Managing your travel

[simongr]

Just a interesting question I hope. I was wondering if there are any "total solutions" that people use to manage their trave. With incresing travel and a combination of personal/business and multiple (oneworld carriers) and using multiple frequent flyer programs I was wondering if people have a tool or website that they use to manage/monitor their travel.

I do use my outlook diary for all booking (and I used to use infotriever/sabre at my old place but dont have that installed yet on my new computer). I was starting to use the Qantas website for my flights but obviously now I cant as I use my AA number and I dont want to link my QF flights to my QF number at the moment.

What I would love to be able to do is go to one place and see all my flights (kind of like checkmytrip.com) with my FF numbers (I might actually use my QF number if travelling domestically as I have gold status so should get a minimum of 1000 points + 50% bonus vs. minimum of 500points +50% bonus on AA). Just so I can have visibility of that. It would be great also to see hotels/contact details - that way my wife can also go to one place and see everything esaily.

Cheers

S

 

[NM]

I might actually use my QF number if travelling domestically as I have gold status so should get a minimum of 1000 points + 50% bonus vs. minimum of 500points +50% bonus on AA

Might be worth checking your logic here.

QF: Min Points Guarantee is 1000 QF FF points for economy flights (1250 for business class) when flying QF flights. This includes any status bonus. So for a flight such as SYD-MEL which is 439 miles, a Gold member earns 439 base points, plus 50% of 439 status points making a total of 658 points, which is less than 1000 so the minumim guarantee of 1000 points is paid (not 1500 as implied by your post).

AA: Min Miles Guarantee is 500 for most QF fare types (exclude N). This is the base miles paid for SYD-MEL. The Platinum Bonus of 100% is then applied to the base miles earned, adding a further 500 miles to make a total of 1000 miles paid.

When using AA for earning on QF flights, even the cheap G, S and O fares earn the min 500 miles, and the Plat Bonus of 100% applies to that 500 miles making it 1000 miles paid.

 

[simongr]

I thought that might be the case but I hadnt checked it as yet. In which case I guess I will but putting all my flights to AA and will have to use my Amex points for qantas and flight upgrades.

 

[serfty]

Note that on longer distances like QF O class flight between BNE-MEL a QF SG will earn 1289 ffpoint while an AA Plat will earn 1000 AA Miles.

SYD-PER on O class, it's 3062 for our QF SG and 2041 for the AA Plat.

A QF WP on these routes will earn 1718 and 4082 respectively.

 

[NM]

Note that on longer distances like QF O class flight between BNE-MEL a QF SG will earn 1289 ffpoint while an AA Plat will earn 1000 AA Miles.

I would suggest that 1000 AA miles is often worth more than 1289 QF FF points.

SYD-PER on O class, it's 3062 for our QF SG and 1022 for the AA Plat.

Its 2041 miles, so an AA Plat will earn 1020 base miles plus 1020 status bonus miles, making it 2040 miles earned. And again in many cases, 2040 AA miles are more valuable than 3062 QF FF points.

A QF WP on these routes will earn 1718 and 4082 respectively.

Indeed as the distance increases and the QF status rises to WP, the QF earning accelerates compared with AA.

But I keep thinking back to my last two FF flight awards (BNE-ADL-PER-SYD-BNE using QF FF points and BNE-MEL-AKL-MEL-BNE using AA miles, routing via intermediate cities due to availability) and in these cases the QF FF points requirements was between 2.45 and 3 times higher than AA. So even comparing AA Plat with QF Plat earning on SYD-PER, the AA Plat's 2040 miles is still better value than the QF WP's 4082 FF points if they are used for awards similar to my last two award flight bookings.

But as always, each person needs to make the own value judgement based on their desired outcome.

 

[simongr]

Looks like its not quite as simple a process as I was thinking Mind you this flight to BNE for me is the first domestic personal flight I have ever taken - the closest thing to a personal domestic flight was when I flew back from MEL one time with mrs sim after I had been there on business and she flew down to spend the weekend with me It is kind of ironic that I have been to a good number of places here in Oz in the six years I have been here ...

Back OT though - I think from now on I will book all flights to AA, check the flight category and then decide whether to change. QF points are semi useful to me for upgrades domestically and if I am flying Int'l its either business for business or I will be saving up points for business class home


Edit

@NM I was talking through with an old work buddy and compared some of the award costs and he was just blown away by the SYD-LHR difference in "cost" - QF - 240K, AA 90K - that is just insane! Travel in Oz is much of a muchness but outside of Oz (and even then outside of simply SYD-MEL or SYD-BNE) its staggering!

 

[NM]

Nup, look at Dave Noble's post: AA Platinum Challenge - Tips .

O earns at 0.25 so that's 510.25 x 2 = 1021.

That is EQP earning, not miles earning. O earns 0.5 base miles per mile flown, and then earns 0.5 EQP per base mile, making its 0.25 EQP, but still 0.5 base miles. Its the base miles that are multiplied by status bonus rate of 100%.

 

[NM]

@NM I was talking through with an old work buddy and compared some of the award costs and he was just blown away by the SYD-LHR difference in "cost" - QF - 240K, AA 90K - that is just insane! Travel in Oz is much of a muchness but outside of Oz (and even then outside of simply SYD-MEL or SYD-BNE) its staggering!

One other little difference: when redeeming for AA domestic flights as part of an international business class award, QF awards leave you in economy for the AA 2-class domestic flights, while AA awards book you into the first class cabin.

 

[serfty]

That is EQP earning, ...

... OK ...
I mist admit I've never been really concerned with miles/points (although they can be a bonus); for me, status is what matters most