It’s My Imagination

Frequent Flyer Miles

I’m getting such a headache from attempting to book travel on American Airlines using frequent flyer miles.  To begin with, we attempted to book our tickets several months in advance for a trip to California to visit my step-daughter and her family.  Unfortunately, by the time we were able to work out specific dates, there were no flights available for frequent flyer travel.  So, we put off our trip thinking we could go in the spring, maybe.

Well, something possessed me to get on line yesterday and check again.  Lo and behold there were flights available, and, they were decent flights and reasonable times.  Problem was, now we are 14,000 miles short of getting 3 tickets using my husband’s miles.  I have 16,000 miles myself, so I could transfer them to his account, but, it will cost $180 (still cheaper than buying an airline ticket), and, it takes 72 hours or more to post to his account.  Who knows if these flights will be available then.

In the end, if I do transfer the points, we will pay the fee of $180 plus $5 tax plus $25 service fee for using points (that’s per ticket).  So, that third ticket would cost me all of our points combined, plus $210 cash.   And, by the time those points post to his account, the flights may no longer be available, again.

So, since we have enough points in my husband’s account for 2 tickets, I looked up the cost of airfare for 1 additional ticket.  We can get 2 tickets using points and buy the 3rd for $299 (tax included).   I’m ready to just book it all!  Be done with it.

These companies call these things “Rewards”, but I’m beginning to think they’re a huge pain in the ass!