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My family is becoming “commuter” travelers for some of our Delta Air Lines flights. We live in Los Angeles — but Las Vegas is turning into our “base.”
Commuting — Not Just for Pilots and Flight Attendants?
It’s not uncommon for pilots and flight attendants to be based in one city and live in another. Maybe it’s too expensive to live in their base city. Perhaps they simply don’t want to live there or have family at home.
For example, I met a Delta Air Lines flight attendant who is based in Los Angeles but lives in Austin, Texas. She often does AUS to LAX turns. YouTuber Trolley Dolly lives in Orlando but commuted to Minneapolis-St. Paul when she worked for Sun Country. During a Delta flight from Vegas to LAX, I met a JetBlue pilot who lives in Sin City but is assigned to Los Angeles.
And the Los Angeles – Vegas connection is where our story really begins.
In order to save money, we’re starting to position ourselves to different locations where roundtrips are actually more affordable than from our home airport. And Las Vegas is slowly becoming our “base.”
One of my friends lives in Detroit and often commutes to Toronto (YYZ) or New York-Kennedy (JFK) as bases for international trips (and he still saves money!) René sometimes leaves out of Chicago-Midway for his trips; it’s just a two-hour drive from his house.
How Do We Save Money Positioning to/from a Different City — Especially Vegas?!
I’ve found that flying Delta Air Lines for some trips out of Las Vegas is significantly cheaper than departing from one of my home airports such as Los Angeles International (LAX) or Hollywood Burbank (BUR).
It’s especially true when using one of the Delta SkyMiles® American Express Card Companion Certificates.
For example, First Class tickets for about $1,200 each were the only Companion Certificate options for our annual LAX to Fargo (FAR) summer trip this year. (We’re using my Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card‘s Companion Cert.) That would cost my family of three around $2,400 after taxes.
Main Cabin tickets were about $800 a pop. Because there were no eligible Main Cabin fare classes, that meant we’d have to purchase three of those. That would be $2,400 total. Flying First Class would be a better deal (and more comfortable!).
But those prices are insane and not in our budget right now.
So, I ran Google Flights checks for trips departing Orange County (SNA), Long Beach (LGB), Ontario (ONT), San Diego (SAN), Las Vegas (LAS), Phoenix (PHX), San Francisco (SFO), Oakland (OAK), Sacramento (SMF), Reno (RNO), and Boise (BOI).
Southwest Airlines flies to the final seven airports on that list. So, if we found something significantly cheaper than $2,300 roundtrip from one of those cities, we could hop a Southwest flight from Burbank, then start our Delta trip from that location.
Vegas was the big winner — by far. In fact, we did the same thing a few years ago and saved a ton of money basing ourselves out of LAS when we flew to FAR.
Main Cabin roundtrips from LAS to FAR came out to about $678 and were eligible for the Companion Certificate! I used the certificate for my wife and daughter’s airfare. I paid with my The Platinum Card® from American Express because it earns 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel (on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year).
I used the same Amex Platinum Card to pay for my trip, too. Thanks to a $40 statement credit Amex Offer for Delta flights booked through Amex Travel, I combined points and cash to pay the fare. Because I have the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, I’ll earn back 35% of the points I used. I’ll be out of pocket about $8.20 for the trip. (Card members can earn back 35% of Membership Rewards points they use to pay for all or part of an eligible flight booked with American Express Travel. They can earn back up to 1 million points per calendar year.)
The Southwest roundtrip from BUR-LAS cost $202 a person, or $606 total for all three of us. I used points to pay for that. I hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve®*, so I can redeem points at 1.5 cents each for Chase Travel℠ purchases. I used 35,000 points toward that and paid about $90 in cash for the remainder (just in case I need to use the card’s trip interruption or cancellation benefits).
But our flight departing Vegas leaves a little early for us to leave L.A., get our bags, re-check them with Delta, and make our next trip. Plus, our return to Vegas arrives around 9:30 PM. That’s too late for a flight home.
Hotels, Ground Transportation, and Meals
So, we’re at $776 out of pocket for all airfares. That’s roundtrip from Burbank to Vegas, then Vegas to Fargo. (Keep in mind we used points and a Companion Certificate.) That’s a heck of a lot less than $2,300. But we still need to find places to stay on either end of the our trips to Fargo.
I’ll use the $25 Uber Cash deposit from my Amex Platinum Card and $10 Uber Cash deposit from my American Express® Gold Card to help get us around. (Amex Platinum members enjoy Uber VIP status and earn up to $200 in Uber savings on rides or Uber Eats eats orders in the US annually. Receive $15 in Uber Cash each month, plus a bonus $20 in December. Uber Cash and Uber VIP status is available to the primary cardholder only. An Amex Card must be selected as the payment method for your Uber or Uber Eats transaction to redeem the Amex Uber Cash benefit. Amex Gold Card members Enjoy up to $120 in Uber savings on rides or eats orders in the U.S. annually, distributed as $10 monthly. Uber Cash is available to the primary cardholder only. Uber Cash deposits are made monthly and expire if not used. To receive this benefit, you must have downloaded the latest version of the Uber App and your eligible Amex Platinum Card must be a method of payment in your Uber account. The Amex Benefit may only be used in the United States.)
