My dad lives in Maine but spends the winter in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In April he would still be down south so I would need to get him a flight up to Boston so he could join us for the flight to London.

While I considered flying him from South Carolina to London on his own itinerary, we felt it was better we travel as a group as he wasn’t all that experienced of a traveler and was understandably nervous about trying to meet up with us in a foreign country.

Points vs. Paid

I would need to schedule his flight with some buffer before and after our scheduled flight to London. I didn’t want him flying in the same day we departed or arrived as that would be cutting things too close. Since he’s retired, his schedule was pretty open and he was flexible on when he could fly.

I looked at paid rates at several different airlines, including low cost carriers I normally wouldn’t consider including Allegiant and Spirit, which both fly direct to Myrtle Beach from the Boston area. Allegiant only flew seasonally and wasn’t flying during the dates we needed, so that was out, and Spirit was more expensive than mainline carriers once factoring in carry on, seat assignment and other charges. Spirit is also has lots of fees that my dad would have trouble getting around such as a fee for printing his boarding pass. The stress didn’t seem worth it.

Looking at mainline carriers the paid rates were still pretty expensive. Given his flexibility with when he could travel I investigated if we had any points in our accounts that would give us a good return for his ticket.

Since we usually travel as a family, we need 4x the number of points to do anything, which usually means 100k points at a minimum for domestic round trip travel. Anything less than that becomes harder to use. in this case, I only needed to buy one ticket so it was an opportunity to use points we otherwise wouldn’t have a use for.

My wife ALMOST had enough miles for a ticket on Delta. I had enough United miles, but it cost too many miles to make it a worthwhile return. I checked my miles with American and found I had more than enough. The lowest Saver level was availabile around the dates and times I was looking at.

Booking

We were leaving on a Thursday night so technically he could fly in that morning, but I wanted him there at least the day before just in case there were delays or a cancellation. I definitely didn’t want him to miss the flight to London! On his return we were arriving in the evening on a Sunday and would want him to fly back the next day at the earliest.

In the American Airlines search engine,I found were several options at the lowest miles rate. There was not availability departing on the Wednesday before we traveled, but there were a number of options the Tuesday. I selected a mid-day route with a short layover in Philadelphia since there were no direct flights. He’d end up in Boston just before rush hour.

For the return, they had availability on Monday, the day after we returned so I booked him a mid morning flight so he could avoid the morning rush hour on his way to the airport. His return flight had a short layover in Charlotte.

In the end this was an excellent use of points we likely wouldn’t have found a lot of use for. We got an excellent return based on the cash fares available at the time and the schedules worked out. While my dad would have to spend an extra day sitting around the house, it was something that we could easily work around.

I may have been able to use some of my transferable points to get this flight for fewer total points, though we have other plans to use those points in the future. The AA miles were ones we didn’t have another use for in the forseable future so this was a better option.

Now to figure out where to stay!