Is That Legal?

It was easier for me to figure out how and why god works than the flight ticket pricing :) I am an enlightened man in that, I know it can't be figured out.

Don't know about beating the system. My NWA points (my family has more 1/2 million) are wedged in NWA's "roach motel". The points go in but I can never get them out ;-)

I've had pretty good success with these guys on lowcost international flights:

http://airlineconsolidator.com/

Your problem is gonna be booking 4 tickets on the same flight. Redeeming one ticket on an international flight...easy enough. But there's apparently some arcane formula with what percent of a flight has to be revenue producing. Try booking two, buying two...?

My coworkers and I usually have much better luck at using FF miles to upgrade. I tried to redeem them for a trip last year, but wanting first class made it impossible. It was literally impossible to get every leg in first class from departure to destination. It also meant flying twice as many legs as simply buying the first class tickets in the first place. I think the frequent flier programs work just about as planned: They encourage you to fly an airline on which you have flown before without providing the advertised benefit in any reasonable fashion.

In 2002 My husband and parents flew from NYC to Australia first class. (My Post-Bar Exam gift, 270,000 freequent flyer miles) Here is how we did it:

1) we booked 354 days in advance, which was the maximum we were allowed to book in advance.

2) The only date that wasn't flexible was my Husband and I need to leave on August 1st and therefore, to get from NYC to Australia we flew NYC to Pheonix, Pheonix to LA, LA to Auckland, Auckland to Sydney.

3) My parents flew to Australia at a later date.

4) we all flew home at different times. My husband had to return to NYC for business on the 20th, my parents returned on September 2 and I left on September 3.

Figure out the maximum number of days in advance that can be booked and then call up and try to book it. Try every day after that until you get your seats. That's my advice.

Off topic, technical suggestion.

When reading Is That Legal? via Bloglines (RSS), the author of each post is not visible. Would it be possible to change your RSS feed such that the author of each post is displayed? Just a thought.

ELM: If somebody can tell me how to do it, I'd be happy to!

You made the wrong people mad with your political commentary. The same people who make gas prices move for elections (often called the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy -- but that understates the true nature of it) have a "no redeeming your frequent flyer miles" list, secretly honored by every airline.
It's all Bush's fault. How did you not figure that out? He is both shockingly stupid AND ruthlessly manipulative, depending on what he needs to be blamed for. But, he is to blame for everything (or Karl Rove, at least).

"It's all Bush's fault....He is both shockingly stupid AND ruthlessly manipulative, depending on what he needs to be blamed for. But, he is to blame for everything (or Karl Rove, at least)."

Watergate, you've put your finger on the genius of the Bush/Rove duo: one guy to be shockingly stupid; one guy to be ruthlessly manipulative. It works out great, because the manipulative guy figures out how to GET the power, which is all he cares about, and the supid guy gets to USE the power, which is all he cares about, and the rest of us get to see our country driven into a ditch, humiliated, demeaned, divided, mismanaged, with devastating results for real people that neither of them seems to care about.

Of course, Cheney pitches in on the ruthlessly manipulative part. I think the division of labor there is that Rove concentrates on manipulating voters, and Cheney concentrates on manipulating the President. Cheney plays a larger role than that of course, coloring the manipulation and animating the stupidity with the third part of the package: wacky ideology. But discussing Cheney's methods and motives always leads to complicated speculations about the nature and sources of human malice - and who has time for that?