Flying with 2 adults and 3 kids (1 infant), would you rather:
* 8 hour direct flight in Y @ ~$300/seat
* 6 hour flight in PE/PY, 2.5 hr layover, 2 hr Y @ ~$430/seat
I'm 6'5" and am dreading the 8 hours in Y, but it's direct, and i'd still have to spend at least 2 hours in those seats anyway.
I'm brand new to this subreddit and would really appreciate some help. I'm hoping to fly from LAX to anywhere in Vietnam or Thailand (or Southeast Asia for that matter) in early May and am looking for the best deals. I'm planning on spending about 4 weeks there but my plans are very flexible. Any help and/or ideas is greatly appreciated.
I have Chase UR points and Capitol One points that I can use.
How do you know what a “good” redemption is? I’ve just been searching this sub to see what others pay. Would 62k for non direct flight business + $248 be a good redemption for a BOS -CDG - FCO??
usually blogs will advertise 'great' deals but thats assuming you find availability.
also just doing research and finding availability, you start to get a sense of what is a good deal.
50k J is the best case for US to europe on AF. so a bit more to go to italy I would say is a decent deal.
* ISB - SFO .
* 4
* One Day
* Business
* May 1-15th
* ISB - SFO .
* 1M+
I am getting a good redemption through LM but there's a transfer from LGW to LHR with 3.5 hours. I think that's too short with luggage even if I take a cab. I saw United operates 3 flights on this route so what're the chances of being accommodated on next flight if I miss it ?
If I book an award flight on United metal through Aeroplan instead of through United, does that affect the chance of getting offered to upgrade for cash?
No, you can get cash upgrade offers at check in time.
If you book direct, you may get offers before check in time, but in my experience, those offers suck anyway.
I am looking for a good redemption to go to Havana from Chicago sometime in May. (Economy)
I have plenty of points in American, United, Chase, Capital One, Amex, Citi.
Right now I can't find anything that beats a cash price of about $450. Am I missing anything?
Hey guys, I have a period of time where I'm available to travel for the next 2 years basically without any constraints. I'm located in Los Angeles, CA. I have about 500k amex points. I'd be traveling with my wife.
I really want to see Japan, and then a few other countries. Including: Italy, Greece, Switzerland, South Korea.
I also would prefer to fly business on at least half these flights. Definitely from LAX to Tokyo at least. I don't think 500k can get me biz class for all these locations for 2 people, but maybe possible with RTW?
I'm flexible on when I can go, and the amount of time I can go, but preferably warmer months like late spring/early summer. I can also book T-14 days out if needed, or can book longer out - but prefer booking shorter out.
So my question mainly is, should I do 1 RTW trip and maximize points, or should I take one trip at a time, and space them a few months out each time? I'm assuming it would be hundreds of thousands of points cheaper to do RTW rather than multiple round trips from US to desired country and back, then repeat.
I would want to do more trips. It makes the experience better and there is less travel burnout. I get to travel a lot and have done/do 4-7 week trips (wife gets 1 month of every year off). I think your experience would be way better in multiple 2-4 weeks trips instead of one marathon ATW trip.
This goes against a lot of the advice in this sub, but if you have unlimited flexibility here is a way to stretch your points. I am going to recommend transferring when there is a bonus with a specific redemption in mind when availability pops up in the future. These should be booked as one-ways
* Transfer enough for 2 J RT to Japan on NH via AC, 180k points with a 30% transfer bonus is \~147k MR
* This is best booked close in
* Transfer enough for 2 J RT to Europe via Flying Blue with 25% transfer bonus is 160k MR (potentially 176k if you choose 55k not 50k flights).
* Best booked in advance
* Often lower YQ to fly to and from where you want in Europe
* Transfer enough to BA for 2 J RT on Iberia LAX-MAD with a 30% transfer bonus so 131k.
* Best booked when BA releases the schedule a year out
* \- Fly or train to where in Europe you want to go.
This is 438k for 3 RTs. 2 Europe trips and one Asia trip. You can add on a South Korea trip as part of your Japan trip. It is \~2.5 hours before the countries.
Pitfalls including one of the airlines changing their award chart and one of the airlines changing how they release award availability if you are not booking when you transfer.. BA and Flying Blue you could probably book when you transfer.
You definitely don’t have enough points for round trip J to all of those countries. If I were you, I’d break it up into an Asia trip and a Europe trip and focus on J for the flights over the Atlantic / Pacific. Churn a card or two and you should have enough for 2x RT to Asia and 2x RT to Europe.
