Tag: travel-tips

How much would most people pay for a business class lie-flat seat?

Many people in the travel space, particularly travel influencers or bloggers, would happily pay $1000 out of pocket for a regular business-class seat on a 10-hour international flight. Usually, 1) their income is significantly above the median or 2) travel is their hobby and it’s a worthwhile splurge 3) they need the seat for work purposes 4) they are used to business class so economy is torture for them.

Most people would not pay $100/hr to be moderately more comfortable going from point A to point B. I would never consider paying $100/hr for a lie-flat seat. My parents would disown me at the mere suggestion of paying $2000 extra for a roundtrip ticket. So what is a reasonable price point for an average traveler? Here are a couple thoughts:

  • Obviously everyone has their own price point. I’m interested in the price point that is reasonable for people in the middle of the bell curve.
  • People who travel internationally typically have higher incomes. In fact, most people never fly in a given year at all.
  • People who post/blog/participate in forums about travel typically have higher incomes and value travel more than most.
  • Many people in business class aren’t paying for their own ticket.
  • As a data point, SAS airlines allows bidding for upgrades and bids for $500 (or less) are routinely accepted for 8 hour flights. In other words, a vast majority of people on the flight would not pay $500.
  • Families traveling with kids would be even more expensive

Based on the above points, I would argue that most travelers wouldn’t pay $50/hr for a lie-flat seat. For most people, business class is an unnecessary splurge that can easily double the cost of a trip without adding much value. It just doesn’t make any sense to spend days of post-tax income to be moderately more comfortable for a couple hours.

Personally, $50/hr is my maximum unless the product is exceptional. Even then, it is a splurge that doesn’t really make sense from a financial perspective.

Frontier Elite Status

Despite being a budget carrier, Frontier has a strong elite program. I had elite status with Frontier in 2023 via a status match through statusmatcher.com. I believe I paid $99 to match to top tier Frontier status for 2023. They have offered very generous status match promotions in 2023 as well.

An overlooked benefit of Frontier Diamond status is that every flight purchased through their website is fully refundable up until about 24 hours before the schedule flight time. By setting a google alert, this allows you to purchase the flight at the lowest price possible. Outside of Southwest, I don’t believe any other carrier offers refundability on all fares, even with elite status. And unlike Southwest, Frontier flight prices fluctuate wildly so it’s often possible to get flights for a couple cents plus taxes and fees.

New to 2024, Frontier’s elite program allows you to cancel flights up to 7 days before departure at any elite level. Since Frontier’s prices generally increase closer to departure, this benefit could be just as good as full refundability.

San Francisco Trip: an exercise in planning a trip with points

In the process of planning a quick 2 day weekend trip from Southern California (SNA, LGB, ONT, LAX) to Northern California (OAK, SFO, SJC). We have to leave after 2PM on Friday and return in the afternoon or evening on Sunday. Since it is a short trip, direct flights, flexibility, and time savings are ideal. We also plan to rent a car, so parking is a consideration when booking a hotel.

Flights

For most trips, I start with flights.

  1. Do a google flights search to get an general idea on pricing between city pairs
  2. Search on Southwest
  3. Search directly on carriers where I have points. In this case, the cash price was low enough that I knew that most points redemptions wouldn’t make sense since most carriers are minimum 12k points round trip.

My options for the flights are:

  1. Southwest: at least 16k points from LAX, 35k from SNA
  2. From SNA: $312 round trip United
  3. From LAX: $300 round trip Delta and Alaska
  4. From ONT: $120 round trip Frontier, or 20k points

There are about a dozen airport pairs available between SoCal and NorCal. I looked at a variety of options, and the best seems to be ONT to SFO on Frontier with points. Since I have Frontier elite status, which includes refundability, the cash price is the lowest price in the past couple months with Discount Den. I could just set a Google alert and rebook if the price drops. The redemption was roughly 0.5 cents per point. Not ideal but I have an excess of Frontier points. The point options on other carriers were in the range of 30k per person. Even though ONT and LAX are each about an hour away for us, we would pay a premium not to deal with LAX traffic. There were round trip flights as low as $125 from LAX, but the time restrictions almost tripled the price. The car rental prices at each airport was roughly the same so that didn’t effect the decision.

Car Rental

  1. OAK – Dollar at $67, Hertz at $97
  2. SJC – Payless at $89, Hertz at $118
  3. SFO – Hertz at $118, Fox at $80

Since I would be arriving from SFO, I chose Hertz because I have Presidential Circle status from the Venture X. I also had the $90 off $360 Hertz Amex Offer. Fox requires a 2nd shuttle and their customer service is inconsistent.

Hotels

  1. Castle Inn via Agoda.com at $177, parking included
  2. Hyatt Regency San Francisco SOMA, $340, offsite parking not included. Other Hyatts were around this price point
  3. Grand Hyatt SF, 34k points, parking included with Globalist, Sticker (inflated) price: $535 + $170 valet + breakfast = $800
  4. Marriots near Oyster Point, $300 with parking, but $120 off $300 Amex Offer and 35k free night promotion

Originally, the Grand Hyatt seemed like a good deal because it offered free parking, breakfast, and potential upgrades. However, I decided to save 34k points and booked the Castle Inn for $177 with free parking instead. Even though it’s a 2-star hotel and not as nice as the Grand Hyatt, it had great reviews and was an acceptable choice for us. While the Grand Hyatt would have been over 2 cents per point based on the regular prices, I wouldn’t have paid anywhere close to $800 for the stay. Considering the price of alternate hotels ($177), I maybe value the Grand Hyatt at $377.

