I actually got to use my Air Miles...!

[nwflyboy]

My parents probably should be retired but aren't. You won't believe this, but I'm such a scrooge with my points....I have like 700K socked away with UA and Chase and when I do use the points, I always fly economy. My value meter goes off....I could do so many more trips in economy! Doh.

I have crossed my last ocean sitting back in coach (I'll go west coast to Hawaii in coach, but only on Alaska - they have decent coach seats). If I'm going to the other side of the world, I'm sitting up front and getting a good night's sleep on a flat bed. I have enough points banked to do that and am pretty good at making it work. Yeah, I could stretch those points much further sitting in the back, but 1) I have plenty and can get more, and 2) the last couple times I flew to the opposite side of the planet in coach, I arrived miserable, sick (literally in the bathroom for a day), exhausted, and it took me 2 days to recover. By sitting up front, I effectively extend my usable vacation time by 2-4 days and hit the ground happy and ready for action, so it's worth it to me. YMMV.

Gone are the days of 90K business class round trip tickets to Asia! Remember those? When I get older and everything hurts, I will probably be singing another song.....Front of the plane or nothing.

Well, 90K RT to Asia in J is not entirely gone, if you know where/how to look . Personally, I love that ANA Dreamliner up front, it's a really nice way to cross the Pacific. I've done that flight often enough that now it feels like a milk run to me. If you're based in the SF area, you have some great options to get to Asia (I'm in Seattle, so half the time my trips to that part of the world start with a hop to SFO or LAX).

And to steer things back to scuba-related...believe me, when you're headed for some remote flyspeck island in the South Pacific or backwoods Indonesia, flying for 24-36 hours to get there, it ain't nothin' to arrive there feeling at least half-human and ready to get on your live-aboard. Getting a nice seat up front (at least as far as Guam or Jakarta) can make all the difference.

But for short flights to Mexico, I do tough it out back in steerage with everyone else - no need to burn miles on those fairly short flights. On my upcoming trip to Coz, I'm flying Alaska+American to Mexico City (booked with Alaska points) and coming home on Alaska from CUN. I don't mind the bag drag to CUN, especially since it gets us a nonstop flight all the way from CUN home to SEA in reasonably comfortable Alaska seats.

 

[nwflyboy]

$263, plus the hassles of rechecking bags, claims complications, etc. I did it once.


That's what it takes me to get to Lubbock or Amarillo. For one family trip, I drove 60 miles to Lubbock to get them, then 160 to Abilene - then got delayed in Abilene for weather and DFW for plane problems. 24 hour travel time for me getting to Death Valley; I could have driven it in less!


I am older, but I just need an aisle sleep. I am so conditioned to sleeping on planes even in cramped seats, I have difficulties staying awake for take-off. Also true on buses and ferries, but transportation is so boring, why stay awake. First Class is fun, but hardly worth the cost.

Being based in Lubbock makes all of this more expensive, complicated and challenging, no matter how you choose to do it.

Don't know other details of your travel needs, but if you haven't done so, might be worth looking into Southwest. I'm not a big fan of their seating-scramble, but it looks like they have at least as many flights out of Lubbock as United (maybe more, actually), their coach seats are among the most roomy of all US airlines (Southwest and Alaska are the best for this), and you get a free checked bag - very helpful on dive trips. Their frequent flyer program is pretty transparent and reasonable.

FWIW, I flew Southwest to/from CUN last year and was pleasantly surprised overall.

 

[Maverick17]

I wonder if I did it wrong? View attachment 439409

You did it very well. You were able to get tickets to a place you want to go at a price that made you happy or at least content. That's all that matters. Some want the cheapest, some want comfort, some want fewest connections or to avoid the Oh Dark Thirty drive to the airport. But as long as you get flights that you're happy with, excellent choice.

 

[DandyDon]

Have you checked out the awards map on American's website?

I looked at a few dates. Not very user friendly, IMO.

Being based in Lubbock makes all of this more expensive, complicated and challenging, no matter how you choose to do it.

Don't know other details of your travel needs, but if you haven't done so, might be worth looking into Southwest. I'm not a big fan of their seating-scramble, but it looks like they have at least as many flights out of Lubbock as United (maybe more, actually), their coach seats are among the most roomy of all US airlines (Southwest and Alaska are the best for this), and you get a free checked bag - very helpful on dive trips. Their frequent flyer program is pretty transparent and reasonable.

FWIW, I flew Southwest to/from CUN last year and was pleasantly surprised overall.

I was a big fan of SWA back when all of the Stews wore hot pants - and did so very well. They are still growing up I think, but getting there. LBB-CUN for $391 RT with two free bags is appealing if their one flight on certain days will work. They still don't cooperate with other airlines tho, so if a problem comes up, say bags are delayed - you wait until they can fix it. I so miss Continental. I remember the time when I was escaping before an Cat-5 hurricane might hit, and they changed my reservation for free while many of my group was paying big bucks to leave. I think I booked better than them, and they weren't listening to my advice, but anyway - Continental flew an empty plane to Cancun for my load! The lobby was a sea full of lines when I arrived, but I just walked around them.

I also remember people arriving at my hotel as I was leaving, totally unaware that a storm was coming.

