Me and my wife will be traveling from Indianapolis to Phoenix and back at least once every 3 months for at least the next 1-2 years. Priceline seems to have flights for $129 each way and I was wondering should I book through the actual airline and if so, should I always use the same airline and if so which one would be the best for rewards. Miles are almost 2k each way for each person essentially 32k per year or more
Your primary choice is US Airways which is a member of the Star Alliance which will open up options on many more airlines including United within the US. There is no one airline that is best for awards, a lot depends on luck & flexibility.
Priceline has relatively few advantages, unless you are booking the tickets at very short notice. if you can plan out far enough in advance, you should be able to see rates close to that. If you need to make changes to your ticket, (you miss a flight, you need to stay a day, ect if you do that with Priceline, your done, no refund.) Your best bet is to pick one carrier (poster above chooses us air.) but pick one and stay with it. if you hit above the 25k mark in miles, you get additional perks, as well as free tickets. With Priceline, you have virtually zero chance of getting miles
Not tc on Priceline. If you need to go tomorrow, your best shot is Priceline if you have some flexibility as to the time of day to travel. you can typically get the 14 day rate or better with pl, but be prepaired to potentially not travel the most direct route.
In theory you could go phx to indi via washington dc, or la, as long as it was only 1 stop and less than a couple hours between flights. you could also leave at 515 in the morning, which might be worse than a red eye if you don't leave near the airport.
American allows you to use miles for a one-way reward; this way, if you do not earn enough miles for a RT, or have difficulties finding round trip reward travel, it is still possible to use accrued miles.
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