But then I found some Marriott promotions changed my mind. I had a $120 off $300 offer on 3 of my Amex cards, and I was targeted for a free 35k certificate after 2 stays. So, I canceled the Castle Inn reservation and booked two nights at different Marriotts in South San Francisco for $318 total. After the Amex offers, it would be $198, I would get points, and I would also receive a 35k certificate.

Conclusion

Having points, elite status, and travel credit cards did open up extra possibilities for this trip. Without points and elite status, we would have spent:

  • Flight: Nonrefundable Frontier ONT-SFO flight, $300
  • Car Rental: Hertz SFO, $118
  • Hotel: Castle Inn via Agoda, $177
  • Parking: ONT airport, $54
  • Total: $649

With points and elite status, we would have spent:

  • Flight: Refundable Frontier ONT-SFO with perks, 40,000 Frontier points and $11.20
  • Car Rental: Hertz SFO after Amex Offer, $89
  • Hotel: Marriott, $198, but will receive 35k certificate
  • Parking: ONT airport, $54
  • Total: 40k Frontier Points and $352, but will receive 35k Marriot Cert

Since I value Frontier points at 0.5 cents each, and the 35k cert at around $150, I estimate we saved $250 on this trip. In addition, we do get perks like upgrades at Hertz, lounge/restaurant access at ONT/SFO, seat selection, carry-on, and priority boarding on Frontier, and increased points earn rate.

True cents per point value

I would argue that the true cents per point value should be calculated not just versus the quoted sticker price, but also the price of any acceptable alternatives. When someone brags about getting a great deal using cents per point, I hardly ever see comparisons with similar products. For instance, if they can book a flight for 30k points with a retail value of $900, they might think they’re getting a great deal at 3 cents per point. However, if there’s another flight with acceptable schedule for $400, the actual value of the redemption is much lower.

This is particularly true for traveling to other countries. Western brands often cost more than local ones. For example, spending 12k points for a $360 Hyatt hotel room might not be as good a deal as paying $120 for a similar local hotel. Similarly, American Airlines flights to South America might have good value in points, but they are usually twice as expensive as the local airlines.

Redemptions with great CPP are often very restrictive and only available on certain dates. If you apply the same level of flexibility when booking with cash, the CPP value is often very low. If I’m willing to plan my trip around a cheap award flight, I should be equally willing to plan my trip around a cheap cash flight.

The takeaway is that the cents per point value quoted is often not as a great as it seems. When you compare to other alternatives, the actual value is often much lower.

Hopper app for discount travel

Hopper is a travel app that allows you to book flights, hotels, rental cars, and airBNB style homes. Hopper routinely (or use to) offers amazing discounts during their sales, depending on the city. For example, right now they have

  • $250 off Azores Airlines
  • $75 off Azores Hotels
  • $75 off flights to the Azores
  • 25% off hotels in Germany
  • 20% off Fontainebleu Las Vegas
  • $200 off hotels in the Cayman Islands
  • $150 off hotels in Saudi Arabia

In the past they’ve offered

  • $30 off flights to a particular city
  • $100 off flights to the Cayman Islands
  • $20 off car rentals

Unique to Hopper is that many of these promotions have no minimum spending requirement. So a cheap flight to and from, say, Las Vegas, can potentially be free. I’ve seen many cases where you can book totally free hotels, free flights, and very cheap car rentals when booking through Hopper.

It seems that Hopper has been having funding issues so I don’t know how long the promotions will last. It seems that the promotions have been less generous lately, which isn’t surprising because they were literally giving money away.

Hopper has a partnership with Capital One Travel, and incredible discounts have been offered in the past through their portal.

myVegas: Room Availability Calendar Jan 2024 – Jun 2024

Here is the current room availability calendar as of 1/23/24. Availability will change as people book rooms. One day and two day comp room availability is usually the same. There is no weekend availability, but some of the free rooms are valued at $300+ per night.

Bellagio

Aria

Mandalay Bay

MGM Grand

Park MGM

NYNY

Luxor

Excalibur

myVegas: Booking MGM rooms

One of the best use of loyalty points is to book rooms at MGM hotels in Vegas. The 1 and 2 night comp stays are available for Sunday-Thursday nights, depending on availability. Rooms are released when the rewards refresh every couple months, and room availability declines as people book the rooms. You would have to purchase the reward to check availability for your particular dates.

There are some special rules for booking these rewards:

  • Rooms are premium rewards and count towards your 30 day limit.
  • You are responsible for resort fees unless you have Gold status or above with MGM.
  • You can only have one room reward in your wallet regardless of property. That is, if you have a Bellagio room reward you can’t buy an Aria room reward.
  • Once you book a room reward, you can’t buy another room reward until the stay is over.
  • The redemption date is the must redeem by date, but you can book a room in the future, as long as the calendar is available.
  • A booked room uses a premium slot for 30 days prior and 30 days after check-in.
  • If you cancel a room after booking, you can sometimes get a refund by contacting support but it’s up to the discretion of the agent.
  • Room calendars for the next couple months are usually released 2-3 weeks before the current room calendars run out.
  • Although terms state room rewards are limited to one redemption every 30 days, it is sometimes possible to buy another reward after your stay so you can use more than one comp per month.
  • To combine stays, two people can purchase rewards and book back to back stays but ask the front desk to stay in the same room.
  • Booking a myVegas comp room prevents you from using your own MGM offers for similar dates. However, you can book your own MGM offer, then book the myVegas comp rooms so you can stay consecutive nights.
  • Comp rooms are not eligible for regular (non-konami) freeplay rewards.
  • Generally, the availability calendar for the one and two night rewards at a particular property are the same.