Time to Start This Up Again

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. I became a bit busy while working on my Germany trip report back in March, and never had the chance to catch up. As a result, I ended up abandoning this blog.

In the meantime, I’ve had a number of domestic trips, including my last “creative” routing on UA – a DTW-ORD-IAH-DEN-SFO that netted me almost 1000 more miles than the normal DTW-ORD-SFO would have. Since then, United has tightened up their routing rules and these kinds of routings are no longer possible without paying a premium for it. Other trips include another Asia trip including Japan and Singapore, Australia, and a fantastic VDB off of SFO-IAD that not only earned me some vouchers, but also gave me additional miles and a transcon upgrade that I would otherwise never have cleared.

Sitting at about 59,000 miles for this year on United, it’s looking like it won’t be worthwhile to make another run for 1K status. Even with about $1000 in ecerts and vouchers, I’ve decided to save them for next year. Right now, I have three trips booked for about 15,000 miles in 2011. With anticipated work travel and the rest of my vouchers, I expect to be able to cross 50,000 miles without much personal spend. With any luck, I may end up trying to push for 1K again in 2011.

In the meantime, the best credit card offers right now are the American Airlines AAdvantage cards from Citi. One is for 75,000 miles after $1,500 in spend in six months; the other is for 100,000 miles after $10,000 in spend in 12 months.

75,000 miles offer
100,000 miles offer

Another 3000 AAdvantage Miles

Since I’ve already cleared the bonus for the single AAdvantge credit card I got from round two of my churning, I called Citi today to ask to cancel one of my older credit cards. In reality, I was looking for more miles, and it was given to me. After putzing around for a bit about how I found a mileage card with a lower annual fee, I was offered 3000 miles for $500 spent. It’s not as good as 30,000 miles for $750, but it sure beats nothing! After I clear this one, I’ll have to call back to try to get it on another card.

oneworld Award Travel in Asia

The American Airlines oneworld awards are a really great deal for multi-stopover award travel. I was initially going to use United MP miles to book two separate itineraries KIX-ICN-PEK-KIX and ITM-OKA-ITM, but then I decided not to go to Beijing. This made booking three one way awards using American AAdvantage miles more advantageous, costing me only 30,000 miles. But then I found out that with only 35,000, I can make any routing up to 4,000 miles as long as I used two different oneworld airlines. This basically meant that I could add another stopover for only 5,000 more miles as long as I could find another airline besides Japan Airlines. Well, Cathay Pacific has ICN-TPE and TPE-FUK, allowing me to book the following itinerary:

12/9 KIX (Osaka Kansai) to GMP (Seoul Gimpo) on JAL
12/14 ICN (Incheon) to TPE (Taiwan Taoyuan) on CX
12/17 TPE to FUK (Fukuoka) on CX
12/18 FUK to OKA (Okinawa Naha) on JAL
12/22 OKA to ITM (Osaka Itami) on JAL

I just got off the phone with American AAdvantage Reservations and put the itinerary on hold until Saturday. I’m short about 3,000 miles until my Citi miles post, which should be in the next couple of days. Taxes and booking fee come out to just over $80. What a deal!

There are a variety of mileage levels for oneworld awards which can be found on the American Airlines website. I highly suggest looking at these for any multi-stopover itineraries as they have great redemption value in terms of dollars per mile.

American Airlines Double EQM and Possible UA Match

American Airlines released a second Double Elite Qualifying Miles promotion for 2009 this morning, covering September 2 – December 15. The cool part is that this includes bookings which were made before the promotion! Signup here.

It looks likely that United Airlines will match the promotion, as a template page has been put up on their website, with a timestamp of Wed Sep 02 07:13:07 2009. I really hope so, because then it looks like I’ll be able to get to Premier Executive instead of just Premier.

An Introduction to Credit Card Churning

My dad signed me up for United Airlines Mileage Plus years ago as they have a hub in Denver, so they have the best availability of flights departing from there. They usually have the best fares for SJC-DEN and only Star Alliance carriers fly direct to KIX from SFO.

Yet, I decided to join AAdvantage today. Why? Simply because of the mileage opportunities from churning credit cards. Citi has a number of AAdvantage credit cards that give 20,000-30,000 mile bonuses for spending $750 within the first four months. On top of that, the annual fee is waived for the first year, and it is possible to cancel and reapply to obtain more miles. These miles count towards million mile status as well, which gives lifetime Gold status.

After joining AAdvantage, I applied for an AAdvantage Mastercard and an American Express card, each with a 30,000 mile bonus. I should easily be able to clear the $750 for each card, and then I will cancel and keep churning these cards. I’m going to take a small hit on my credit score each time I apply, but these dips are temporary, and having a larger credit line means a lower percentage of my total credit is utilized, improving long-term credit score.

I don’t think I will fly on oneworld airlines enough to earn status in AAdvantage – in all likelihood, I will barely qualify for Mileage Plus Premier as it is – but I can see myself using these miles for intra-Asia awards and whenever I can’t buy reasonably priced tickets for flights in North America. In particular, tickets for intra-Asia flights are absurdly expensive, and the flights would give hardly any miles, so mileage awards for trips from Japan to elsewhere in Asia are a great value.