If you have ever come across the term “positioning flight,” it doesn’t always have to do with human locomotion.
To clarify the first definition, it simply refers to when an aircraft gets repositioned from one airport to another, generally for operational reasons. These positioning flights don’t take on passengers or cargo.
Whisk me away to the points and miles positioning flights.
Per GlobeAir, there might be any number of situations in which this occurs. Those could range from aircraft maintenance and crew schedule planning, to refueling, regulatory compliance, and aircraft leasing.
As an example, let’s take the recently inauspicious San Francisco SFO to Rome FCO nonstop with United, UA507. Last week, UA507 had a couple of diversions and cancellations. You better believe there was a positioning flight involved, only to bring passengers back to SFO to board a flight that was cancelled the next day. (sarcastic note to self: do MileagePlus members accrue miles for positioning flights, too?)
But you didn’t come here to read about these behind-the-scenes flights, right? You want the flights with the bennies and lounge access after lounge access, don’t you?
Points and Miles Positioning Flights
In essence, a points and miles positioning flight is when you fly somewhere just to snag a more reasonable premium class price, and consequently, earn a lot more points/miles. However, with more and more revenue-based miles programs, through this method you might be shooting yourself in the foot.
As usual, my history with these routes began with food.
In late 2010, I was living in Shenzhen, China, and cobbling together a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Although Hong Kong — right across the border from Shenzhen — had flights to Johannesburg, a nonstop was bush league. Not to mention, economy flights were expensive, let alone business class.
Being a more avid reader of FlyerTalk back then, I recalled something about Colombo being a good starting point for lower-cost business class fares.
Plus, Colombo made for a nice to split up the journey between southern China and the deep south … of Africa.
But most importantly, it would reunite me with Sri Lankan vade, the seafood lentil fritters that occupied a rare slot in my pantheon of the world’s best street food:
All told, I think the cost of the roundtrip Colombo CMB – (Doha xDOH) – Johannesburg JNB/Cape Town CPT – (Doha xDOH) – Colombo CMB in business class was around US$1000.
At the time, I thought it was cool to visit the Qatar Airways Premium Terminal at the former Doha International Airport. The building was demolished long ago, but fortunately I saved a few mediocre photos from that time:
It goes without saying that positioning flights don’t always pay off. Sometimes, the departure airport for the eventual itinerary is cumbersome to access (e.g. I think Algiers is known for having good business class deals, but I haven’t tried that one yet). Or, you might be turned off due to weather/infrequent departures/type of aircraft used on the main itinerary (cue the sardonic oh, no, their Airbus A321 uses Euro-style business class seating).
On the other hand, Egypt.
In my experience, Egypt, long known for enticing business class fares, is primrose path territory. Whereas I can’t get enough of the history, or underrated food scene, it has never been close to relaxing. Still, the prospect of earning good mileage, and flying back to the U.S. in a lie-flat was too much to shake off.
Thus, I’ve done a few Cairo/Alexandria (Borg el Arab) – somewhere (usually Doha or Istanbul) – U.S. flights, but not for a number of years. Partially it was due to lack of passport space, and partially it was for not wanting to be pushed around baggage claim like a pinball.
Then again, since my last flight from Egypt, an eVisa has been introduced. Also, perhaps a visit to an Egyptian Red Sea resort will let me find my glasses that sank to the bottom in 2017….
I hope that my mini-backgrounder on positioning flights has helped you expand your travel wish list to places that you may have never expected to visit. Besides, Alexandria has feteer meshaltet (فطير مشلتت), North Africa’s analog to pizza.
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