On Christmas Day, Kim, Lucas and I got up at around 3:25 AM to get ready to head to the airport for our flight to Jamaica. (Well Lucas didn’t exactly wake up…)
(Our flight to Jamaica would bring us to Atlanta for a quick stop of around an hour or so before heading on to Montego Bay.)
While on the way to the airport I came across a very interesting tweet from The Points Guy.The tweet was from 3:31AM and I saw it when I got into our car service at 4:00AM. I skimmed over the info but it was way too early for me to focus and/ or annoy Kim about booking another trip.
When we got through security at LaGuardia, I went back to reading The Points Guy post again. At the bottom I noticed that the deal was actually found by none other than The Flight Deal. (I guess it should’ve have been a surprise considering all of the amazing deals they’ve found and shared over the past few years.)
I decided to do a search for a couple of dates we had available to fly in the upcoming year but came up with nothing. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that we couldn’t fly Monday-Thursday during those dates.
I slept during most of our LGA-ATL flight and couldn’t get the deal (mistake) out of my mind.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat in Atlanta at The Original El Taco, a place that I read about due to Eater’s Airport Dining Guides. (BTW- I would’ve preferred Chic-fil-A if it was open.)
While sitting down to eat I decided to look into the airfare deal once again.
From all that I had read about these deals, I didn’t notice anyone mentioning availability over the summer and figured it was worth a shot.
I first checked for the very end of June into July 4 without any luck… Strike 1
I then decided to look into this deal for our annual end of summer trip. (Kim and I both work 6 weeks over the summer since we teach special education. This gives us the last two weeks of August off give or take.)
I did searches for destinations that I’d most like to go to (or back to) from what was available and came up with one option! Would this be a home run???
The one place I found availability for was Abu Dhabi.
I’ve been to the UAE (Dubai) but Kim and Lucas haven’t so this was a good option. We could also use Abu Dhabi as a place to connect to another country or 2 in the region during this trip.
Now I know most people would avoid the UAE in August due to the extreme heat however my visit to Dubai was in August (2009) and it turned out just fine.
Next step was seeing if Kim would be OK with me booking flights for another trip while we were in the middle of getting to the destination of our current one!
Well it took a couple of minutes of convincing but Kim, Lucas and I will be heading to Abu Dhabi and beyond in August 2015!
At this point, with 2015 just days away, most of our travels for the upcoming year are already booked. Well at least the flights are!
I want to thank The Flight Deal for continuing to find such incredible deals. I also have to thank The Points Guy for spreading the word about this latest deal. If not for a simple tweet from TPG, I would’ve probably arrived in Jamaica without a great deal on a flight to Abu Dhabi.
For those of you curious about what I booked, here are the details:
We’re flying JFK-Abu Dhabi:
- New York (JFK)-Manchester (MAN) (operated by AA)
- Manchester (MAN)- Abu Dhabi (AUH) on Etihad
- Abu-Dhabi (AUH)-Paris (CDG) on Etihad
- Paris (CDG)- New York (JFK) (operated by AA)
The cost for our 3 tickets came to a total of $697.60 ($232.53 per ticket)
Now I’m just wondering if my flight could earn AAdvantage miles?
Did any of you book an amazing airfare deal on Christmas Day? If so, where are you heading?
Charlie- I somehow missed your comment last night. Thanks for the mileage info! Funny how these fares work- you would be closer to the final destination yet your flight would be pricier… Jamaica is pretty good so far, thanks for the kind words!
Colleen- Thanks!
Drew B- For these prices I’ll take what I can get! Thanks for the info.
Shoshana H- I am hoping what you said is true about earning miles. I read something similar elsewhere but am not really sure since I’ve had little to no time to look into it. Good luck with the trip planning and please let us know how it goes!
We booked the same flights, but for MLK Jr’s birthday weekend. Our flights were more expensive ($668 for two of us), but I think that was because we got on board late (booked at about 2pm) and the flight is so soon and likely a prime weekend for those in the US. We had also booked tickets for Valentines Day weekend for $608 – but we cancelled those yesterday before the 24 hour cancellation deadline.
From what I understand, since you (we) are travelling on connecting flights through Europe, we can accrue AA miles for all of the flights. It is the direct USA-AUH flights operated by Etihad that are ineligible. We are booked in class U and E, assume you are all in E, no? Which both earn 100% miles, as long as Etihad does not try to negate that we are abiding by the “an eligible published fare ticket” caveat – http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/etihad.jsp
Now we are just trying to decide if we will stay in Abu Shabi or take the free Etihad shuttle directly to Dubai and stay there.
AND … figure out which hotel points program and hotels we should use – SPG (we currently booked that Sheraton Jumeiriah for three nights and Sheraton Abu Dhabi Hotel & Resort for the last night in prep for the early morning flight – both cacellable with 24 hour notice), Hyatt, IHG, or Marriott (although Marriott seems insanely much more expensive for not much more).
Have fun!
You’ll earn aa miles on the flights from Europe to Abu and reverse. None on the Atlantic crossing. But you can earn ANA miles on the trans Atlantic at 50%
Better then nothing 🙂
he will actually earn miles on all segments. The transatlantic rule is only for flights US to Abu Dhabi on Etihad. With his stops in Europe, he is fine and eligible.
Great booking, Michael! I had just wished I was in the area to book – instead, I’m over halfway there and my ticket cost would be twice yours! 🙂 have a nice time in Jamaica!
Congratulations – great snag!