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A few weeks ago my mom and I were denied boarding on our flight home from Europe. Not only were we denied boarding, but Alitalia, the airline we had been flying, decided that they were not at all responsible for helping us get home. That’s a battle we had to fight another day because we still needed to get home — and ASAP — for other commitments we had.
Since it was already early afternoon when we were denied boarding, we had somewhat limited options available to get us home within a reasonable timeframe. Luckily, I have miles with different programs which gave me access to booking flights with any alliance.
First, I checked cash fares. The lowest cash fare was just under $1,000 per person, on Turkish, and would take us almost two days to reach our destination. After talking to Chase (since I booked the trip with my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card) to confirm that my trip insurance would not kick in, I knew that that wasn’t even close to an option.
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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
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Earn 50,000 bonus points when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $625 in travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards® Read Review » |
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Next, I looked for the low hanging fruit in regard to mileage redemptions. I have a lot of United miles, and United has a pretty good search engine, so I wanted to see how soon I could get us home using United miles. I also have a relatively large number of United miles, so would have been happy to use them if something worked out. I was in luck – there was availability for 30,000 United miles + ~$150 (taxes + close in booking fee) per person departing from Rome just a few hours from the point I was booking and arriving back in Detroit around six hours later than we were originally scheduled to.
After all the hassle so far, I was ready to call it a day and go for those flights, but a friend I had been talking to throughout the process pointed out to me that it would be possible to get back to Michigan even earlier using a combination of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic awards. We would have an overnight in London instead of Brussels, and only arrive in Michigan two and a half hours later than originally scheduled. It involved a very last minute booking that had me on my computer at the check in counter and yet again running to catch a flight.
This time, we made it in enough time that we could stop at the store, buy a beer, and chug it before boarding our flight. It seemed like an appropriate thing to do considering the day so far.
Our flight to London was uneventful, and Hyatt had been kind enough to let us change our hotel night that I had redeemed from my credit card to a hotel near London Heathrow at no penalty, even though we were technically past the cancellation time. The following morning, our flight on Virgin Atlantic went as scheduled back to Detroit.
All in, the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic flights cost about 25,000 miles and $300 in taxes per person. Higher taxes than the United option, but we were able to get home closer to the originally planned time and save 10,000 miles.
Have miles ever saved you during a travel disaster?
[Image via Getty]
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Delta® Reserve for Business
- Annual Fee: $450 fee
- Foreign Fees: No
- Card Type: Travel
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- Earn 40,000 bonus miles and 10,000 MQMs after you spend $3,000 in purchases with your new Card in the first 3 months.†
- Earn 15,000 Medallion® Qualification Miles (MQMs) and 15,000 bonus miles after you reach $30,000 in eligible purchases on your Card in the calendar year.
- Earn 2 Miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta. Earn 1 mile on every eligible dollar spent on purchases.
- Settle into your seat sooner with Priority Boarding and enjoy 20% savings on eligible in-flight purchases in the form of a statement credit.
- Pay no foreign transaction fees when you spend overseas.‡
- Complimentary Delta Sky Club® Access.‡
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Delta® Reserve for Business
- Annual Fee: $450 fee
- Foreign Fees: No
- Card Type: Travel
| FTG Review | Reward Breakdown | Points Breakdown |
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Breakdown
Earn (pt.)
Spend
3 months
0
$3,000
Per dollar on eligible purchases with Delta Purchases
2.00
$1
All Purchases
1.00
$1
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