Secure Flight Rule and the Watch List

Just saw news* that the US Govt Dept of Homeland Security has revealed the size of the "Terrorist Watch List". The list is supposed to be about 2500 names long (the no fly list) and less than 10% on the list are US citizens according to the DHS/TSA**. Read DHS Official Press Release here.

"Airlines will be required under Secure Flight to collect a passenger's full name, date of birth, and gender when making an airline reservation."

Information on "Secure Flight" a program to pre-register so that you are considered a "safe passenger" is also briefly covered in this post.

So the list is finally quantified, ending a lot of speculation and folk tales of the list size being in 100's of thousands to almost a few millions. The main no fly list consists about 250 US Citizens according to the DHS.

While there is a ton of legalese and other information in the Final Secure Flight Document (195 pages), including TSA responses to several comments from different air operators and other authorities etc., the one thing that caught my eye was this:

"The Secure Flight Service Center will be staffed 24-hours a day,
7-days a week to receive telephone calls from covered aircraft operators' staff and assist in the clearance of inhibited passengers"

So there you go, somebody will be working 24/7!

Anyways to wrap this up, I will just mention that I read the first few pages, then I read several pages of comments. Then i got tired, and decided to run keyword searches on how TSA was using the age information that it requires to be provided by airlines 72 hrs ahead of time or as soon as available in case of last minute reservations.

I searched for food, kids, children or child and did not get a single hit in the 195 pg document. I did this because we often see in the news that a young child has a name match with somebody on the TSA watch list and ends up getting delayed and undergoing enhanced screening.

DHS Official Press Release.

* News on CNN.

DOB, Full Name Required Headline

Secure Flight Ruling (10.7 MB, PDF)

**Dept of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Admininstration

Starwood points for no blackout date flights

Starwood introduced a new program called SPG Flights where one can redeem Starwood points for the cash value of any available airline ticket on required dates. While, it might seem a little pricier than the "so-called" free award ticket, it has the benefits of being free from blackout dates and capacity control restrictions. Additionally, it seems like you can redeem the points on several airlines.

I have not personally used this systerm yet, but I test drove the website and interface for multiple itineraries and compared with orbitz travel results side by side. I ran a weekend flight search from an obscure airport in Pennsylvania - State College (SCE) to San Francisco (SFO) on Sep 26 returning on Sep 29. Sidestep returned lowest cost flights in the range of $475.

Starwood returned lowest points flights at 40,000 points. Considering that 40,000 points converts to 50,000 miles with most airlines with Starwood redemptions, this deal is very close to the assumed value of Starwood points (1.25 c = 1 point).

In fact based on the prices on sidestep, we can see that Starwood seems to be pegging the value at 1.18 c/point. The biggest benefit in my opinion is that you can pick another airline apart from the one where you plan to add your miles and redeem free flights. So essentially you get a lot of flexibility in flight timing choices, hubs etc. Also according to the FAQ listed on the Starwood site, frequent flier miles can still be earned on the flights taken.

However, if you were to compare this to the United "choices" program you cannot do any partial redemptions. At least I was not able to figure out such an option. A complete chart of the points to money value as of early Sep 2008 was this:

Starwood's site mentions the following as the biggest benefits:

You still have the option to transfer Starpoints to an airline and receive miles with Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partners; however, SPG Flights allows you to skip the transfer step, expands your flight options to include more airlines, and eliminates blackout dates and other restrictions found with airline mile redemption programs.

Once again, I cast my vote in favor of the Starwood American Express credit card as the only rewards card worth the annual fee! So if you are looking for a single rewards credit card that you plan to pay off on a monthly basis, one that offers a good buyer's protection program and an excellent car rental insurance program and other hotel related benefits, then I can shamelessly say that the Starwood Amex wins hands down.

Converting Airlines Miles to Amazon Certificates

This post explains some conversions of airline miles (AAdvantage, US Airways etc), on the miles swap website points.com (details true as of Aug 19, 2008 when logged in from US for my account). If you are completely new to Points.com, make sure you use the "Start Here" link in the green menu bar at the top of the points.com site.

For info on magazines for miles go back in time.