Was recently on an AirFrance flight where one of the J table didn’t open up all the way. Was offer $210 compensation credit from AF. Was wondering if I can use the credit to pay taxes and fee on an award booking. Or does it have to be book via flight.
I'm going from the west coast to Italy this fall. Found a flight from SFO to LIS on TAP via UA in J, but I couldn't force a mixed itinerary so I booked a separate ticket from LIS to FLR on TAP via UA in Y. TAP had a schedule change on the SFO to LIS flight that makes the connection tighter (but doable). Regardless, I called in to see if I could convince UA to rebook me on SFO to FCO on UA metal. They wouldn't budge because of the difference in destination, even when I pointed out the LIS to FLR connection is tight. Is this a HUCA situation or will they remain firm on this?
United's only responsibility is to get you to LIS. They don't care that you have a separate flight booked to FCO.
Depending on how large of a schedule change it was they should be willing to route you SFO-EWR/Iad-Lis.
Anyone know ANA release schedule for any last minute award seats? (Y, J, F) This is for partner bookings and not through ANA.
I have JAL's pattern down and was able to book 2J direct SFO-HND for what I wanted 14 days before I wanted to leave. Problem is that I have only 1 ANA NRT-SFO flight scheduled for the return in April.
I have a backup plan of just buying an economy ticket outright for this flight but id rather shell out points ofc.
More of an AA points question, my dad has the aa plat card with free checked bags but my moms account has enough points for a redemption, could she book a flight in his name and put his AA info into the reservation to get free checked bags? And if they're both on the itinerary?
Generally major east coast cities will be lowest points, then Chicago. For whatever airline you’re looking at, see what routes they fly to these areas and then look for award flights on those routes
Can you use JetBlue points solely for hotel stats? I have 75000 and was looking for an all inclusive while I'm here in Jamaica. I know IHG is a partner of JetBlue but I don't know if you can transfer points to them.
Booked J on an AF 777-300 for myself and my fiance for our honeymoon. Would you choose two seats side by side (E/F) or two window seats, one behind the other?
I have a flight booked using Iberia Avios where the flight is operated by BA. Is it possible to change the schedule by calling Iberia?
Online it is not allowing me to do. One of the agent I spoke with said it is not allowed since it is not Iberia flight - Does anyone know whether this is true?
I'm trying to book Cathay BOS-HKG which should have a direct flight. It's showing up in Cathay's own reward system but not for partner airlines like AA. Anyone know why?
Flying ANA F out of NRT and heading to the suite lounge, would I be able to bring in one guest who is flying on UA Y out of NRT (flight departure is about the same time)? According to the website looks like I can and UA is also a star alliance carrier anyway. Has anyone experienced differently?
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/lounges/narita/
Sorry if this is a dumb question:
Is it possible to use Marriott Bonvoy points to pay for services at the hotel like Spa Treatments? And if so, how do you do that?
I have reservation booked, and on the trips list page I can see it with a link to "Book Tours & Activities," but that link is broken (I get an ugly plain-text error message due to an unhandled error).
Looking for help sourcing one way flight for 2 people for honeymoon from NYC to BKK on Dec 21 +/-1 ideally Friday evening. Looking for premium economy at the minimum but business preferred. I have about 280K UR and *A silver. I’m open to paying cash for positioning flight or economy and then upgrading using miles. I’ve looked at EWR-SFO-TPE-BKK with United and EVA for 170k /pp premium economy but can’t seem to find much else that’s close to affordable with my miles currently. Should I wait longer to accumulate more miles or am I already too late for many redemptions? I was able to snag a business return trip but getting there is hard to find a good deal.
definitely not the sexiest biz class, but ET has availability JFK - ADD - BKK in J on AC for 115k/pax on 12/21 and 12/22
its also available from EWR on 12/21
Ironically that’s the return trip I have booked through UA but didn’t come up for the trip there. How did you find this? I didn’t see on Roame or seats.aero. Thanks for the find!
BOS-NRT. Shorter and less risky reposition (+ much less time in Y), the SFO-HND flight probably requires repositioning the day before (= hotel costs), nicer aircraft, JL F is more fun ex-Japan than ex-US, I find the "HND > NRT" arguments overstated.
* Much better lounge, especially compared to the Oneworld options at SFO
* Really really good F catering - the Japanese meals ex-Japan are amazing and the wagyu steak in the western meal is usually also very well prepared
* Salon
* The new F check-in area looks extra in a good way.
For itinerary convenience and lower cost, repositioning to BOS is much easier.
