How I saved 15.7% on my Holiday flight home
Saving money on holiday flights can be tough, especially if you're traveling during peak season. But it's definitely possible with a little bit of planning and effort. In this article, I'm going to share how I saved 15.7% on my holiday flight home using a combination of miles and cash.
Step 1: Set your baseline
Search your tentative travel dates with minimal filters, try to get an understanding of what the price range will look like.
The key filters that I use are:
“Exclude Spirit, max layover 3 hrs, no overnight flights”
TIP: Check Southwest Airlines - they do not feed pricing data into Google Flights, so always make sure to double-check on SW directly and make sure they do not offer a cheaper flight.
I should expect to pay between $438 and $550 for this flight. This is my baseline.
Step 2: Break it into one-way searches
Break up the legs to understand how the price is calculated
This allows you to see different airlines for each leg of travel in case there is some mix-and-matching you could do
It should come as no surprise that the outbound flight on the Saturday before Christmas is the most expensive.
Step 3: Make a note of alternative options
I see that Jetblue and Delta seem to be the cheapest airlines. As I have travel credit and miles on both (+ the ability to transfer my Amex points to either airline), my next step will be to price mileage options for these one-ways.
So what are the takeaways?
Delta NYC → AUS = $309 or 22,000 miles
Jetblue NYC → AUS = $289 or 24,400 miles
Delta AUS → NYC = $149 or 12,300 miles
Jetblue AUS → NYC = $159 or 17,500 miles
The go-to conversion benchmark for miles to dollars should be 100 to 1. If you spend 100 miles and receive less than $1, then you should not use/transfer points. The lower the point per $, the better. The more stingy you get with points, you will realize there are opportunities to pay less than 30 points per $1! Check out our blog on the craziest redemptions here <LINK BLOG>
Delta NYC → AUS = ~71 points per $ - Not too shabby!
Jetblue NYC → AUS = ~84 points per $ - Ok but my rule of thumb is to stay below 75
Delta AUS → NYC = ~82 points per $ - Ok but my rule of thumb is to stay below 75
Jetblue AUS → NYC = ~110 points per $ - Bad redemption
Step 4: Evaluate
The cheapest flight I can find on that day via Google Flights is $438 (JetBlue Outbound, Delta Inbound). This is our baseline, The question is, can we beat it if we know what to look for? Here is what I have found:
Outbound:
Delta via points transfer: I can transfer 22,000 Amex miles to Delta 1:1 for an estimated cash value of $220
Tip: look out for Amex transfer bonuses - you can often find a bonus of 1.25 miles for 1 Amex point
Inbound:
Delta via cash purchase: $149 via Delta’s website
Tip: If I purchase this flight via Amex’s travel portal, I got 3x points as well on the purchase. Double dip? Yes please!
Total “cost”
$220 + $149 = $369 total
The original lowest fare we saw was $438 - We “saved” $69 or ~16%!
Conclusion:
This is more of a case study on the importance of evaluating all of your options. You could very well decide that you have no desire to spend 22k of your Amex flights for a 71 point/dollar redemptions, and are instead hoarding your points so you can pay for a first-class ticket internationally. Regardless of how you decide to spend your points, I hope you can take away the importance of diving deep!