The other night I wanted to book a Star Alliance reward with my UNITED miles, so I called the 1K desk, I found the flights I wanted to get me from Manchester, UK (MAN) to Terceira, Azores (TER). I wanted to book MAN-FRA-LIS-TER and return, a reward within Europe for 25K miles. I wanted to route via FRA as my friend is going with me and he is based in FRA.

The UNITED agent told me routing via FRA would not work as I was “going to far out of the way” She added the ...

Part 1 – Introduction Part 2 – AA Five Star Service (JFK), JFK Flagship Lounge, AA #3 JFK-LAX Flagship First Class Part 3 – LAX Flagship Check-in, LAX Flagship Lounge, Encounter Restaurant, AA #247 LAX-KOA First Class Part 4 – Four Seasons Hualalai: The Experience Part 5 – Four Seasons Hualalai: Details and Strategy Part 6 – Hawaiian #207 KOA-HNL First Class, HA KOA Lounge Part 7 – Halekulani Part 8 ...

Part 1 – Introduction Part 2 – AA Five Star Service (JFK), JFK Flagship Lounge, AA #3 JFK-LAX Flagship First Class Part 3 – LAX Flagship Check-in, LAX Flagship Lounge, Encounter Restaurant, AA #247 LAX-KOA First Class Part 4 – Four Seasons Hualalai: The Experience Part 5 – Four Seasons Hualalai: Details and Strategy Part 6 – Hawaiian #207 KOA-HNL First Class, HA KOA Lounge Part 7 – Halekulani Part 8 – Honolulu Activities – Pearl Harbor, Hanauma Bay, Diamond Head Run, ...

Part 1 – Introduction Part 2 – AA Five Star Service (JFK), JFK Flagship Lounge, AA #3 JFK-LAX Flagship First Class Part 3 – LAX Flagship Check-in, LAX Flagship Lounge, Encounter Restaurant, AA #247 LAX-KOA First Class Part 4 – Four Seasons Hualalai: The Experience Part 5 – Four Seasons Hualalai: Details and Strategy Part 6 – Hawaiian #207 KOA-HNL First Class, HA KOA Lounge Part 7 – Halekulani Part 8 – Honolulu Activities – Pearl Harbor, Hanauma Bay, Diamond Head Run, ...

People often ask me how they can squeeze the most value out of their frequent flyer miles. I begin my answer by stating that maximizing monetary value and actual value are two very different things and ultimately there is no magic formula that tells you whether you are effectively using your miles.

I find the biggest waste of miles is to use them to purchase consumer products, like spending 200K miles on a $700 television set when those miles could have been used for two business ...

Flights on United Express are typically not anything special.  Nearly all of my trips begin with a CRJ-200 hop to O'Hare.  Occasionally I am able to mix that up, but there still aren't great options.  I recently had a trip routing via Houston (IAH), which I got on the Skywest CRJ-700 that have done some longer flying from IAH.  While these planes contain 6 first class seats and Economy plus, they are far from luxurious.  First class catering consists of plastic cups ...