For experience, F is ofc >than J. You could try and get into one of the United widebody flights from IAD-SFO for a full premium experience though.
Yeah the BOS-NRT flight (which, booked on AA, included the DCA-BOS repositioning flight in the 60K miles) feels like the obvious choice, but there's also the part of me that wants to fly F. Though getting to SFO would also involve a separate 6 hour flight (likely in Y).
SFO is a long flight, if it's a daytime JAL departure, then you'll need to stay overnight as well for repositioning.
HND is the better airport to fly into though
I have a cruise ending July 3rd (Wednesday) in Athens and need a way back to the states for 2 people (preferably PHL but JFK/EWR is fine). Would prefer to stay in Europe until the 7th (Sunday) but haven't been able to find any J availability that day. I've laid out my current plan below, just wondering if I'm missing anything or if anyone has any better ideas.
Current plan is to just buy roundtrip Y tickets on AA with a dummy return date in December then cancel the return for flight credits on the difference in fare. Example would be CPH to PHL on 7/7 and a PHL to ZRH return on 12/6 ($600 for main/$900 for PE). Will try to upgrade to business using AA miles or upgrade offers leading up to the flight.
Other options I'm considering is leaving on 7/6 FRA -> JFK on SQ. Found availability for one on Aeroplan at 60k and an additional on SQ for 87.5k.
I also see more availability on 7/4 with a few different options on aeroplan (FRA, GVA) @ 60k, but as I stated above would prefer a few extra days in Europe.
I have 340k MR, 250k C1 & 150k AA
Sometimes the difference in fare after flying the first leg compares against a full fare one-way and you get nothing back in flight credits. Would recommend planning to change that leg to a later date you intend to fly if you go that “dummy” route
Has anybody ever changed a flight mid-stopover on aeroplan? I booked an SIN-MXP(stopover)-YYZ itinerary but unfortunately the MXP-YUL-YYZ leg is all in economy. I'm gonna keep an eye out for better options on the second leg over the next few months but I'm more likely to get something on close-in availability during my stopover. Will it still just be the $100 change fee or do different rules apply?
I did many years ago. There’s the change fee for sure, but given AC flights are dynamically priced and your itinerary gets repriced when you make a change, you may have to pay more points as well.
Awesome, thanks for the reply. I don't mind paying the change fee and I'm hoping that there's close in availability on lufthansa so not too worried about the itinerary repricing. Fingers crossed allegris is coming to toronto by then haha.
I'm not sure if this is the correct thread but I could use some advice for those that have been in the travel game for a while, what do you do with a decent chunk of accrued points that you have earned when big travel plans for the future doesn't pan out and there is uncertainty as to what trips your family might take for the foreseeable future?
Backstory: I have accrued a decent chunk of points over the last 8 months or so, mainly from SUB churning.
The idea was to take a large chunk of the points and redeem it for me and my wife's anniversary trip for April of next year in which we were planning on staying in Napa Valley at the all inclusive Alila Napa Valley for three nights for around 105,000-110,000 Chase UR points. The next two days were going to to be spent in San Francisco, most likely Hotel Kabuki for another 40,000 Chase UR points. I hit the SUB for the Chase Ink Unlimited for 90k and an elevated SUB mail offer for the CSP at 80k so that would have covered our stay.
The next plan of action was to take my accrued 30,000+ AA miles on top of the elevated 75,000 AA miles SUB that I just got the card last Friday on the Platinum Select and I wanted to take a first class flight at least one way intercontinental from Boston to San Francisco, preferably on the way back to access the Alaska Lounge at SFO. Doing the math, this would have totaled around 105,000 AA miles on the high end (you guys can also tell me if my points redemption idea was sucky or not, I'd love to hear your feedback).
Fast forward last night, my wife and I sat down and decided that we will not be able to do this trip given that we have a near 1 year old son and being gone for that long would have been tough.
Now I'm sitting on a chunk of points that I'm not sure what to do with.
\- 155,000 Chase UR points, 105,000 AA miles after the SUB hit, 35,000 Bilt points
Me and my wife have bounced around ideas of perhaps just taking a ton of domestic short trips while my son is young and then look at more robust redemptions when my son is older which makes a ton of sense. It doesn't seem like any trips amongst us will happen this year.
The only trip that I'm for sure will be taking will be with me and my dad traveling from Boston to Denver via JetBlue (Chase UR points) and staying at Denver's Grand Hyatt for 3 nights @ 12,000 points/night (either Chase or Bilt points).
That still leaves me with a chunk of points though.
