First up, a confession. I sing ‘be a free agent, a loyalty-free agent’ with such gusto I often fail to talk about the edge cases. The times when elite-status seeking does make sense, despite from the marketing floss.
Thank you to the frequent flyer from ‘DeltaLand’ I was chatting with recently. He reminded me it might make perfect sense when you live in, say, Detroit.
As we all know, though, when it comes to using miles there’s a pesky catch.
Even if you can find the availability that allows you to actually spend your miles, you only earn Elite Status credit when flying on ‘published fares’.
That’s fair enough, but it’s annoying—and extremely counterproductive—nonetheless.
It’s annoying because Elite Status is a hungry beast. If you don’t feed it, it stops being Elite. And of course, it only gets fed with green stuff.
So… many loyal elites find themselves in the rather loopy loop of spending real dollars to maintain the Elite Status that would allow them to spend their earned miles if only they didn’t have to spend the real dollars to maintain their Elite Status that would allow them to spend their earned miles.
All of which has helped us really concentrate our minds, and our research, again with revived vigor for the many of you that are elite focused (for whatever reason).
The result: an immense—and dense (pleasantly dense, I hope, for Star Alliance elite seekers)—article in this month’s First Class Flyer. (Yes, Delta strategies are being formulated in the FCF Lab as I write and you’ll hear about them shortly.)
The current special report just released de-conceals some very interesting routes for Star Alliance Elites who have Asia (or beyond Asia) on their radar.
And it reveals, da da, availability on low-fare (otherwise hidden) routes, and more.
It is one big strategy that leverages a fistful of tactics.
If the title of the May issue article is relevant…
… I think you will find much to enjoy in the four pages the article itself takes up in this month’s First Class Flyer.
The chart titles give you a sense of where it will take you:
Which Star Alliance Currency to use.
To Asia & Australia: Little-Known Routes with Unusually Low (Upgradable) B Coach Fares
To Seoul Little-Known Routes with Unusually Low (Upgradeable) B Coach Fares
Of course, we show you how to book the economy class fare and how to upgrade it to a Business Class seat, fast.
The ‘how to’ is complete with screen grabs.
(It’s all surprisingly simple when you ‘see’ it.)