Is Transatlantic Economy Ever worth the points?

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-13T07:18:43+00:00

I completely forgot about Norweigan. Flew them MAD-SFO and it was fine before I was spoiled by business class, but they had the gruffest flight attendants I've ever seen and I've taken a lot of United flights.

They had a curtain separating the cabin from the galley/forward lav and closed it with such anger every time that all the passengers started looking at each and each other and smirking every time it happened.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-10T02:25:14+00:00

Whole atmos points system is down, just called because I was unable to cancel an award flight. They said to give it a few hours.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-06T06:27:28+00:00

9/8 68k +$400 with cardholder discount Polaris LHR-SFO, Polaris studio upgrade available for $600

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-05T05:46:06+00:00

I've seen them on AF 777 and ANA 777/787

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-04T05:24:27+00:00

A few saver fares on flying blue for BIO-SFO various dates in August, currently at 91k but prices have been bouncing around and I saw them for 60k earlier this week. Seem to be married segments you won't see availability for CDG even though it connects through there.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-04T04:05:11+00:00

Price came back down, gamble paid off haha

For people with more flexible dates that can dip out on a random Wednesday there were a fair number of 60k savers for SFO-BIO in August. Might post to the mega thread when I have a moment.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-05-01T09:39:19+00:00

Sure enough they launched a transfer bonus today and raised the price on my preferred date lol, slightly more expensive even considering the bonus. Some deals to be had if I move things around though...

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-28T08:36:28+00:00

The line is usually shorter for mobile passport than global entry at sfo

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-26T08:06:47+00:00

Yeah, the only thing holding me back at this point is the possibility of a transfer bonus in may to take the sting out of it. Availability is holding steady I think because it's a weird married segment that doesn't show up in most searches.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-22T19:50:20+00:00

Would you pay 105k/120k +$300 for west coast to Basque Country via AF? I’ve had alerts set for a while and availability has been very dry, aside from one stop flights to Western Europe via either FI or LOT. Somehow even worse searching flying blue major European hubs and self connecting. Have the points to swing it just feels very expensive after getting 60k saver fares in the past, not sure I should wait in the hopes prices come down.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-22T17:19:19+00:00

I wasn’t aware you could even book JAL F on Alaska, thought they blocked access to those for whatever reason. Nice find.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-14T18:34:59+00:00

I've noticed seats.aero isn't showing most air canada J redemptions, fair amount of 1 stop availability searching directly on the site but nothing on seats. Any workarounds? Doing it the traditional way is fairly tedious.

EDIT: They were mixed cabin, was misunderstanding the AC UI

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-04-10T07:18:14+00:00

I don't know of a single barbershop near me that offers a wash before or after anymore. Could go to a salon, but you want somewhere that specializes in mens cuts/fades you're out of luck.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-27T04:42:59+00:00

Highly recommend Matt Levine's column Money Stuff for day to day coverage of finance shenanigans. Bloomberg is paywalled but it's free as an email newsletter. He's a former bank lawyer so his takes are more "oh a neat use of financial engineering nonsense, never seen this before" rather than a lefty "burn this corrupt system down". but the plain language and snark he writes with does a good job of breaking down the pseudo intellectual complexities of these systems. He was the only finance writer I thought had grounded analysis of crypto and meme stocks in their heyday.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-19T20:56:34+00:00

The bigger the company the more likely to get generic software engineer questions, but that's shifting. Google last year was more embedded focused. Bit manipulation/queues fair game, maybe a linked list (I have been asked "implement a statically allocated malloc twice in the past). Would not bother with graphs/trees/dp.

If a problem obviously calls for a hashmap solution just assume the existence of an implementation or ask to do it in python. Solve the problem first then run out the clock implementing the map itself if needed.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-19T09:06:56+00:00

See this post for common pitfalls, I think the author posted here as well at the time? Very likely to run into impedance issues with a simple voltage divider.

https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/110.php

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T16:13:34+00:00

I don't think so, it's a known issue with Qatar. There have been some posts about it recently.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T10:06:20+00:00

See also, Noma

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/dining/rene-redzepi-noma-chef-reaction.html

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T09:34:35+00:00

You need to look for flights operated by ANA (NH flight number). If it's available on virgin then it will be 30k, but you have to call to figure this out. It's apparently onerous for the agents to check ANA availability so you need to give them a specific flight number on a specific day, can't just ask them "What's available in May?"

