Use the 330 Day Rule to Take Advantage of Frequent Flier Points

According to a recent USA Today travel article, the best piece of advice for getting the award seat you want for your frequent travel miles is to book early, specifically 330 days before your desired travel dates.  The 330 day applies to the first date when seats become available.

The author of the article stated that many people fail to take advantage of this insider’s trick, likely because they don’t know their travel plans nearly a year in advance or they forget to mark their calendars for the first day to call.

In fact, if you will be traveling anywhere over Thanksgiving 2007, December 28, 2006 is 330 days before next year’s Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2007.  While this date has already passed, you get the idea!  If you know that you will be going home for the holidays or celebrating the day in some over locale, why not plan ahead and take advantage of those frequent flier miles piling up? 

The article further goes on to explain that most airlines use 330 days because they load all new inventory into their reservations system 330 days prior to the flight.  If there are award seats available on the flight you want, then they become available the instant the flight is added to the reservations system.  In this case, the early bird really does get the worm, as there is no assurance that those award seats will be available weeks later.

The one caveat to using the 330 day rule is that your return flight will not be available to book.  Most airlines will not let you hold the first leg of your flight until the other leg becomes available.  It’s best to check with your airline for their specific rules because each airline handles it a bit differently.

If you find out that you can’t use your points to book your flight as intended, why not search around for a vacation package instead?  Virgin Vacations offers an amazing array of vacation packages and you don’t have to worry about any complicated points utilization rules.  Just select your preferred vacation, pick a travel date and other details and voila… you’re ready to go on an unbelievable Virgin Vacations vacation package!  What could be easier?

Posted by on 02/09 at 10:40 AM

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