Airline Junk Itineraries: Don’t Let Travel Rewards Become a Punishment

So, you have amassed a truckload of frequent flyer miles for a vacation trip to Europe. You decide you want to redeem your miles for a business class ticket and take advantage of a lie flat seat so you can arrive at your destination relaxed and rested. When booking your overseas flight, you skip over flights requiring 300,000 or 400,000 miles and are thrilled to find an option that only requires 58,000 miles. But, before you continue to book the ticket, you click on the flight details to learn more about routings and connections. And then you realize, to your horror, that you have been offered a “junk itinerary.”
 
The ”junk itinerary” vaguely resembles a feasible itinerary but, as soon as you think through the logistics, you realize that what the airline is offering could turn you vacation into a nightmare before it even begins. There are several types of junk itineraries.

1. The Ludicrously Short Layover (LSL): I have seen published domestic (US) connection times as short as 25 minutes. Even if your first flight arrives on time, if you are sitting in the back of the plane, it might take 15 minutes just to get off the plane. Then you must get to the next gate. Don’t forget, airlines might wrap up boarding and close the door on your second flight 15 minutes before departure time. And, of course, your initial flight might be late. There are itineraries with connections through major European hubs that only allow for an hour to connect. It can often take an hour to simply get off the plane and clear immigration.
    
2. The Ludicrously Long Layover (LLL): Some layovers can last 12 hours or more, forcing you to spend the night at a connection city or to spend long stretches in an airport. By putting in two long layovers, some itineraries can require as much as 36 hours of travel to get you from the eastern US to a European destination.
    
3. The Airport Switcheroo: Many itineraries that send flyers through New York City or Washington, DC can require you to change airports. Some of the connection times are dangerously short and do not seem to account for the possibility of heavy traffic. But even without traffic issues, there is the hassle of collecting your luggage after the first leg of your itinerary and rechecking it at the next airport.
    
4. The Cabin Class Switcheroo: This is a special type of “junk itinerary” where the carrier will put you in business class for your domestic positioning flight or your flight within Europe but the transatlantic flight to Europe is in coach class (so no lie flat bed). Apparently, the carrier believes you will burn lots of your hard-earned miles for the privilege of sitting in the front of the plane on the short flights.
    
5. The Airline Partner Ludicrous Surcharge: There are cash surcharges for any award travel even if it is only the $5.60 TSA surcharge on domestic flights. International flights can carry higher surcharges which range from the minimal to the obscene. Some airlines with international flights will offer good mileage deals but stick you with a higher cash surcharge (sometimes in the hundreds of dollars) when putting you on a partner airline while their own flights with reasonable surcharges require many more frequent flyer miles.

All the major US carriers that offer international flights mix in some junk itineraries with reasonable and humane options, so all bear some guilt. When booking flights with miles or points, it is critical to look out for these no-win situations.

When we create your customized Travel Rewards Optimizer plan, we examine itinerary offerings in the context of your travel goals and location. By doing this, we determine which carriers are most likely to give you reasonable itinerary options, so you have the best chance of starting your vacation without any undue stress.