How cheap are Travelzoo’s business class fares to the Middle East?

Travelzoo recently has been promoting a business class fare sale to the Middle East through YesFares. The cheapest advertised fare is $2,232 for a business class ticket between Chicago and Istanbul.

The highest fares are for flights originating in the West Coast. Business class fares between San Francisco to Casablanca costs $2990, while Los Angeles to Tel Aviv goes for $3,060. Are these good fares? They’re advertised as 36 – 70% off, so let’s compare them to actual fares to the Middle East.

Travelzoo’s business class fares from theWest Coast

Settle – Kuwait: $2890

San Francisco – Casablanca: $2990

Los Angeles – Tel Aviv: $3060

Travelzoo’s business class fares from the East Coast + Midwest

Chicago – Istanbul: $2232

Washington – Amman: $2650

Boston – Dubai: $2950

New York – Beirut: $3050

Travelzoo’s business class fares from the South

Miami – Doha: $2690

Houston – Cairo: $2720

Atlanta – Jeddah: $2910

Redeeming miles vs. Cash(back)

The fare ranges from $2,232 – $3,060 roundtrip. Redeeming cash back equivalents for this flight would set you back 223,200 – 306,000 points. Earning enough points for this would require $111,600 – $153,000 worth of manufactured spending. How does that compare to redeeming airline miles?

Depending on the program, you’ll need around 104,000 – 170,000 miles round-trip. If you’re manufacturing spend with a card that earns 1 point per $1 spent, you’re better off booking the Travelzoo business class fare to the Middle East using a 2% cash back card. 

If you’re maximizing category bonuses like the 3-5x bonus from the Chase Ink cards then redeeming miles makes more sense. 

I say this now but in a couple of years we might all be thinking of ~$3,000 business class fares to the Middle East as “reasonable.” Yes, these fares are in fact low if you’re departing from the West Coast. But at some point manufacturing $100,000+ worth of spending will become so tedious that some of you will save up and splurge on these fares. We’ll see.

Is Travelzoo offering a good deal?

For now, there are better deals out there than Travelzoo’s business class fares to the Middle East. Especially using points and miles. I took this hobby for granted for a long time but the limitations being imposed by the banks and Walmart are making me appreciate things more.

By some miracle, I haven’t been shut down by Moneygram and I can still buy at least $8,000 worth of money orders every day without driving more than 15 minutes to do so. Now that I left my day job I have much more flexibility when it comes to going on MS runs.

But time is precious. I’m making better use of it by focusing more on category bonuses than I did before. So now when I have to figure out when to redeem miles vs. cash back, I’m using a different ratio to do the math.

What do you think of Travelzoo’s Middle East business class fares?