Your actual conversions might be different. Briefly, it seemed to me that AA miles convert better than US Airways for getting Amazon cash.

Points.com does give you flexibility in terms of coverage from Aeroplan, US Airways or America West miles, Frontier, Delta, American Airlines, Amex Membership pts, IcelandAir, Midwest, Hawaiian and a few others.


As you can see in the image above (click for larger size) you can convert points on points.com to a variety of gift certificates with Avis or Macy's or Amazon or Gap, TJMaxx etc.. Each have their own conditions and restrictions but it might be worth converting free miles that you got somewhere.

But when it comes to converting any of these to something that you want, be prepared to lose 50, to even 70-80% of the value at times. But hey, if you earned all the miles through credit cards or paid business travel, why not just spend them and stop worrying about expiry.

One way to convert obscure miles in random amounts (like 6000, 11345 etc) to something useful is the Amazon Gift Certificate option. You seem to get a good deal from AA, No deal from Delta and a stingy deal from US airways miles. I did not review other programs as I don't have any miles in them.

For example let us try to swap a hypothetical 30000 miles Swap 29,882 AAdvantage® program miles for a $127 Amazon.com gift certificate,

In contrast, check how much devalued US Airways Dividend Miles are: swap 29,412 Dividend Miles® miles for a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate

This is on top of the fact that, when you get any Dividend Miles Credit Card** you have to pay the Annual fee ($85) from the first year itself. (the post diverges here to talk about credit cards)

In my opinion, the Dividend miles card is NOT WORTH IT Go for some cash back cards instead if you really need a rewards credit card. However I did end up using some 15,294 Dividend miles for a $13 Amazon cert. Hey otherwise those miles were going to expire and go waste.

The only other option I had was to donate it to Make a Wish Foundation, but I had already done that to 5000 American miles before so I didnt want to do it again so soon.

Note that the 30,000 miles on AA can get almost free ticket to Latin America or Puerto Rico from US. (off peak of course).

25000 on US Airways may get you a free ticket or maybe not. Depends on the route and your luck and the temperature in Wisconsin (I made that up, but there is no way to figure out Airline FF awards, haha).

** Link to Dividend miles card information: Card Info

Delta Nortwest Merger and Frequent Flier Miles

I recently read an article here about somebody's plan trying to book an award ticket next Spring for two people to Hawaii for the cost of $90. My first issue with that is this is a very very risky venture with a low chance of success. Why Skyteam you may ask? Many frequent travelers think that when it comes to award redemption, Skyteam is the toughest. I joined the ranks of those people with a first hand experience in that process recently!

[While the premise of flying free with DL miles is good, the author needs to back it up with past successful results with Delta/NW on getting free flights in this manner or they will get a serious reality check]

Coming back to the issue at hand, saver economy tickets (35,000 miles per ticket on Delta) to Hawaii are the hardest to find because they are gone usually 330 days ahead of time. Or, the opening day of award seat availability for most airline ticket systems. The author's son is planning a trip in next spring, good luck buddy. I really wish you good luck but it's gonna be hard especially after the NW/DAL merger. However, if you ever read this post, make sure you read my story just below this post and make sure you look for availability on delta or continental websites and then call an agent with some probably date ranges - and do it the moment you get your miles in the account!

Additional notes
By the way the cost of $90 for 2 tix is far from accurate. Airlines are already imposing ($25-$50) fuel surcharges, $5 to book online award tickets e.g American, US Airways]. So while the thought is noble in the author teaching his son how to travel at a discount (yes that is what I can call it, not free travel), they need to be made aware of possible sticker shocks which could add up to $50-100 per ticket including surchrages and airport taxes and other fees). Of course this would still be cheaper than the $500-700 per ticket. Also to be noted is that sometimes, to book an award ticket for a relative/friend using your miles, you may not be able to use the website but have to call a reservations agent - which means an automatic $25-30 fee. I don't blame the airlines for the fuel surcharges, but a lot of other fees are the bane of air travel nowadays.
A small tip regarding award travel: to reduce your baggage fees try booking on Continental - it seems to be the one Skyteam airline as of now that is not charging a 1st bag fee. i wonder if this is due to the fact that CO's main market is Houston - where it competes with Southwest - which has not imposed a 1st bag fee yet. Otherwise be ready to pony up $15 to carry your nail clippers and shampoo bottle in checked luggage :).

