Trip Information

Reader Kevin wants to travel from Washington, DC to Toronto sometime this Summer. He’s new to the miles and points game, but his trip provides us with a great opportunity to dive into the great new award flights available using British Airways Avios thanks to US Air’s entry into the Oneworld alliance.

A Quick Review Of Avios

Avios are a tremendous tool for certain flights. While most programs base award flight costs on your origin and destination regions or on the cash cost of a ticket, Avios redemption costs are based on distance. That means short flights – or flights that are just under one of the program’s higher distance thresholds – can often be a very good value using Avios.

Here’s a look at the Avios award chart:

As you can see, flights under 650 miles are a particularly outstanding value using Avios, at just 4,500 Avios each way in Economy.

Avios redemptions are calculated on a per segment basis, which means that flights with connections cost double or more versus non-stop routes on these short trips.

For example, a direct flight from Washington, DC to Toronto is 359 miles, or well within the distance limits for a 4,500 Avios redemption. However, if this flight had to connect in New York, we’d be looking at a total of 9,000 Avios each way: 4,500 from Washington to New York and 4,500 from New York to Toronto.

Avios Possibilities On US Air

Thankfully, Kevin’s airport of choice, Washington-Reagan, happens to be a US Air hub. A few weeks ago, as part of the airline’s ongoing merger with American, US Air switched from Star Alliance to the Oneworld alliance. That made it possible not only for flights on US Air to be booked with American miles, but also with the frequent flyer programs of other Oneworld airlines, including British Airways.

US Air offers direct flights to Toronto from their hub in Washington, so this is a great opportunity for a redemption at 4,500 Avios each way.

Sure enough, if we check on the British Airways Avios Calculator, it confirms the rate for this trip:

Where else might we be able to go using Avios on US Air? It’s best to focus on the airline’s hubs, since other routes are liable to require a connection.

Washington – Reagan

This map draws a circle with a 650 mile radius around US Air’s hub in Washington:

Both here and in the newsletter, I’ve been hinting for months about a secret project I’ve been working on.

It’s about to become a lot less secret.

By the time I started this site last August, I’d learned an incredible amount about points and miles programs and they’d allowed me to make a dream trip of mine a reality, not just for me but my whole family.

By that time, I’d already racked up hundreds of thousands more miles than would be needed for this trip alone, ensuring that one dream trip would develop into many more.

The Point Of PointsAway

I started PointsAway with a simple premise in mind: that most of you, like me, probably have one big trip in mind. Sure, you might have lots of places you’d like to go, but I’m betting one stands out above the rest.

There are many reasons why people defer big dreams, but the most likely reason is simply not having the money. That was certainly the case for me and my dream trip.

Points and miles, however, can take you places money alone can’t. That’s why most of the posts here on PointsAway are reader trips, where I take a look at itineraries readers like you submit and then show them the best way to make their dream a reality, step by step.

Points and miles are such a powerful tool that if I put together a reader trip that saves less than 70% over the cash price, I consider it a bad day.

The savings points and miles can bring are so immense that it’s easy to get used to the concept of saving several thousand dollars on each trip I put together. I used to think paying a few hundred bucks for a transcontinental flight or over a thousand for a transatlantic hop meant I found a good deal. Now, I can’t imagine spending that much.

The Power Of Anywhere

As the savings points and miles can bring become clearer, you begin to look at travel differently. Jumping halfway around the world can be a better value than going on a road trip to somewhere a few hours away. Traveling far away at the last minute is perfectly doable. Trips that once seemed like a fanciful notion are a few clicks away.

My parents thought of going to Europe as a once-in-a-lifetime dream until they actually went with me last Fall, thanks to points and miles. Now, they’re a few weeks away from visiting Milan and Zurich and places in between, while staying at 5-star resorts, then will roll that award trip into another later this summer to go to Alaska.

A year ago, that would’ve been unfathomable. With points and miles, I was able to help them plan both trips over the course of an afternoon.

Why I Haven’t Traveled The World

While I’ve done a fair amount of free travel myself, there’s no doubt others have taken their miles and points farther than I have. I neared the end of a big project and thought about going on a round the world trip late last year. But I realized there was something I needed to do first.

Writing up a reader trip and then getting an email from that reader telling me they’d successfully booked the trip is an incredible feeling. This is life-changing stuff, and I was able to play a part in making it reality!

However, I realized there was no way I could help every single person make their dream trip reality one at a time. I might be able to help some people directly, and hopefully these case studies could be instructive to those looking into similar trips, but there had to be another way.

I began compiling every travel secret I knew and many I didn’t until researching programs even more deeply. “Teach a man to fish,” the saying goes, and that’s exactly what I set out to do.

Introducing PointsAway: The Book

Over many months, I’ve assembled what I believe to be the essential guide to points and miles programs. Whether you’re starting from scratch or are a seasoned points and miles accumulator, this guidebook should serve as an invaluable reference in learning how to make your dream trip a reality.

These programs can be tough for beginners to understand. That’s why I wasn’t happy throwing together a simple document with some tips and tricks, calling it a “book” and walking away.

This is the best work I’ve ever done. It’s 330 pages of thoughtfully designed and presented information, including videos, slideshows, case studies and interactive tools. It’s essentially a textbook, but unlike the ones from your school days, it teaches you about incredible concepts in an engaging and easy-to-understand way.

Best of all, this is an ongoing project. As much as I’d love to see this book in hardcover form, I know that by the time it wound its way through the machinations of the publishing industry, a sizable chunk of the information included would be outdated. Indeed, I had to make significant changes thanks to announcements by American and Delta in just the past few weeks.

The points and miles game is played on constantly shifting terrain, which is why I’ll be issuing free updates that take into account the newest information and best offers and expand on its initial content with deep analysis of even more programs.

I’m submitting the PointsAway book to the iBookstore today. That means in a few weeks, iPad and Mac owners will be able to learn everything I know. Shortly after that, Kindle and PDF versions will come available, so that everyone else can get in on the fun, too.

I’ll have much more to share in the weeks to come, but I can’t wait to see where we go from here. I’ll still be writing up reader trips for PointsAway, just as always. Until now, I’ve only been able to show a couple people per week how they can make their dream trip a reality. With this guidebook, that number increases immensely, and I’m looking forward so much to sharing it with you soon!

Just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know I won’t have a post up today as regularly scheduled. This is the first time since I launched the site that I’ve not had something new up by this point in the week, so please forgive me!

We’ll get back to some awesome reader trips in the near future, but right now I’m neck-deep in preparation for something truly massive for PointsAway. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you already know what I’m talking about! If not, I’ll be back on Thursday to share more with you.

Thanks for understanding and see you Thursday!

-Casey