Two point Five days in Melbourne

part 2

How I found the airfare to get me to Melbourne for a feeding frenzy

This is the usual starting point for me - search the airlines direct to see whats on offer then of to Orbitz to see what they come up with and then Skyscanner is next inline. Skyscanner seems to find fares sometimes that Orbitz cannot. 

Well it worked skyscanner found the same fares as the airlines were offering but at a cheaper price. You cannot book on skyscanner they are a travel search engine. The deal they found was through BYOJET. I had not used them before but the who process worked and the E-Ticket arrived promptly with booking references for both airlines. So you can then go to the airlines website to select seat etc. The Virgin fare type was not upgradable but the Qantas fare was.

It's easy to check by going to these pages and entering your details

Virgin : http://www.virginaustralia.com/au/en/specials-offers/upgrademe/premium-bid/

Qantas : http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/upgrade/global/en

You can go onto Qantas website and request an upgrade using points only well in advance but I find the amount of point required is a little high and not the best use of the points. My sector was CNS-MEL and it would have cost 20,000 points. I decided to wait and see if I got the invitation email to bid for an upgrade, which is a $ value + amount of points.

Indeed I got the email and I put a bid in. The minimum points was 4,000 so I left it as that, the starting $ value was $210. I put a bid in at $215 and the bid was accepted. 

I value my points/miles at A$15 per 1,000 and that's how I work the numbers for my cost value analysis.

This made the whole Two point Five days end rather nicely...

Insideflyer have done a deal with LifeMiles

BUY LIFEMILES AND RECEIVE A 150% BONUS

How will it work out with the Australian Dollar the way it is?

LifeMiles are bought in US dollars so it does hurt with the conversion right now.

From lifemiles & Insideflyer sites the buy price is US$38.94 per 1000 netting you 2500 miles (there is a minimum purchase amount of 100,000 miles or US$3894.00 approx AU$5525.00) 

A few things to take note of if you are interested:

#1 - Only registered InsideFlyer members are eligible. So signup now

#2 - You must purchase between 100,000 & 150,000 LifeMiles.

#3 - You have from now until Tues Oct 6, 2015 to register for this launch promotion on InsideFlyer

#4 - You must be a registered member of LifeMiles by Tues Oct 6 to be eligible.

#5 - You will be able to buy LifeMiles thru Mon Oct 12  (there are restrictions)

There are other terms and conditions on Lifemiles (*I have included the link below) which make it a little confusing as to the time limitations on purchasing. 

I will update when I have access to the deal:

YES IT WORKS AND THEY HAVE EXTENDED THE DEAL 

https://www.lifemiles.com/eng/tra/pro/proinsideflyer.aspx

Frequent Flyer Talk

going overdrive today

Just been watching sunrise 7 and saw that they were interviewing Ben Schlappig from One Mile at a Time. He will be back on tomorrow.

There is a great offer to earn Velocity Point with Virgin Australia

Click the banner and it will take you to further info about the offer

the card's annual fee is $349

personal gross annual income of $65,000 required

only require to spend $1000 in the 1st 3 months

To make an offer good for me:

If  the calculation of A$15 per 1,000 points (miles) is greater than the annual fee then it's a goer.

I'm prepared to buy points (mile) at up to A$19 per 1,000 depending on the program

Life Miles 

Have done it again

LifeMiles is the frequent flyer program for Avianca and TACA

Condition : you must be a member prior to 19th December 2014

If you were a member you would got an email on 1st December offering a sweetener, for that day only if you purchased you would receive a bonus 25% on top of the 100% offered

A purchase of 66,000 miles netted 128,500 miles

Now that's getting in a nice position for 2015 

Here is what LifeMiles has done for me so far

The past year I have redeemed equivalent to 255,000 miles using miles (150,000) and pay (105,000) method allowing me to travel the following flights in business class

(taking a companion on one flight)

1 seat : Singapore (Singapore Airlines)  Shanghai (Air china) Sydney

2 seats : Tokyo (Lufthansa) Frankfurt (SAS) Oslo (SAS) Tromsø

1 seat : Copenhagen (Swiss) Zurich (Swiss) Tokyo