There is one other option which the author could have elaborated. Even if you cannot book an award ticket directly, Delta might buy back your miles at the rate of 1c/mile if you use the Amer express Delta card and pay for your trip using the miles. This is similar to the Choices program by United. More details behind those links in the fine print. This way, a person could redeem some of the miles earned using the Delta card - note that the Northwest miles which convert to Delta might not work in this process - no guarantees. So given all these hoops one has to jump through it seems like a better idea would probably be to learn value investing or swing trading and make good money and then pay full fare tickets and use the miles to bump to business class. Disclaimer: Risks are a given in stock investing and trading which might include a loss of all your capital and maybe some more. There are also tax issues with capital gains.

The Torture of (Skyteam) Airlines Miles and Redeeming for Awards

I can tell this to you in one line:
If you want to fly for free on Delta or Northwest or Continental airlines or any other Skyteam alliance airlines, it is very very hard to do so.

This post specifically targets Skyteam after my 6-8 day marathon in an attempt to book free tickets using my 31000 flying blue miles. The miles were up for expiry at the end of August, so I was calling around Air France at the end of July to try to book a ticket to the Caribbean or to Latin America (which cost 30000 miles and is a good deal). Of course since Air France is based in France, they do not offer an online booking option for booking on other airlines. This is standard industry practice so I don't blame them.

But the difficult part was trying to find booking on Continental or Delta or Northwest. I searched for several dates in March and in May, and the cheap 30000 miles economy class was not available on either the outward or inward legs for several day pairs that I tried. A word here about looking for award seat availability. Delta's website was by far the easiest which showed availabilty for 14 days before and after your requested date. So at a simple glance at the month you could easily figure out what dates were good. But often, the answer was none. Northwest's website was the worst to deal with. Continental was in between, in terms of searching for award seat availability.
I could not find any availability to (gasp) Puerto Rico (SJU), US Virgin Islands (STT), Santo Domingo (SDU), Caracas (CCS), San Jose Costa Rica (SJO), Honduras (TGP?). The only place with some easier availability was Panama City (PTY) but I was not too keen on Panama, especially compared to Costa Rica. So why do I have an issue with Skyteam: well while I was looking for flights on skyteam airlines, I was also checking on American Airlines, on which there was tons and tons of off peak availability in March and May - the times I was looking for a Spring break or early summer travel. The other reason apart from mile expiry for me was that Delta/Northwest fly out of my little town, but not American.
However, that incentive was removed once I called Air France - they ruled out award tickets from my obscure town's airport and also mentioned that come Jan 09 there wont be any skyteam flights out of here anyway. I spent 3-4 phone sessions lasting 20+ minutes each (burning valuable daytime minutes) looking for tix to Latin america, Hawaii (very hard even normally), or Alaska or even New Mexico or Arizona from the east coast.
At this point I was envisioning conspiracy theories that airline computers are programmed to reduce availability on returns within a week or two of outgoing flights to PR/latin america etc so I started searching in a different browser for awards from Latin America to US to check my theory. Fortunately in that search there was no availability from Latin America to US on my "originally planned return dates". So I felt a ray of hope that there was no evil programming against me. Also, in the past I have tried booking tickets on Jet Airways or Kingfisher airlines only to be quoted outrageous fuel surcharges of $105 per trip so I decided against doing those trips. I should add though that I have flown award tix on United twice without any hassle or major difficulty in finding seats.

So now after 3 phone sessions which did not lead anywhere, I did an aggressive search on Continental.com and finally found availabily in a nice 1 week window in May from JFK to Puerto Rico. That's it, I dropped everything and called Air France, reeled off the exact dates and times to the AF rep and bingo, the agent was happy to find me seats. Of course, little did she know that I knew exactly what was open. Then I had to pay up fuel surcharges and taxes to reserve my ticket so I ended up spending $78 immediately for a ticket next May to a Caribbean island. At least, I would not need to carry a passport on that trip, whew!