 

[JamesBon92007]

We usually fly SouthWest. I have no idea if they fly out of Lubbock but they don't (yet) fly to CZM. We generally just watch for their sales and book a flight. They never said we can't fly on any particular date or from any particular airport. We can each have two checked bags for no additional fees in addition to our two carry-ons. We avoid cold-airport flight changes during the winter. We simply choose the cheapest flights from their "Fare Calendar." You can choose to have the prices displayed in dollars or points. Yes, we have to pay about $56 each to get to Mexico and back but about $30 each of that is Mexico's exit fees. We fly into CUN and we don't mind the "bag drag." The ADO bus is a short walk at Terminal 2 and it drops us off about 1 1/2 blocks from the ferry dock so in all we have to walk about two blocks or so with our luggage. No big deal for us. We sometimes grab a dinner special from El Puchugon (a few doors down from the ADO terminal) and have chicken dinner ready when we get there. When we get off the ferry we grab a taxi to our AirBnB or VRBO or wherever. On our last trip (this month) we paid $253.31 US each (fees included), round trip, non-stop from LAX, The ADO bus is currently 190 pesos each, one way (about $20 US RT) and the ferry average was 116 pesos each one way (about $12 US RT) for a grand total of about $285 each, round trip. This does not include about 40 pesos for a taxi on Cozumel. We buy additional points when they have 40% Off sales and if you do the math we come out ahead buying the points over paying airfare. They have no blackout dates for using points. Usually we use our points. My girlfriend has their credit card and earns additional points with that. Sometimes the ferry prices are very competitive so you can choose the cheaper one, if you like.

To break it down, my airfare from LAX to CUN was $71 each way, not including fees. The total fees were $111.31 RT.

In an ideal world SouthWest would fly non-stop from ONT to CZM for a cheap price meanwhile the above scenario works for us

 

[mcohen1021]

I looked at a few dates. Not very user friendly, IMO.

I also pick a destination, then pull up the full month view to see what days offer the cheapest legs on what days

 

[Streydog]

$263 is too steep, I can often fly to CUN for that. I guess that is one disadvantage of living in the desert. At least gas is free.

 

[DandyDon]

$263 is too steep, I can often fly to CUN for that. I guess that is one disadvantage of living in the desert. At least gas is free.

It was really cheap back when all of SWA's Stews wore hot pants. $214 is possible now if you don't mind going to the wrong airport.

Gas has never been free here. Some natural gas used to be free to some schools in some locations, but that tragedy is why all household gases now come with stink added.

 

[lionfish-eater]

I can confirm what Barb is saying about the Chase sapphire preferred credit card. I have the card and it is consistently ranked as the top rewards card. I have an invite offer from them for new customers if anyone would like me to send it to them. The offer gives you 50,000 miles if you charge $4,000.00 in the first three months. That is a free international roundtrip flight as shown by barb's calculations. Google the card for reviews. You can buy two gold coins and then resell them if you can't come up with $4000 in charges in the first three months. If anyone wants an invite offer, send me your first name and your email address and I will send an invite to chase. ( use the start conversation feature). You can also cancel the card at the end of the first year if you don't want an annual fee. It really is a free international trip. A friend of mine went to Bali with the miles.

 

[nwflyboy]

I can confirm what Barb is saying about the Chase sapphire preferred credit card. I have the card and it is consistently ranked as the top rewards card. I have an invite offer from them for new customers if anyone would like me to send it to them. The offer gives you 50,000 miles if you charge $4,000.00 in the first three months. That is a free international roundtrip flight as shown by barb's calculations. Google the card for reviews. You can buy two gold coins and then resell them if you can't come up with $4000 in charges in the first three months. If anyone wants an invite offer, send me your first name and your email address and I will send an invite to chase. ( use the start conversation feature). You can also cancel the card at the end of the first year if you don't want an annual fee. It really is a free international trip. A friend of mine went to Bali with the miles.

Note to all: PLEASE lets not let this forum to devolve into self-serving promotions for credit cards. While lionfish-eater may be sincere in his post above, I feel its appropriate to point out a few facts:

1. The "invite offer" cited above is actually a "referral benefit", with compensation going to the person who sends you the invite, and no extra benefit for you. By following the request above, you get nothing more than you can get on your own (actually, you can get a better offer for this same card elsewhere), but the person who sends you the "invite" receives a bunch of miles as compensation for "referring you." Generally, I think most folks feel its appropriate and ethical to make it clear that they are receiving compensation for this. There is a very large group of people making a lot of money and other forms of compensation for doing this - getting others to sign up for credit cards via a paid "referral" (if you "Google the card for reviews" as suggested, you will find countless examples of people shilling this and other cards for a living - it's a huge and very lucrative activity - take what's said on those sites with a big grain of salt, and keep in mind they are making a good living by getting you to click their credit card referral links, so they generally only present the most perfect, ideal stories and omit all the inconvenient details...it's marketing for the big banks).

2. While there is a grain of truth in most of what's said in the above post, it's also a vast over-simplification that glosses over many important inconvenient details and completely ignores others, eg "It really is a free international trip. A friend of mine went to Bali with the miles". Someone who is new to this game needs to know a lot more details, without doing so you get a very distorted picture of what's possible. While it CAN be a "free international trip", it all depends on what you want/can do: getting the flight you want is often (usually) difficult and often simply impossible. I have played this game for a long time and while it can work out for you (if you invest a lot of time and effort, it can work out very well), redeeming miles can be super-complex and most people are unwilling or unable to put in the effort to figure out how to make it work for them - which is why most frequent flyer programs are so unpopular.

3. Beware of anyone who only tells you the most optimistic, ideal story of what you could do (they usually are hoping for you to get them a credit card referral fee). While it may be technically true that you can do X or Y, in practical terms, you could spend years trying to make that work. Much of what is happily marketed as possible is in fact impossible or impractical if you need to plan your trip in advance, if you want to travel with another person, if you want to go on popular routes in high season, etc.

To mods: Promoting credit cards online for personal gain is a huge activity. There are thousands of forums and websites dedicated to that. I'd like to suggest that should have no place here, lest this forum get swamped with posts from people seeking to gain from that.

Just my 4 cents.