Award Travel

A breakdown of a multi-segment award booking using Lufthansa Miles & More, leveraging low mileage requirements for a high-efficiency itinerary through Zurich, Luxembourg, and Málaga.

A guide to maximizing Alaska Mileage Plan miles for a side trip to Easter Island via Santiago, featuring routing from Buenos Aires and award pricing details.

My brother-in-law and family had been collecting miles on Lufthansa Miles & More, at my behest, or maybe coercion. The miles expire 36 months after the date you earn them and a big batch of miles was now close to expiry. I checked with them if they had any plans of using them, but they didn’t, so they asked me to use them if I wanted. Redemption on Lufthansa Miles & More was a little different than on United MileagePlus. The number of cross airline combinations which come up in the result is limited. Also, Lufthansa Miles & More passes on fuel surcharges for award tickets, unlike United MileagePlus. ...

A practical look at redeeming Lufthansa Miles & More miles for a trip to Zanzibar, featuring Ethiopian Airlines flight schedules from Mumbai.

I had always wanted to do the Pacific Island Hopper after reading about it many years ago. It was operated by Continental Micronesia, and after the merger, by United Airlines. One of the best and probably the only practical way to experience this was with an award redemption ticket using miles. I have been collecting miles on United MileagePlus for quite some time and this was one of the best ways to use them. ...

KrisFlyer miles generally follow a fixed-expiry policy where they remain valid for 36 months (3 years) from the month they were earned. Unlike many other loyalty programs, this expiry is not extended by account activity; even if you earn or redeem miles regularly, the old miles still expire on their original schedule. My parents-in-law had some miles on Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer from their earlier travel to the USA. These miles were now close to expiry. They had no plans to use them, so that gave me an opportunity to look at what I could do with them before they expired. ...

After more than 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, we were looking forward to some travel. I have been collecting miles on United MileagePlus for quite some time and I was scouting for destinations which we wanted to visit and where we could maximize our miles. Europe was on top of our list and I was trying to figure out how we could do the most with that. My wife has always wanted to visit Iceland and I wanted to go to the Azores. ...

Since I had decided the destination of our last trip to South Africa 🔗, this time it was my wife’s turn to decide, and Japan was the destination of choice. My job now was to figure out a way to get us there. There was a transfer promotion going on, so I transferred points from my Citibank Rewards credit card to the Jet Airways JetPrivilege program, and I did the same for my mother’s credit card. We eventually didn’t get the transfer bonus as per the promotion, but nonetheless, we had just enough miles for two round-trip tickets to Japan. ...

Both of us had been collecting miles on United MileagePlus from quite some time. With the miles we had collected so far, I was scouting for destinations which we wanted to visit and where we could maximize our miles. Africa was on top of our list and I was trying to figure out how we could do the most with that. We had enough miles between the two of us for 3 one-way tickets from India (Central Asia region) to South Africa (Africa region) which would mean that we would need to purchase 1 one-way for one of us. ...