How I Flew Around the World in Business Class for 228,000 Miles
My recent diplomacy book tour offers lessons on how to beat the airlines at their own game.
Why on earth am I writing about travel? Well, diplomacy is impossible without it, and I imagine that most of my readers, who are spread across more than 80 countries, enjoy visiting foreign lands and experiencing different cultures.
Just as diplomacy can’t be conducted without travel, so does international travel — especially aviation — depend on it. For an airline from one country to fly to another, it must secure landing and takeoff rights from that government, as well as overflight permissions from every country along that route. There are, of course, more complex examples of diplomacy’s impact on global travel, but that’s not the point of this column.
The point is that, having flown almost 3 million miles and visited over 100 countries, I’ve learned a few lessons that might benefit you, too. Some of my friends say that I’ve turned air travel into a science — unearthing the lowest fares, amassing millions of points and miles, flying in luxury, minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities.
Low cost, premium comfort
When I began planning my recent global book tour for “Diplomatic Tradecraft,” I knew that Cambridge University Press — like most academic publishers — wouldn’t cover any of the costs. During the first two parts of the tour, in the United States and Europe, event hosts paid most of the expenses, but I was on my own for the final, round-the-world trip, which took me to Australia, Asia and the Middle East.
So it was time to put my skills to work. My goal was to spend as little money as possible and use wisely the miles and points I had in various accounts. The challenge was to maximize their value by flying in business class — in a comfortable bed, and ideally, a private suite — without blowing 100,000 miles or more on a single flight.
I’m very happy with the results, and helping you learn how to do this would make me even happier. I wish all my readers — and more people in general — to see the world and experience what it has to offer.
Yes, it often feels like the airline industry has conspired to make travel expensive and unpleasant, but that’s no reason to stay home — it’s a reason to learn the inner workings of the complex and confusing system the airlines have created and beat them at their own game. That’s what I decided to do more than 20 years ago as a foreign correspondent on a tight budget, who nonetheless wanted to avoid the coach cabin. My last long-haul flight in economy was in 2002.
Australia for 63,000 miles
So let’s get to it. How did I book a round-the-world trip in business class for 228,000 miles? Which airlines did I fly? Did I sleep behind a closed door? How was the food?
The trip started and ended in San Francisco, where I was visiting from Washington, D.C. For my Pacific crossing to Australia, I chose United Airlines’ 14-hour nonstop to Brisbane. Although United’s business class is by no means cutting edge, it features a comfortable bed, perhaps the best bedding in the sky and solid privacy even without a door — if you select the right odd-numbered single window seat. The onboard food is mediocre, but I had a decent dinner before the flight in the Polaris lounge’s restaurant.
Finding a business-class saver award to Australia on any airline is a big challenge, but I wasn’t going to spend three times the miles for a standard award. It didn’t bother me that the United flight wasn’t available at the saver level when I searched a month in advance. With less than half the cabin sold, I was fairly confident that a seat would open up two weeks before departure, as often happens on flights with a similar load factor. I was right.
United wanted 110,000 miles — but I wasn’t born yesterday. I suspected that I could book the exact same flight using Air Canada miles, since both carriers are Star Alliance partners. A search on Air Canada’s website showed a price of 75,000 miles — the taxes were slightly higher, but the savings in miles easily made up for that.
It got even better. Although I had no miles in my Air Canada account, I could transfer points from Chase, Capital One or American Express. Chase happened to be offering a 20-percent bonus on transfers to Air Canada, which it does a few times a year for a limited period. So I redeemed 63,000 Chase points for the 75,000 miles I needed.
Return on investment
Saving 47,000 miles (or 43 percent) on just one flight is an excellent return on my investment in mastering the system — and this is just one of hundreds of examples I could list. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. But I bet most people would have paid the 110,000 miles United wanted, and if they didn’t have them, they probably would have settled for coach.
True, the system keeps evolving. United recently realized that many travelers were booking its flights using Air Canada miles, and it took the unprecedented step of pressuring Air Canada into matching United’s own inflated prices. Traditionally, each Star Alliance member has set its own rates for partner flights.
So we have to adapt — the key is to stay current. As a million-mile United flyer, I’d rather book directly with the airline, but it has lost my trust with its shenanigans, such as repeated and massive mileage devaluations overnight without any warning.