I used a MyVegas reward worth 75,000 points to book a room at the MGM Grand. I’ll pay $50 or whatever for the resort fees. We’ll use another MyVegas reward for a complimentary entree at Wolfgang Puck when we buy an entree and two beverages. We’ll use another MyVegas reward for buy-one-get-one cocktails at one of the bars.
On the way back, I used my Amex Platinum Card‘s annual $200 statement credit to make a Fine Hotels & Resorts booking. (The credit covers almost all of the booking.) We’ll enjoy up to $60 in breakfast credits, $100 in food and beverage credits, and a late checkout. It’s perfect for a day at the pool!
All in all, I figure we’ll spend somewhere around $900.
Is the Time Worth the Money?
Let’s say I decided to use the Companion Certificate for the $1,200 First Class flights from LAX. I could’ve paid the $1,200 out of pocket for my wife and daughter’s ticket. Then, I could have used the 35% Amex points rebate for my ticket. I’d end up paying around the same amount of points that I did for this trip — and I also wouldn’t have the hassle of spending two more days on the road, checking in and out of hotels, and all that jazz.
That’s worth it to some people.
But we enjoy the adventure. I love Las Vegas, my seven-year-old loves Las Vegas, and my wife puts up with us. 🙂 Plus, we have all these rewards and benefits. We might as well put them to use!
Two Trips. Big Deal.
I mentioned that this is the second time we’ve based ourselves out Vegas for trips to Fargo. Could it become a regular thing? Maybe. Here’s what flights look like around Thanksgiving.
The flight times and prices aren’t great. But if prices come down and we can use more MyVegas points, we might start calling Las Vegas “home.”
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, please visit this link.
*All information about this card was collected independently by Eye of the Flyer. It was neither provided by nor reviewed by the card issuer.
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
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If it is my own money, I use Mexico City and sometimes Miami for European trips because business-class is regularly $2500-$4000 for a flight that may be $5000 or $6000 out of Detroit. Plus, 11 or 12 hours of business-class out of Mexico City or 9 hours out of Miami is a better value than 6 1/2 or 7 hours out of Detroit.
Sadly, we don’t seem to get the Aeromexico deals out of Chicago and Toronto that existed a couple years ago. I’ve done Tijuana once since you can walk over a land bridge from the USA.
Thanks for this story. I find the exact same thing but from the perspective of a Salt Lake City based flyer. For awhile I avoided some of the issues of Delta insanely overpricing SLC flights by going to Pocatello but they seem to have figured that out and price flights that work with that approach 2-5x higher than the same flights later that day that would require an overnight. Another way I avoid the overpricing is to use miles for obscenely priced flights and save the dollars for trips I can plan with more flexibility. Sad to see this kind of data based pricing manipulation taking place but it is the world we live in now.
Extra $300 to fly out of LAX, save the separate city hassle and be confirmed in first class vs main cabin…for 3 people.
Seems like that’s reasonable.
But if you like visiting Vegas and don’t care about first class sounds like a fun trip.
With Delta eliminating qualifiers like the number of miles flown or segments for elite status requalification, it no longer makes sense for me to go out of my way and do one or two connections. Let alone a repositioning flight to some far-flung airport to save a couple hundred dollars.
My time is worth something.
I used to re-requalify every year for diamond on spend, segments, and MQMs. I’m not sure in the long run Delta will benefit from taking away MQMs or segments. It seems crazy not to reward people who are flying 150 or 170 segments of domestic travel every year.
We were looking for flights to Europe for later this year to use up our Alaska miles and saw Condor was flying from Vegas to Frankfurt, we’re based in LA. I couldn’t find Condor flights for that same amount of miles out of LAX so I booked the LAS to FRA flight and booked a separate flight on Southwest for earlier in the day, we’ll have about 4 hours before the Condor flight so we’ll do some lounge hopping. Overall we saved a bunch of miles and money by doing the flights this way.
I’ve heard a lot of mixed things about Condor. They fly some unusual North America routes, largely or exclusively based on German tourists who like the outdoor destinations; mountains, desserts, etc. Bizarrely, the Germans come to Arizona and Nevada in the summer when it’s the hottest, not the fall, winter or spring. Anyways, I know Condor has launched a new business-class product. So, you should be fine. I don’t think I would do them in economy, however. My only concern with Condor would be any kind of IROPs.
Positioning flights can be a valuable strategy for travelers, but there are important considerations.
When booking separate positioning flights, keep these points in mind:
Risk and Timing: If your positioning flight is late and you miss your onward flight, the carrier may not be sympathetic. It’s essential to allow enough time between flights and know your plan for any rescheduling needs. This may negate the cost savings further as a fully changeable/refundable option may be needed for one or both itinieraries.
Costs: Positioning flights involve additional costs like lodging, food, and fuel. Be aware of these expenses when evaluating the overall value of the strategy. @Chris, you call this out, above.
Tradeoffs: Consider the tradeoffs between cost savings and convenience. While positioning flights can save money, they require more effort and planning.
However, with careful planning, positioning flights can be a successful approach. I’ve done this from DFW with AUS (and sometimes even non-WN flights from DAL) as a good alternate, frequently.