Southwest Companion Pass

Have you been saving your frequent flyer miles, for what seems like forever, so that you can purchase a “free” international flight? Have you reached enough miles to purchase a one way international flight, but do not have enough miles yet to purchase the whole round trip? If so, you may have thought about purchasing a one way flight with miles and paying for the return flight in cash. Logically, half a trip paid for is better than paying for the whole trip, right? Well if this is what you think, you would most likely be wrong. Currently most airlines do not price international flights based off of a per way basis. That is a $1200 round trip flight would not necessary cost $600 per way if booked separately. I did a quick google flights search and posted screen shots below to illustrate my point.

Round Trip Aus to Man	One-way Aus to Man	One-way Man to Aus
Cost: $1198	Cost: $596	Cost $963

As you can see the cheapest round trip flight for the selected dates from Austin, Tx to Manchester, UK is $1198. Purchasing one way flights for the same exact dates would cost you $596 + $963 = $1559. That is $361 more than just booking a round trip ticket. This is actually an example of a very small price difference. It is very common for a single international one way flights to cost more than the cost of a round trip ticket.

The point I am trying to make is that using miles to get a free flight one way may actually result in you spending close to if not more than the cost for a round trip flight. From the example above, if you were to use miles to fly to Manchester and paid for a flight back, you would have saved $1198 – $963 = $235. Which means your “free flight,” which is actually worth about $600, was worth $235.

So what am I actually saying?

Most of the time, purchasing a one way international flight with miles will just be a waste of miles. However, if you do a little research you can almost always find a cheap flight to and from an international airport of interest to a U.S. city.

What do I mean by this?

Check the price for flights to major US cities from the international city. You will likely find one or more US cities that fly back and forth to the international city at a reasonable price. For example, one way flights from Manchester to Austin are $963/person but one-way flights from Manchester to Boston are $330. An easy way to check a large number of cities for a given date is to go to google flights, select the international city in which you plan to fly out of, select a U.S. city, select one-way, and select a date. Then search for flights. The city you selected may not be a cheap city to fly to from the international departure city. To find out if there is a cheaper US city to fly to, click on the map. Once the map loads, it will give you the price to many US cities for the same date you have selected. The only thing left to do is check if flying from the cheap US city back to your target destination or home city makes economic and logistical sense. Below I illustrate looking for the cheapest city on the map as well as finding a flight that logistically will work in bringing me to my destination/home city.

One-way Man to Aus	One-way Man to Bos	One-way Bos to Aus
		Southwest
Cost: $963	Cost: $330	Cost $288

In this example, we can fly to Boston for $330 and then to Austin for $288. That is only $618 round trip apposed to $963. Not only would you save $345 with this approach, the total travel time is 16 hours, 1 hour faster than the Boston to Austin flight. You may have noticed that I selected my flight from Boston to Austin on Southwest. This isn’t a coincidence. By flying Southwest, another opportunity arises to use the companion pass. If you plan to book your international travel with a companion, and this companion happens to be your companion on your southwest companion pass, then you save an additional $288. Which means it really only costs you $330/person to get to Boston and only $144/person to get to Austin. So you would be getting a one way international flight for $474/person opposed to $963/person. Pair this with enough miles to buy a one-way international flight and you get a round trip international flight for under $500 + a few miles.

What about the logistics?

The only thing left to do before booking is to make sure the logistics of your flights will work out. It is not shown in the figure above, but the Thomas Cook Airlines flight lands at 3:10 pm. The latest departure flight I could find on Southwest leaves at 5:40 pm. So the question is whether 2 1/2 hours is enough time to make an airline change for a connecting flight. Logistically for this to work, the plane would have to arrive roughly on time, I would need to get off the plane quickly, grab any checked luggage, transfer to southwest’s terminal, recheck my bag, go through security, and board my southwest flight. With some quick research about Logan International Airport (BOS), I see that Thomas Cook Airlines lands in terminal E and Southwest departs in terminal A. These two terminals are the farthest apart. According to Logan’s website, the transfer time between the two terminals is 5 minutes. A fast transfer is a good thing, making this a more viable option. The two major factors that are out of your control are when the plane lands (hopefully on time or early), and if your checked luggage arrives in a timely manner. If you can assume that you will receive your luggage within 45 min of landing, 5 minutes to transfer from terminal A to terminal E, 30 minutes to recheck bags at southwest, 30 minutes in TSA security, 10 minutes walking, you will arrive at your gate 30 minutes before taking off. Obviously there is risk involved here. Any single part in this chain of events could result in you missing your flight. It may be a lot to ask for roughly five independent time sensitive events to go smoothly.

How do you mitigate your risk?

To mitigate your risk you can book another refundable flight on Southwest for the following day. This way, if you know you are going to miss your flight upon your international arrival, you can cancel your first flight, and fly out the next day. If you are able to make your intended domestic flight, you can cancel the next day flight and use that credit for a future flight you intend to take. Obviously if the original flight does not work out you will incur more cost because you will need to find a hotel, but you could also look at it as a bonus city visited. You also have saved $345 for one person and between $690 to $978 for two people with this approach. So even if your costs associated with being stuck in your “connection city” is $300, you still saved a good chunk of money.

Recap: Booking a one-way international flight with miles.

1. Find a few cheap domestic cities you can fly to and from your desired international city.
   1. Ex: New York to London, Boston to Manchester, Dublin to Orlando.
2. Determine if this domestic city has cheap flights to and from your home starting or ending city.
   1. If your start/end city is Austin and there are cheap flights between Dublin and New York and Dublin and Orlando, check the price of flights from Austin to New York and Austin to Orlando.
3. Determine if logistics are realistic
   1. You are booking two independent flights, so any hiccups could result in you missing your connecting flight. Since the tickets are purchased independent of each other, you are not guaranteed by either airline to be able to make it to your final destination if a hiccup occurs.
   2. An obvious logistical issue would be booking a connecting flight out of a different airport in your connecting city. Make sure that flights out of these connecting cities are at the same airport. Flying to EWR in “New York” then flying out of JFK to Dublin will most likely result in you missing your flight.
4. Book your airfare

Useful tips

1. Use your mile to book your departing one-way flight to your international destination.
   1. This insures you actually get to your international destination without any issues.
2. Book your return home from your international destination with cash.
   1. The worst case scenario is that you get stuck in your connecting US city at the end of your trip not at the beginning.
3. Think about booking a refundable backup flight home from your connecting city.
4. Travel light.
   1. If you don’t have to check a bag, your life becomes way easier.

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