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Tips

A collection of 21 posts

Why You Shouldn't Use Points For an Upgrade

Why You Shouldn't Use Points For an Upgrade

One of the most common things I tell people about using miles & points is that using points to upgrade from Economy to Business is always terrible value! It seems that many years ago, one of the best uses for airline miles & points was to use them to get that elusive

Why Points+Pay is Almost Always a Bad Idea

Why Points+Pay is Almost Always a Bad Idea

Few things pain me as much as hearing in casual conversation with someone that they have used hard earned airline miles on a Points+Pay ticket. The conversation is an eventual rollercoaster, it usually starts with hearing they used miles & points to book a flight which always gets me excited

The (Hidden) Cost to Aquire Airline Miles

The (Hidden) Cost to Aquire Airline Miles

I have said it before, and I will say it again travelling on miles & points is not free. Every mile you earn costs you something, whether you realise it or not. This is why it is essential to understand what they are worth to you individually because as you dive

Guide Series: Tips for using Lifemiles

Guide Series: Tips for using Lifemiles

Lifemiles is a really interesting frequent flyer program that is known for often running aggressive promotions on the bulk purchase of miles. When used correctly these promotions can offer great value for purchasing cheap business class tickets on Star Alliance carriers such as Thai Airways, ANA and Singapore Airlines. Lifemiles

First Class vs. Business Class - How should you use your points

First Class vs. Business Class - How should you use your points

I often get asked why I 'waste' my points on First Class travel rather use them for Business Class travel. So before I start, let me be clear, this article is going to talk about a lot of #firstworldproblems. With that in mind let's take a look at what I

Case Study: Business class for cheaper than economy!

Case Study: Business class for cheaper than economy!

I always love it when I manage to get a good deal! As I have said before the miles & points game isn’t about travelling for free it is all about getting good value travel and I just did exactly that and scored business class flights on Singapore Airlines to

Easy & Cheap Way to Get 16,000 Qantas Points

Easy & Cheap Way to Get 16,000 Qantas Points

Qantas Assure is running another promotion with Hello Fresh until the 7th of March that allows you to earn 16,000 Qantas points by ordering two meal delivery boxes. Hello Fresh is one of the many meal delivery services that have popped up in Australia that offers pre-packaged fresh food

Sometimes it Pays to Hang Up and Call Again!

Sometimes it Pays to Hang Up and Call Again!

These days you can do most things related to miles & points online, but sometimes you still need to call a contact centre. Especially if you want to book complex itineraries not available online. Unfortunately booking Etihad First class with Velocity points is one of these cases. The online booking tool

Using PayPal to Avoid AMEX Fees When Paying Bills

Using PayPal to Avoid AMEX Fees When Paying Bills

People often ask me how I manage to earn so many miles & points and there is no quick and easy answer to that question. It is really about taking every opportunity to maximise the system to your advantage. One of the many things I do to maximise my ability to

Everything You Need to Know About Cancelling Award Bookings

Everything You Need to Know About Cancelling Award Bookings

Airfares are cheap these days. You can often pick up discount economy tickets for a steal, the downside is that all these cheap airfares are completely non-refundable. As a result, most people have become accustomed to the mentality that you don't want to book airline tickets unless you are 100%

Get Velocity Gold Status Faster With Family Pooling

Get Velocity Gold Status Faster With Family Pooling

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Virgin Australia's Velocity frequent flyer program. Whilst Virgin is not a member of any airline alliance they have some great partners with plenty of opportunities for good miles & points redemption. One of the great features that Velocity offers that

How To Get a Free 'Upgrade' to EconomyX on Virgin Domestic Flights

How To Get a Free 'Upgrade' to EconomyX on Virgin Domestic Flights

Back in March 2017, Virgin Australia introduced a new premium offering called EconomyX, which basically provides some additional leg room and a way to upsell what was previously the bulkhead and exit rows on the domestic fleet. The domestic 777 fleet has 30 EconomyX seats available (2 rows over the

United MileagePlus 100% Bonus Miles

United MileagePlus 100% Bonus Miles

As luck would have it, 24 hours after I posted an article about buying miles & points in Australia, United is running a new promotion offering a massive 100% bonus until the 12th of September! As per usual, the bonus is tiered, meaning you get the best amount of bonus miles

Guide Series: Buying Miles & Points in Australia for Cheap Premium Cabin Flights

Guide Series: Buying Miles & Points in Australia for Cheap Premium Cabin Flights

So a little-known trick that can sometimes get you super cheap premium cabin fares, is to actually purchase miles & points and then redeem them for award flight as opposed to directly buying the revenue ticket. Many overseas airlines sell large amounts of frequent flyer points that are designed to top-up

Guide Series: Redeeming Velocity Points for Etihad Apartments

Guide Series: Redeeming Velocity Points for Etihad Apartments

As discussed in the previous Guide Series post on finding award availability, one of the great ways to secure award flights is to leverage the partner relationships of airlines to secure award seats on airlines other than the one you have the miles & points with. One excellent example is using

The Showdown - Qantas QFF vs. Virgin Velocity

The Showdown - Qantas QFF vs. Virgin Velocity

Someone recently asked me in the comments on my first Guide Series post about Getting Started with Mile & Points in Australia, why I picked Velocity and if that was just a personal preference or if I thought that Velocity was indeed 'better' than Qantas Frequent Flyer. I've recently started accumulating

Guide Series: Tips for Finding Award Availability

Guide Series: Tips for Finding Award Availability

In my getting started guide I touched on the golden rule of miles & points which is to only use them for true award seats and not any-time or points + pay tickets. Now whilst this might sound obvious, the challenge many people have is finding these golden award seats. I have

Guide Series: Getting Started With Miles & Points in Australia

Guide Series: Getting Started With Miles & Points in Australia

I thought it would be good to write a getting started post that addresses many of the questions around miles & points from what they are, how to earn them and most importantly how to use them. If you already have a good understanding of miles & points then this post is

Introducing the Guide Series

Introducing the Guide Series

Over the comming weeks I will be working on a series of guides, tutorials and tips to help people get started with miles & points or maximise thier use. The guides will focus mainly on miles & points from an Australian perspective. I will aim to get a new guide out each

Useful Tools For Award Travel

Useful Tools For Award Travel

I often find myself talking to people about some of the tools I use to help maximise my usage of miles & points. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the key tools I use on a regular basis and can certainly help when booking

Why I don't horde and save frequent flyer miles

Why I don't horde and save frequent flyer miles

I often find myself talking to friends or extended family about frequent flyer miles. This usually comes up in conversation as people have heard about one of our holidays or we are talking about an upcoming trip. This naturally leads to people quizzing me about all things miles and points.