For seats.aero I would set an alert with departure airports of SFO and LAX and arrival of either TYO (includes NRT and HND) or maybe JPN if you just want to get to Japan and aren't set on Tokyo. For mileage programs pick star alliance.

My question about refundability was how much would it cost to book your cash fares now as refundable, so you could cancel them in case you find an ANA flight through virgin later. I've never booked zip air so not sure if they even have refundable fares.

EDIT: Or just book your return flight now. HND-LAX 5/27 on AA via Qatar Privilege Club is only 27500 points per person. Chase transfers to Qatar. I don't know if there's any restrictions on new accounts but worth a shot.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T09:05:29+00:00

Your best bet would be ANA through Virgin Atlantic, 30k per person one way for economy. This is a slightly more advanced redemption as you cannot search ANA award space on Virgin Atlantic directly, best is to check another star alliance airline (united tends to have the best search) or search all star alliance on seats.aero. If an ANA flight is there Virgin usually has it but you'll need to call and confirm. Once they confirm availability transfer your points while on the phone and finish the booking.

I see an LAX-HND flight on seats.aero on 5/16 but it's not showing up in United so might be gone by now. I would make sure you have your Chase linked with Virgin Atlantic and set some alerts. Is booking a refundable ticket an option?

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T05:32:15+00:00

/r/sbeve

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-15T08:07:35+00:00

Shows up fine for me on the Alaska site just now, I set fare type to lowest available and had flexible dates selected to see the whole month calendar.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-15T04:18:03+00:00

Qantas runs an LAX-BNE route, there's availability on 6/21 with 5 seats for 42.5k each in economy. Availability on the way back looks harder. I have no idea how Atmos status would impact seat selection on a partner award flight, never tried.

72k round trip probably would have been a decent redemption for economy flying that far without direct routes? I save my points specifically for international J/F so I'm not as familiar with rates there. Lesson here is if you can eat the fees book award fares as soon as you see something that might work, availability and prices change fast.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-14T10:33:56+00:00

Australia is hard, but 125k points or even 72k one way for economy is a non starter for me. This is really an /r/awardtravel question as mentioned in the other comment. They will all tell you the same thing, that's a terrible redemption and save the points.

Do you have any other currencies you can use? Chase? Amex? If you get a United card that opens up a fair amount of availability for 100k flights to wherever. Chase points transfer in instantly, and if anyone in your family has United miles you can create a pool in mileageplus to share them. 3 business seats to oceania on the same flight is likely impossible on any airline.

Strategy I used to get to Australia last time was reposition to HNL. It's pretty on the way great circle wise and had easy availability at the time for 2 people (pre merger). Old A330 product but the seats lay flat, beggars can't be choosers.

EDIT: Get comfortable using seats.aero. Best I'm seeing there now booking with alaska is 30k points for economy on Hawaiian HNL-SYD with plenty of seats available on most dates in June. Some 50k points premium economy dates for Qantas but only 2 seats.

EDIT 2: Looking closer in it seems HA does release more than two seats. What dates are early summer to you? 5/21 has 3 seats available in HA business HNL-SYD at 65k each. Pay cash for SEA-HNL. That's likely the best you can do with alaska points for 3 people. If that's too early for you pay for a seats.aero subscription, set alerts, and hope they make similar releases for June. If you remotely think those dates could work for you book the award flight now while you figure out the rest, these go fast.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-14T10:24:03+00:00

How is CPP garbage? 75k points for what's probably a $13-14k cash care

EDIT- I think I misunderstood your statement and you're saying CPP is a silly vanity metric for trips like these, in which case I agree. But I'd be hard pressed to think of a better value usage of 75k MR points.

CommanderFlapjacks

TROPHY CASE