I am currently on a business trip, and have completed my meetings. I am now trying to reschedule my flight home to an earlier time in the day tomorrow because I was originally on a late flight.

I have found that the best way to get a ticket changed is usually to call the airline directly as they are the ones who will be letting you on the flight you require.

So I call up American Airlines to ask if I can get on the earlier flight tomorrow. Please hold….. I’m sorry sir, that would be $500 plus fees…. then some explanation about the kind of ticket my travel agent booked. I missed the explanation due to my surprise at the price- my full original ticket including 3 flights was only $1000. The person I talked to at American Airlines was actually very nice and recommended that I just go to the airport tomorrow and they will probably get me on the earlier flight just for a small fee, because there are over 60 seats still available.

I guess the question I am asking myself today is- how can it be over $500 to reschedule a flight one day, then $50 or $100 less than 24 hrs later. Does this make a lot of sense?

 This is exactly the kind of thing that people hate about airlines.

Once you have collected some miles there is the question of what to spend the points on. Hopefully you went through some of this process when you started to collect points. To make sure you are getting the best value for your points you need to figure out what they are worth. How to do this? There is some excellent information on how to value your frequent flier miles or points on Gary Steiger’s website freefrequentfliermiles

Using the formula Gary recommends, I end up with my British Airways and Aeroplan miles being worth 2 cents each, my airmiles miles at 12.5 cents each, and my Marriott points at 1 cent each. This is going to be helpful for the next time I look at whether or not to use my points for something.

I find that having points is like collecting change in a piggy bank, it takes a while to get anything useful, but over time it is definitely possible. In most cases it is worth using the miles when you can because the managers of these loyalty programs can, and do, change the rules at any time.