Just had a shock- re: using air miles

[Sandy M]

I knew air fares had gone up but had no idea how much redeeming your frequent flier miles had gone up - I was going to book a ticket using miles for my husband who is going to Indpls while I am in London/Paris - the old rules were: 25,000 miles for a round trip ticket within the continental United States and 55,000 miles for a trip to Europe! Period!!

Well, now they have a chart that shows what the required miles are and the miles required depend on what day you travel and return as well as the time of day you travel - it took 12,500 extra miles for him to return on Sunday afternoon and if he would have returned on Monday, it would have been an extra 25,000 miles!!! In other words, it now can be double what it was previously!!

Then, just for fun, I checked to see how many miles it would take for a trip to Europe and you guessed it - it's now double the miles! Instead of 55,000 miles it is now 110,000! I think this is totally unfair - haven't checked the other airlines yet but if one is doing it, I'm sure they are all following suit. I can understand a slight increase in the number of miles required for a free ticket but not double!!!

[Anne]

Air France charges 50,000 miles for a return trip to the USA. Then there are rather frequent off-peak special offers, where the return trip is charged 25,000 miles.
What I find shocking in comparison is that they charge 20,000 miles for a return trip within France, even a Paris-Strasbourg while the two cities are only about 500 kms away from eachother.

[sistereurope]

I had miles on both United and American. Both charged higher miles for peak travel, but United was WAY more restrictive. I only need 40,000 for a RT trip to Europe off peak on AA, while with United it was 55,000. I used up my United miles and I am definitely switching back to American.
With higher fare costs I bet that all airlines will impose more restrictions.

[PariS]

I was checking Air France's FF mile requirements yesterday for my next two trips--my return flight in July would be 50,000 miles one way! December is still reasonable, 29,000 there and 25,000 back.

[Darcy]

I earn nearly all of my air miles on my Capital One credit card and they charge miles based on the price of the ticket (if you were buying one).

My ticket last Oct was $800, so I paid for my 'free' ticket with 80,000 miles from my Cap One card. This Sept I will be using 120,000 miles or more, I'm sure!

[JustTravel]

I don't know much about miles but have accumulated close to 100,000 British Airways miles. So, I looked into using miles for our trip to Venice in October. I needed 120,000 miles for a business class ticket plus the almost $600 of surcharges. The lowest business class fare is over $4,000.

So, by using 80,000 miles plus almost $1,300, I got me a round trip business class ticket SFO-LHR-MilanLinate for October. Oh, my husband got one, too. ;D

The only sad part is that we will not be going to Paris for the first time since 1999. I console myself by being grateful to have spent almost six months in Paris just in 2008-2010 alone. Maybe next year?!?

[Jody]

That is why I've almost given up on BA FF miles. Their surcharges are twice as high as Virgin's. Just got a VA credit card and already have enough for 2 tickets. Actually David and I both got our own cards to take advantage of the 30,000 mile sign up bonus. I'm using BA miles for our return trip from London in November but think I'll stick to Delta for things that won't take Amex, since Air France is starting direct flights from Orlando this summer.

Can.t remember haw many miles I used for the Nov flights but I know the charges for 1 way for 2 tickets was almost 700 dollars!