Using Positioning Flights to Optimize Your Frequent Flyer Miles

Ms. Optimizer and I start our air travel at Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) airport. While RDU is conveniently located for us and is highly efficient to use, it is not as “international” as its name would suggest. When traveling abroad, we almost always leave the United States through a major hub airport like JFK or Boston.

 
We envy the choices that people living in areas like Washington, DC, New York, Miami, or Los Angeles have for international flights. But, in addition to more choices, travelers who start their international trips at major airports can fly abroad for far fewer miles than those of us starting at smaller, regional airports.

Some examples of current redemption costs for flights in March 2024:

• A round trip, main cabin ticket on Delta from RDU to Budapest will require 104,000 Delta miles but only 73,000 miles from JFK.

• A main cabin ticket on Delta from RDU to Rome goes for 130,000 miles but only 76,000 from JFK. If you want to fly Delta One class, the difference is 415,000 miles versus 290,000 miles.

• A round trip, business class ticket from RDU to Prague on United will set you back 235,000 miles while the flight from Washington Dulles would cost 168,000 miles. But interestingly, for main cabin, you need 84,000 miles starting from either airport.

A solution to these discrepancies is to take advantage of positioning flights from your regional airport to the major hubs. For example:

• You can get round trip tickets in Delta main cabin from RDU to JFK for 12,000 points so, in total, you would need 85,000 miles instead of 104,000 miles. Similarly, the cost of the trip to Rome would be reduced from 130,000 miles to 88,000 miles.

• You can get round trip tickets in United main cabin from RDU to Washington Dulles for 25,000 miles. This would lower the cost of the business class trip from 235,000 miles to 193,000 miles.

Obviously, this approach is not as convenient and as seamless as having all your air travel on one reservation. You must fly to the gateway airport, retrieve any luggage, check in again, and clear security again. You should certainly allow for extra connection time in the gateway airport to minimize any risk of missing the international flight.

 
However, as the examples above illustrate, the savings can be considerable. For the Rome example, the savings for main cabin would be 42,000 miles per passenger. The savings for the business class trip to Prague would also be 42,000 miles. The savings for the Delta One  (business class) trip would be over 100,000 miles per passenger.

If there is any pattern as to when positioning flights are useful or not, I have not been able to detect it. Sometimes there are considerable savings and sometimes there are none or the savings are negligible. However, if you are not already flying out of a major international airport, there is value in testing your options when booking award travel. Who knows? You may save enough miles for an entirely new trip.