I am working on planning a trip with my daughter to New York City sometime later this year. NYC is a place I have not been (outside of JFK) and it’s one of the places on my daughter’s bucket list.
(SEE ALSO: My 11 year old son’s travel bucket list – #9 cracks me up)
But I’m having trouble finding tickets from Cincinnati (or surrounding areas) to New York City. And by “having trouble finding tickets”, I mean there are just SO many options and I’m stuck not knowing how I want to book these tickets. Call it analysis paralysis, which seems to be something I’m often afflicted with…. I am trying to book a Thursday late afternoon flight, with a return on Sunday – the idea being to only take one day off of work – here’s what I’m looking at
Using miles
The “default” price for a domestic roundtrip award would be 25,000 miles. Back in the day, since Cincinnati to New York is 589 flown miles, the obvious choice would have been to use 9,000 British Airways Avios to fly roundtrip between Cincinnati and New York. Unfortunately that no longer works, and CVG-LGA would now be 15,000 Avios.
Option 2 – Iberia to the rescue?
You can still use Iberia Avios for some short haul flights. A roundtrip is as low as 11,000 Iberia Avios. You do have to fly a roundtrip (no one-ways) but for this case, that would be okay. Unfortunately, at just shy of 1200 flown miles, we wouldn’t fit into the cheapest tier, and a roundtrip would be 17,000 Avios (worse than British Airways Avios)
Option 3 – short mileage awards
United offers lower mileage requirements for short-haul flights, so a flight from CVG-EWR would actually only be 10,000 miles, or 20,000 miles roundtrip. American’s lower mile requirements are flights under 500 miles costing 7,500 miles, but in order to squeeze under 500 flown miles, I would have to drive up to Columbus.
Citi and American also team up to offer reduced mileage awards, which would give either a 7,500 mile discount on a roundtrip, making it 17,500 AA miles for a roundtrip, or a 2,500 mile discount on shorter flights
Looking at cash flights
Option 4
The absolute cheapest option would be flying Indianapolis to LaGuardia.
That is $173, though I feel like I saw some tickets in the $140 range a few days ago. But I told myself last time I was making the 2 hour drive to Indianapolis that I didn’t want to do that any more 🙂
Option 5 – from Cincinnati
I can get it to $235 from Cincinnati
I did also look at Southwest, but they don’t fly out of Cincinnati either
Combining miles and points: Options 6, 7 and 8.
Adding confusion and options, I could use Citi ThankYou points. Since, I have the Citi Prestige card, I can book American Airlines flights at 1.6 cpp, so a $235 roundtrip post would cost me just shy of 15,000 ThankYou points.
I’ve got a stash of US Bank FlexPerks as well, though that would be a better option if the price was closer to $400, due to the nature of the Flex Perks chart.
(SEE ALSO: Simple trick to redeem Flexperks Travel Rewards on cheaper Southwest flights)
Gift cards? Amex Platinum credit? SkipLagged?
I also have a few gift cards and unused Citi Prestige / Amex Platinum airline credits. Seems like those should be the best ones to use too, but I always hate using them unless it’s a “perfect” redemption.
SkipLagged.com is another option that I looked at, but didn’t find anything amazing there. Nothing that seemed worth running the risk of irrops or other problems.
There are just so many options that I’m having trouble deciding on anything.
Am I the only one who ends up with problems deciding between multiple flight options? What would you do in this situation?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
You have never been to New York — the place where I was born and raised?!?
Personally, Dan — I would consider driving there if you have the time.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Thanks for the offer Brian – I may email you to hear your suggestions. We’ll only have a few days as I’m running out of vacation time from work so probably just a long weekend. Driving is probably out of the question for this trip, not to mention I assume that most hotels have pretty high parking charges
Don’t forget to check the AA reduced mileage awards if you have a citi AA card. There are some dates from various locations in and around Ohio.
Yeah – I’ve checked those (I did briefly mention it in the post). They’d be 17,500 AA miles roundtrip if I fly from CVG and 12,500 if I fly from Columbus (under 500 flown miles)
use your prestige card points. That is why you got them in the first place.
I also get bogged down with too many choices, but there is a relief when the tickets are finally booked and done.
Have fun on your Father Daughter trip!!
Thanks for the advice!
Dan, I would actually go with delta.. That will be atmost $400 for two people return tickets for the weekend!! Thats a steal.
I would use your citi prestige card to purchase your own ticket on AA and use citi points to buy the second ticket. You can use your $200 prestige credit to cover your ticket AND earn miles on the flight. That’s 2 tickets for 15k miles and ~$35.
You’ve never been to NYC?
I have now! 🙂
i thought you were going to share your travel experiences and give us tips etc on doing the same thing