How to Fly Free on Holidays: Thanksgiving Roundup
I’m sure many of you are out there gearing up for your holiday travel to visit family and indulge in post-turkey naps together. While there’s nothing better than a holiday that requires large quantities of delicious food, when I’ve traveled on the holidays the crowded security lines and the cost of plane tickets gives me a ‘bah humbug’ feeling.
If you do try to use your miles or points, a lot of frequent flyer programs (such as US airways) have black out dates that make traveling during the holidays impossible with rewards points. (more bah humbug)
Here are the programs that We’ve found give you the best value and still allow you to fly for free over the holidays.
Southwest Airlines
If you took advantage of the Southwest Visa 50,000 point signup bonus or otherwise have miles to use, you can use them for holiday travel without any blackout dates, but be prepared to use quite a few points.
Flying from LAX to NY Laguardia on prime Christmas travel days will cost you $830.50 or 47,000 rapid rewards points. That may seem like a lot of points (Almost all of your Southwest Visa signup bonus) But this is still a killer deal since that means that your Southwest points are worth 1.8 cents. The value of most rewards points hover around 1 cent per point so you know you’re getting good value for your points. We verified this with a few other fares including San Francisco to Houston, and Seattle to Boston and the point value stays consistently around 1.8 cents.
Delta Skymiles
Delta used to have blackout dates, but has done away with them in recent years. Similar to the rapid rewards program, Delta will allow you to purchase tickets during holiday and other peak seasons for an increased number of points. A domestic flight this Christmas on Delta will cost you 50,000 to 60,000 Skymiles rather than the standard 25,000 miles.
Here’s the value you get for using your Skymiles points for holiday travel (December 22 – 29)
· $605.80 for LAX to Laguardia 50,000 points - 1.2 cents/point
· $705. 30 SFO to Houston 40,000 - 1.8 cents/point
· $946.00 SEA to Boston 50,000 - 1.9 cents/point
You’ll get added value by having the American Express Delta Skymiles Card in your wallet, since you’ll get out of paying $25 to check your first bag.
Chase Ultimate Rewards
The Chase Ultimate Rewards will give you value of 1.2 cents per point as long as you book travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards site, and will give you a value of 1 cent per point otherwise. Don’t discount the ultimate rewards points because they seem to have less value than Skymiles and Rapid Rewards points. Chase Ultimate rewards are transferrable to other rewards and frequent flyer programs and come in handy when you need to top off other rewards program accounts, and can be used towards any flight, hotel stay, rental car expense etc. that shows up on your statement.
Holiday Travel Hacking Wrap Up
So whether you’re using up your Southwest Visa bonus or depleting your skymiles account, holiday travel can make a large dent on your rewards points you’ve tucked under the mattress. However, if you’re faced with paying for an expensive ticket, using your points makes a lot of since.
- What’s your strategy to fly for free or at a reasonable cost in peak seasons?
- Do you think traveling on the holidays is worth it?
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Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express |
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