Use Miles to Make a Flight Much Cheaper
Everyone, look at how we can:
- Buy an air ticket for zero cost
- Reduce the total price of an air ticket
This way, we can budget travel.
In this article, I am going to share an experience I had recently when purchasing an air ticket.
I travel one or two times a year round trip from Madrid to Delhi by air.
I have been doing this for the last 25 years.
I always search for the best offers on various flight comparison platforms and select one for my journey from Madrid to Delhi.
I have always applied a few criteria:
A) The airline with the shortest flight duration from Madrid to Delhi, and the same for the return journey.
This is my main criterion.
The second criterion is:
B) Whether the flight departs in the late afternoon, evening, or at night.
This allows me to save one day of vacation. I can work in the morning and then catch the flight in the late afternoon or evening.
I avoid taking night flights, but I will if there are no other options.
I apply these two criteria when starting my search and comparing flights.
Madrid to Delhi takes a minimum of 11 hours.
Delhi to Madrid takes a minimum of 13 hours.
These times include a 3.5-hour layover at an airport en route to catch a connecting flight.
A few years ago, Air India launched a direct flight from Madrid to Delhi in 7-8 hours, with the return in 8-9 hours. It was great for my trips, as it took very little time.
However, Air India discontinued this option during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, I start my search using my two criteria.
Once I have selected a few options, I introduce a third criterion:
C) The best offers on ticket prices.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I used to pay 700 euros for a round-trip journey.
Since the pandemic, most airlines have raised their ticket prices.
Now, I pay between 900 and 1200 euros, but according to my selection criteria.
You can find cheaper flights, but they might take 30-36 hours to reach your final destination or require an early morning departure, which is inconvenient if you live in another city. In such cases, you’d need to arrange travel at night to reach the airport in time.
Based on my criteria, I typically spend around 1000 euros.
I usually buy my ticket 45 days to 2 months before my journey begins. Otherwise, you end up paying more.
For my last few trips, I flew with Etihad Airways.
When I first booked with Etihad, I was informed about their loyalty program, now called Etihad Guest membership.
I joined, but I never gave it much importance because I didn’t think claiming miles for my flights would be beneficial.
However, Etihad Guest has automatically registered miles for my last few trips after each booking.
I could see the miles data, but I didn’t know what to do with the miles.
Today, while booking my flight to India again, I decided to investigate how to use the miles to reduce my ticket price.
I entered the airport names and journey dates in the search engine. There was an option to check: "Pay with miles."
I checked this option, clicked search, selected the best flight based on my criteria, and proceeded to the payment page.
I saw that to purchase a round-trip ticket, I would need to use 120,372 miles + 302.70 euros.
The ticket isn’t free, as I still have to pay a minimum of 302.70 euros.
I have a total of 18,000 miles in my Etihad Guest account, so I adjusted the payment by using the minimum miles.
It required 3,414 miles, and if I use these 3,414 miles, I would need to pay 1,212.93 euros for my air ticket booking.
Since I have 18,000 miles, I checked the maximum I could use for payment.
The maximum allowed is 17,059 miles, and I would need to pay 1,113.93 euros for the tickets on this journey.
By using miles, I saved 100 euros. You can do it too!
You can also join the Etihad airline affiliate program, and by using the affiliate link, you can save a bit more.
While it may seem like a small amount, it’s enough to cover the cost of a round trip ticket from Delhi or Madrid to my home.
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