Not getting money’s worth when travelling? How to stretch air miles when ticket prices fluctuate

Not getting money’s worth when travelling? How to stretch air miles when ticket prices fluctuate

Dubai: If you’re a frequent traveller who has been making use of air miles in order to save on travel costs, aside from the obvious benefits you’ve come across, you would have also been faced with instances that would have frustrated you – more often now than before. This may be the lack of options available when you have lesser points or smaller miles balances, or even if your balances are flush with points, it may seem at times that the award rates are well beyond what seems reasonable to spend after you smartly saved up points and miles. “All it takes is a little know-how to stretch your points or maximise your miles farther, especially given that more flights worldwide are implementing ‘dynamic pricing’ strategies which fluctuate ticket costs,” said Sophia Sanchez, travel planning manager at a UAE-based European tour operator. “When an airline introduces ‘dynamic pricing’ for awarding tickets, it simply means that the number of miles required to redeem for a ticket fluctuate based on supply and demand. Earlier, most airlines worldwide used what’s called an ‘award chart’ to set how many miles you'll need for a given flight.” When you're looking to go from point A