Anatomy of an Award: Routing West to India on an American Airlines Award

This is a guest post from Chase Tajima. Chase is a tax attorney in Honolulu--Aloha! He writes about Hawaii tax law at TheTaxTable.wordpress.com. Anyone is welcome to submit a guest Anatomy of an Award post, so we can all learn from interesting award bookings.

I started following MileValue because I wanted to find a cost effective way to get from Honolulu to Delhi, India to attend my college roommate's wedding. Roundtrip flights from from Honolulu to Delhi ranged from about $1,600 to $2,000+ in economy.

Anatomy of an Award: Exploiting a South Asian Sweetspot on the US Airways Award Chart

US Airways miles stink because their routing rules and fees are frustrating.

But US Airways miles are incredible because the award chart is so generous. I've talked about sweet spots here and here.

Overall, the sweet spots on the award chart and US Airways off peak awards more than make up for the routing restrictions, so I value US Airways miles more highly than any other airline mile at 1.95 cents each.

If you use US Airways miles correctly, you can reap incredible value.

Anatomy of an Award: Triangle Award in the US for $10 out of Pocket

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.

Anatomy of an Award: Hilton AXON Award for Four Nights at the Sydney Hilton

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you’d like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

Yesterday, I talked about transferring 10,000 Hawaiian Miles to 20,000 Hilton points.

Anatomy of an Award: 23 Hour Layovers

Recently I had two clients of my Award Booking Service want to add a few 23 hour layovers onto their United award from Cleveland to South Africa. All the legacy US carriers have a rule in place that on international layovers, under 24 hours is just a layover, but over 24 hours is a stopover.

This distinction is crucial since no US carrier allows more than one en route stopover internationally.

Anatomy of an Award: Southwest Airlines. Exploiting the Airtran-Southwest Merger

This is the another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you’d like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

I am going to the Chicago Seminars for frequent fliers, being held October 12-14 at an O'Hare Airport hotel.

Anatomy of an Award: American Airlines. Using AA Miles to Fly Hawaiian Airlines to Australia Plus a Free Oneway

This is the another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I've booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.

Anatomy of an Award: British Airways. Using Avios to Fly Qantas within Australia

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I've booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you'd like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

My brother and I are going to Australia in January 2013 for the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne. He's got about ten days, and we decided to see Sydney, The Great Barrier Reef via Cairns, and Melbourne.

Anatomy of an Award: American Airlines. Using AA Miles to Fly BA Business Class to Paris

This is the second post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I've booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you'd like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

Last year, I signed up for two Citi AA cards and netted 150,000 AAdvantage miles.

Anatomy of an Award: Southwest Airlines. Using Orphaned Rapid Rewards Credits

You might have hundreds of dollars in free Southwest credits that are about to expire! If you have any old Rapid Rewards credits sitting around, you might be able to exploit them to save $158 like I just did.

This is the first post in a new series called Anatomy of an Award. Anatomy of an Award posts will talk about every aspect of the process of booking awards. Eventually I should have multiple posts on each frequent flier program.