A positioning flight is a flight you take from your home city to another city, where you will fly out from to get to your final destination.  It can be a great way to catch a sweet award deal to a destination you may have had your eye on, and get a better rate (sometimes even in cash) than what’s available from your hometown airport.  Depending upon the number of seats you need, and when/where you are going – you can save quite a bit, but you may also need to allow more time, money, and/or points/miles in your itinerary.  Here are factors to consider before booking that award deal you’ve found.

Let’s first take a look at our recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal.  While we are based out of Dallas, we flew from New York to Lisbon.  Why?  Because last summer/fall of 2022, when I was searching for flights – flights out from DFW were either nonexistent for the dates I was aiming for, on routes that weren’t working with my existing stash of points/miles, and just overall, costing me more in award rates for the 5 of us.  My goal had been to fly Air France, since after months of scouting deals I realized their award program, KLM/Flying Blue, had the best deals; 15k points one way/30k points round trip from New York to Lisbon (for the time that I was looking).

(Airfare taxes and total miles used for flights from New York to Lisbon, roundtrip.)

Back in March of this year, during spring break, we flew from Houston to Manchester, U.K.  We drove from Dallas to Houston, parked our car in Houston for the week, and then flew out from Houston.  From Manchester, we took the train into London – our final destination.  Again, why did we fly into Manchester?  Because I had found a deal from Houston to Manchester, on Singapore Airlines (a transfer partner of Capital One).  Miles were earned from my husband’s Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

(Airfare taxes and total miles used for flights from Houston to Manchester, U.K., roundtrip)

This fall we head to Japan.  We are flying Virgin Atlantic for the first time from Seattle, Washington to Tokyo, Japan.  I was able to catch a 30% transfer bonus last month for points transfers from Chase to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, making a roundtrip flight from Seattle to Tokyo just under 39k points/person!

(Airfare taxes & miles/person for a roundtrip flight from Seattle to Tokyo – w/a 30% transfer bonus, I needed to transfer just 38,500 Chase points/person!)

The common denominators here:  planning ahead and flexibility.  More often than not, the best award deals are found outside of your home airport.  That being said:

1 – Do you have the additional time to spend in transit/travel?  This goes back to flexibility, and it’s understandable that not all schedules may allow it.  We had to fly into New York, the night before our flight out to Lisbon.  On the return end, we had to stay one night, again, in New York, before flying out to Dallas the following day.  This meant more time spent traveling, with a total transit time of about 3 ½ days (we had 5 days to explore Lisbon, fyi).

2 – Do you have the additional points/miles/cash needed to get you and your travel party to the positioning city?  As stated prior, I had to book one way flights to New York and back, as well as book two one night stays – one on the departure end, and one on the return end.  This meant I needed a lot more points.  Because I book international travel about 6-9 months out, I had time and flexibility to book these flights and hotel stays.  At that time, I knew I would earn enough Chase points from our respective Chase Ink Business cards, and my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.  Those Chase Ultimate Rewards earned then allowed me to book flights on Southwest Airlines, and hotel stays through Hyatt.

3 – Most importantly, do you have the additional funds?  Remember, even if flights and hotel stays are covered in points/miles, there are always expenses.  Add in positioning flights, and you may have more – though yes, you may have saved a great deal on the main flight leg of your itinerary.  Any day spent away from home is going to cost you, frankly put.  Food, dining, transit, trains/buses, and/or Uber rides – have you accommodated for these expenses?  Even when using points/miles for your travels, a travel budget is always necessary for those additional, unexpected, and/or miscellaneous expenses.  Travel costs add up very quickly, especially when traveling with a family!

It certainly feels like a catch 22.  Our three international trips for this year were made possible by planning ahead, and booking positioning flights – but we had to consider each of these factors.  Because 5 award seats are hard to find (to anywhere really), I jumped on each of these deals, respectively.  I can’t reiterate enough planning as far out as possible – because there are multiple layers to the booking process!

 

Picture: Lisbon, Portugal – June 2023