My post on a woman sneaking up to business class on my Singapore Airlines flight caused quite a stir, with many indignant about me calling her out. But she could have avoided the embarrassment of being marched back to economy class if she just had frequent flyer miles.
Miles And Points As The Antidote To Sneaking Into Business Class
I’ve never been one to argue that frequent flyer miles are free or that you can “fly the world for free” with the right credit card. There is an opportunity cost to collect miles and the barrier to entry is high for many. The lucrative sign-on bonuses and promotions that are commonplace in the United States stand out against the rest of the world where more conservative bonus offers make it far more difficult to amass miles and points.
But I don’t think telling someone to “get frequent flyer miles” is like telling a financially poor person to “just make more money.” Even in nations in which credit is harder to obtain and bonuses are not as lucrative, there are still rewards-based cards, transfer bonuses, and the chance to earn more points and miles through everyday spending.
I’m not a manufactured spending person (maximizing credit card spend to earn rewards in a manner that creates a cycle of points without hurting your bank account), but still rack up a fair amount of miles with my monthly expenses.
Let’s say the woman on my Singapore Airlines flight had used a Capital One Venture X credit card to purchase her $8,000 Hermes leather handbag. She would earn 16,000 points that could be transferred to Singapore Airlines.
Business class upgrades start at 15,000 miles one-way for short-haul journeys. My entire ticket from Bangkok to Singapore to Los Angeles in business class cost 95,000 miles. Placing purchases on the right credit card instead of paying with a debit card or cash are key to earning miles.
Do it for family members too as long as they can pay you back. It not only allows you to earn more points, but provides purchase protections (well, unless you buy handbags…). It also builds your credit.
CONCLUSION
I speak from personal experience: in most cases I am not going to buy a longhaul premium cabin ticket with hard currency…I don’t consider that a wise use of money. But miles have allowed me to explore the world in premium cabins. You don’t have to sneak into business class if you cannot afford it: just be wise in earning miles.
Miles are virtually impossible to come by in a lot of places- their ubiquitous availability through credit cards is definitely a USA thing.
Case in point: I have recently signed up for what is likely the best airline credit card in the UK- a VS MasterCard. It has a relatively sizable annual fee (£160) which isn’t waived for the first year, comes with no lounge access, additional luggage or any other regular travel perks, and only gives 1.5 mile per pound on spending (no bonus for buying fuel and the like). They did give out 30k miles as a sign-up bonus and they also give you two upgrade vouchers if you hit £10k of annual spending, but there is no real prospect of collecting any serious amount of miles- earning miles through flying is also tricky as the airline in question doesn’t belong to an alliance or even offer any short-haul flights (although they do have partnerships with AFKL DL, and a couple of other airlines).
This is likely the best product in one of the biggest and most competitive markets for retail banking. The offerings in most smaller countries range from pathetic to nonexistent.
The best hack is living abroad but having access to us credit cards.
You get all of the miles that you could want and the priority pass lounges outside the US are so much better.
It does help if people can somehow use their cards in relation to their business, especially if people own their own business. It sucks if you work for someone else…
Hmmm – other countries have offers that one can exploit to get miles aside from credit cards. Personally, I read a whole bunch of newspapers daily (as political scientist working in politics I need to) and the big newspaper companies partner with LH Miles & More, so that I need to resubscribe only once a year during their promotions to get ca. 150.000 LH miles which is enough for a TATL in LH or *A business class (or two should they happen to have a mileage promotion ^^). Aside from the cost for the newspapers (which I have to pay anyways) I only fork over about a 150 Euro per return ticket in tax & fees (buying the 145,000 miles return ticket). Booking hotels can also lead to generating miles (M&M has a website that somtimes allows you to gain 15,000 miles or more per night)….without these tricks, I’d be flying only in Y or Y+ at most….
Yes, good point.
People are literally traveling around the country making really good money from the sign up bonuses for sports betting right now. You need 2 people (husband and wife, etc) and free thousands are out there. Arizona alone is worth an expected value of $11,200 per person for a couple hours works over a few days.
Like miles, you have to do a little leg work and be willing to take a profit and walk away. But most people won’t do the research, even if they live in one of the states offering the bonuses right now.
It’s not quite the same thing, though. I’ve flown business with miles and with hard cash. Some Euro countries are better than others for miles, and the only credit card I have is an airline card from another Euro country. Locally, the best I can get is 25k miles, no status, and no significant perks on M&M for 300 bucks a year. FB offers 5k miles. Don’t even ask how many miles you get for purchases.
But no combination of miles and money is as cool as getting a TATL Op Up (happens to me every couple of years, most recently last week). So, yeah, some people will just try to take it. It feels better.
Here in Australia, Qantas had a long running program whereby shopping at Woolworths for groceries would earn you one frequent flyer point for every dollar spent. And if the groceries were paid for with a Qantas branded credit card, there was the opportunity to earn even more points. Eventually, Qantas realized that the promotion was costing them too much in its current form and made amendments to it that made earning points much harder. But in the time that the promotion ran, I’m fairly certain that millions of Australians more than enough points to upgrade flights on their next domestic holiday. I enjoyed a good three years of being able to travel in business class on Qantas for short sectors such as Sydney-Melbourne, right up to longer flights such as Cairns-Sydney. And that was just from the points earned through buying groceries (I love grocery shopping so I buy a lot of food). I remember being on holiday on the Great Barrier Reef and when I remembered that I was travelling home to Sydney on a 3.5 hour flight in business class, it made my holiday all the more exciting. And I took advantage of everything offered by being a business class passenger, such as spending 6 hours in the Qantas lounge at Cairns Airport, enjoying breezing through security instead of waiting in line with hordes of economy class passengers and once being fortunate enough to get the entire business class cabin to myself on a Perth-Sydney flight….
I’m glad I’m not the only one who shows up six hours early just to enjoy a lounge! 😉
Well, I might not do 6 hours, but 3-4 I have. If you are just going to be working on a laptop anyway, why not be in a nice lounge having dinner and sipping champagne while doing so?
Once covid hit and I could not fly, I decided to use the time to good use and work on adding to my Qantas points. I use their fitness app to add points. Admittedly it is slow but it costs absolutely nothing. I purchase my petrol from BP, because I have to buy it anyway and my daily drive is 100kms. Finally I have a Woolworths rewards card, again I have to buy groceries and this each week adds to my total. I would love to do an upgrade on my next trip from Australia to the UK. Even if it is on half the trip.
I love your articles but no one likes a snitch
Good thing the flight attendants caught it…I wasn’t going to say anything!