Most airlines are guilty of the same underhanded and unethical tactics: exploiting a complete lack of regulation of their so-called loyalty programs to twist them greedily at our expense. When they decided about a decade ago that they no longer needed to be loyal to their best customers, I reciprocated.
Next time I need to book a United flight, I’ll use miles from one of the other 23 Star Alliance carriers, many of which accept transfers of bank points. Even if United tried to strong-arm all of them, I doubt that many would fold as easily as Air Canada did.
Besides, Air Canada still offers lower rates for flights operated by other partners. Between North America and Europe, for example, it charges 88,000 miles for one-way United flights in business class, but as little as 60,000 miles if you fly on airlines like Swiss and Austrian.
It’s a convoluted game, and you have to be willing and able to play it.
The world’s best business class
Now, let me run quickly through the rest of the trip.
From Brisbane, I took a $2 train ride to the Gold Coast for the weekend, and then flew to Canberra on Virgin Australia. The business-class fare was less than $300 — not too much higher than regular economy — and I used an annual travel credit of the same amount that comes with the Capital One Venture X credit card. The Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers the same benefit, but I had already used it up.
From Canberra, I flew Qantas to Sydney and British Airways to Singapore for a total of 40,000 American Airlines miles — all three carriers are members of the Oneworld alliance. On the eight-hour flight, the British plane featured a comfortable private suite with a bed and a door, and the food was surprisingly tasty for an airline obsessed with cost-cutting.
On the short hop from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Airlines used a long-haul aircraft with proper business class seats. It cost me less than 15,000 Singapore miles, which I transferred from American Express.
From Kuala Lumpur, I flew Qatar Airways to Doha and Etihad Airways to Abu Dhabi — again for 40,000 American miles. Even though Etihad is not a Oneworld member like American and Qatar, it still partners with American.
Qatar offers perhaps the best all-around business-class experience in the world — elegant lounges, spacious suites with doors, restaurant-quality meals, comfortable pajamas and attentive service. The eight-hour journey featured all the amenities the airline provides on flights twice as long.
The short hop on a narrow-body Etihad plane was pleasant but unremarkable — nothing like my previous experience in first class on its Airbus 380, complete with an in-flight shower.
Finally, from Abu Dhabi I flew back to Doha, before connecting to San Francisco, for a total of 70,000 American miles. Qatar labels the front cabin on its intra-Gulf routes as first class, rather than business. So I made sure to book a long enough connection to take full advantage of the exceptional first class lounge in Doha — I worked in the spacious business center, dined in the excellent restaurant and relaxed in a sleeping room with a private shower.
The 16-hour flight over the North Pole was a treat — especially if you know how to enjoy luxury in the air. Qatar’s elaborate meal services and extensive entertainment library helped a lot.
And that’s how I flew around the world in business class for 228,000 miles.
Join my air travel webinar
As much as I hope that my story is useful, you won’t really learn how to play the game from an article — and I haven’t even addressed questions like how to earn all those miles in the first place without necessarily flying. My book “Decoding Air Travel” covered the system’s intricacies in depth, but it came out in 2011 and is somewhat outdated.
I’d like to be more helpful, so I’m offering my Substack subscribers a 90-minute webinar on Saturday, August 9, at 12:00 p.m. ET. I don’t claim that it will magically make you an expert, either, but at least it will provide a better opportunity to learn than an article does. Although U.S.-based travelers would benefit the most, readers from other countries are welcome, too.
I debated whether to do the webinar for free. On one hand, I don’t want to create an artificial barrier. On the other, all “Diplomacy Notebook” articles and “Diplomacy Podcast” episodes are free, so I’m already giving up a significant part of my time — and it takes much longer to prepare a short, dense session than a daylong workshop. Most important, I’ll save you a lot of money over time.
In the end, I decided to make the webinar available to those who donate $25 or more to my Substack and podcast work. If you are a subscriber, click the button below and enter the amount you’d like to pledge. If you are not, make sure to subscribe before making a donation.
You will receive the session link 24 hours before the event. I look forward to teaching you my air-travel science.
What’s your take?
Have you beaten the airlines at their own game?
Leave a comment below.
Nicholas Kralev is the founder and executive director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy, and a former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent. His books include “Diplomatic Tradecraft,” “America’s Other Army” and “Diplomats in the Trenches.”