may sound slightly different than the advice that is typically given around frequent flyer miles, where people suggest you focus on one program.
Breaking up long -
haul premium awards into two different one ways can make life easier (perhaps that should've been its own lesson.)
Not exact matches
Nonetheless, this is where you'll get the most value for your points, particularly when it comes to
premium cabin
award seats on long -
haul flights.
Valuation: The new British Airways
award chart went into effect at the end of April, dramatically increasing the mileage requirements for most
premium cabin redemptions, particularly on long -
haul flights.
Airline programs offer significant value on international
awards in
premium cabins — exactly the sort that most people can not afford and which are desperately needed on long -
haul journeys.
It's true, last year British Airways devalued their
award chart for «
premium» cabin flights and 4,500 short
haul domestic flights.
For most long -
haul premium cabin partner
awards you are better off booking through other Star Alliance partners such as Aviana, ANA or Asiana.
Both loyalty currencies cost around the same in the promotions but with MileagePlus miles you can avoid paying fuel surcharges when using them on United and a number of other airlines and, on top of that, you can purchase long -
haul premium cabin
awards on United for fewer miles than you can on British Airways.
Short, domestic flights will still be well - priced, but
premium long -
haul award tickets will get more expensive.
American Airlines AAdvantage miles are very hard to use economically thanks to the dearth of
premium cabin SAAver
awards, United Miles are ok but 100,000 won't get you a roundtrip Business Class
award to any major long -
haul destination (if you're heading east or west) while 100,000 Alaska Miles will get you some nice roundtrip redemptions on Cathay Pacific and even American (subject to
award availability).
But it's not nearly enough to just allocate them some kind of uniform valuation, as some miles may be very valuable for a given type of redemption (e.g. Avios for short -
haul economy
awards) and quite a poor value for other types of redemptions (for Avios, ultra long -
haul in a
premium cabin with high mileage cost and often high fuel surcharges).
Already they have one of the most insanely expensive
award charts for long
haul premium cabin travel.
@bobbie thing is i am torn on qantas miles, long
haul awards are crazy expensive especially in
premium cabins and they add fuel surcharges to
awards even when there's no fuel surcharge on the ticket itself (like qantas international flights departing australia).
For me it meant the end of using British Airways points for
premium cabin long
haul awards.