Happy Holidays to everyone – it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to post an update, but in the mean time, we’ve taken a number of exciting trips.  You may have seen a few recent posts on Twitter or Facebook about the trip we just took to Hong Kong, Thailand, and India, which was a fantastic time.  We also had a great time down in South America, and I never finished our trip to Greece, so I have plenty to catch up on.  I’m planning to cover our Asia trip first, since that’s the freshest in my mind.  The travel highlight of that trip was definitely the Etihad First Class Apartment that we took from Abu Dhabi to New York:

In other news, there have been a few recent announcement in the miles and points world that are important to be aware of:

Changes to British Airways Award Pricing

British Airways has had one of the absolute best deals around when it comes to redeeming points for short flights.  While most airlines in the US charge a flat number of points (usually 25,000 roundtrip) for flights within the US, British Airways determines your price in points based on the distance that you fly.  I give more details in these 2 posts here and here, but unfortunately, starting on February 2, 2016, they’ll be changing their award chart a bit – but only for flights in the US.

As of now, the first tier on their award chart is for flights between 1 and 649 miles in distance, and those flights cost 4,500 points one way (or 9,000 points roundtrip).  The next tier is for flights between 650-1,149 miles in distance), and those flights cost 7,500 points one way (or 15,000 points roundtrip).  As of February 2, they’re effectively eliminating the Tier 1 price (4,500 one way), so that all flights between 1-1,149 miles in distance will cost (7,500 points one way).

This is hugely disappointing, though not entirely unexpected.  The Mrs. Guru and I have booked dozens of short flights using British Airways points – living in North Carolina, we are within 650 miles of Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Cincinnati, and even the Bahamas, and have taken full advantage of booking flights to these destinations for only 4,500 points each way.  The only good news is that British Airways at least announced this change with plenty of advance notice, so you have between now and February 2 to book flights at the current rates.

Keep in mind that you can book flights up to 11 months out, so you could even snag flights for the holidays in 2016 before they eliminate the first tier.  Also keep in mind that British Airways awards can be cancelled at any time, and all you lose are the taxes you paid for the flights ($5.60 for each segment).  So even if you booked a roundtrip flight now, if you needed to cancel later on, you’d only be out $11.20.  You can bet that I’ll be booking a number of potential trips throughout 2016 between now and February 2.  As long as I’m relatively confident that we’ll need those flights, it’s worth locking in the 4,500 point pricing for short trips for a very minimal risk.

Changes to American Airlines Award Chart

Unfortunately, there was another recent “devaluation” announcement, where American Airlines will be changing (increasing) the cost of most of their international awards, particularly in First and Business Class as of March 22.  As a few examples (all prices are one way):

• Business Class between the US and Europe is increasing from 50,000 miles to 57,500 miles
• Business Class between the US and North Asia is increasing from 50,000 miles to 60,000 miles
• Business Class between the US and South Asia is increasing from 55,000 miles to 70,000 miles
• First Class between the US and Europe is increasing from 62,500 miles to 85,000 miles
• First Class between the US and North Asia is increasing from 62,500 to 80,000 miles
• First Class between the US and South Asia is increasing from 67,500 to 110,000 miles

Those are some pretty big jumps, but in reality, American’s current award prices have been way lower than other airlines for the past few years.  So they’re really just catching up to the market pricing on Delta and United.  All airlines, over time, adjust the price of their award charts, which is really not much different than regular inflation.  50 years ago, 25 cents went a whole lot further than it does today, and similarly, 10 years ago, 10,000 miles goes a lot further than it does today.  This is part of the reason why the Mrs. Guru and I take so many trips to far away places…award prices are going to keep going up, so if we just sat on the miles that we have, they would just continue to lose value over time.

When we went to Greece last year, we booked the trip right before United increased their award prices: we booked right before United increased the cost of roundtrip Business Class tickets to Europe from 100,000 miles to 140,000 miles.  Our recent trip to Asia was in Business Class on the outbound flights, and First Class on the return, which cost us 145,000 American miles per person total, but after March 22, this trip would cost 185,000 miles per person.

The Big Picture

So while it’s of course not feasible to just travel anywhere and anytime, any miles and points guru (including yours truly) will tell you that the best approach to using miles is Earn and Burn.  It can definitely seem challenging to earn enough miles for a big trip and to find the time to take the trip, but I’ll try to keep this blog more up to date when big bonuses come about.  There have been a couple recent credit card sign up bonuses of 100,000 miles, which can really go a long way!  Stay tuned for more updates on our recent adventures!