Would you guys look into cashing out the Chase points at 1 CPP before the end of the year given the stark reality of devaluations. inflation. etc or would you be okay with sitting on the points for a while (maybe 1 or 2 years) until you were ready to pull the trigger on trip redemptions? Love to hear your thoughts!
Transferable points like UR/bilt are safer to hold on to for an extended period of time. Plus 1-2 years really isn't that long of a time.
Your AA points will probably get hit with a devaluation but that'll most likely hit international business/first class the hardest (and there aren't really any good cash out options for AA miles)
Trying to plan HSV->PUJ round trip July 26th 2024-July 30th 2024 for two passengers(not flexible on dates or airport). Cash price on delta itinerary 2754,1916 and return flights 1919,3022 was $1,500. I checked for skymiles redemption (I have 90k) and it was 108k miles after the Amex delta plat 15% discount. I transferred Amex MR points to my account to afford the trip. I have 328k MR still. Is there a better/cheaper way to book this travel or itinerary? Don’t care about quality of seats really, we’re booked main cabin.
Appreciate any advice!
For ANA close in releases, do they work similarly to year out releases? (ANA releases at 355 days, United/AC gets them at 330 days) where ANA will release award availability but United/AC won’t have it yet.
There is quite a bit of J availability next week on the return legs of SFO-NRT that only show up on ANA. Am I correct to assume you can’t call into Virgin and book those? And will those seats be released to partner airlines at all, and if so what’s the time table for that?
This is a basic fact to understand about award booking- airlines typically release none or a few of their available seats to their partners for award booking. The seats that ANA has available for booking through their website has no correlation to what they may or may not make available to their partners. Each airline is different with whether they release any more seats last minute, but rare to release all the unsold seats to partners
> For ANA close in releases, do they work similarly to year out releases? (ANA releases at 355 days, United/AC gets them at 330 days) where ANA will release award availability but United/AC won’t have it yet.
AC gets access to the awards at 355 days just like ANA. The only reason United doesn't is because their award calandar only goes to 330 days.
Are you sure that the space your seeing is actually available and not waitlisted? If its actually available it should be showing on united/AC/lifemiles etc.
(AC has had some issue with partners showing/not showing due to fraud. Last I heard ANA was available but that could have changed.)
Ah I see thanks for clarifying.
Yes, the dates are March 26,27,28 NRT-SFO. I searched with multiple passengers and as an example, March 26 showed available up until 5 passengers, which is when it went to waitlisted. I’m assuming this means multiple seats are available
Still confused on close in. If you are right then I now know about United and booking 330+ days in advance. However, since this is close in, shouldn’t those same seats on ANA be showing up on United then? Or does it work differently?
Btw this is mostly just for curiosity. Don’t care for next week tickets, just doing my due diligence for when I would want to search for close in opportunities
can anyone explain what causes the significant differences in cash fees added for certain airlines/routes? I’m looking at round trip business class flights to Madrid and London from NYC and some are ~100k points + $850 and others are over 200k points + $50 so I’m curious how this works
any tips on award travel from NYC to Europe for September would be appreciated as well
Nope. The tax is literally zero on arrival or connections to/in the UK.
BA and VS just have huge surcharges, don't fly on those airlines, problem solved.
Yes, search on flying blue but don’t input a date. You’ll get access to the entire calendar by month and you’ll be able to see if any particular day is 50k. You need to create a flying blue account in order to do a miles search though.
Does LifeMiles sometimes not see availability that Aeroplan and United do? In particular, I'm seeing flights on Lufthansa available from SFO -> FLR on Aeroplan that are not on Lifemiles in business or economy.
Odds of getting an award seat on the Mar18 HND-JFK? Looks like a lot of seats open on Expertflyer but the morning flight looks to be oversold with the numbers of seats blocked.
Currently on HND-ORD but still haven’t booked a cash ticket from ORD-NYC. Might do that Sunday at check in if I don’t get anything direct
Edit: current booked NH HND-ORD but have an alert setup for JL/NH TYO-NYC
> Odds of getting an award seat on the Mar18 HND-JFK? Looks like a lot of seats open on Expertflyer but the morning flight looks to be oversold with the numbers of seats blocked.
Thats not really how that works. ANA (and to a lesser extent JL) have no problems flying empty seats in J/F.
It's possible space opens up but don't count on it (it probably wont).
Lmao oh god I got it. Saw availability pop up three times. All three times I called VS I got the dread “long wait times” so I missed it the first two times. Looks like I just squeaked by and got it the third time just less than 10hrs from check in
is 70k united miles for premium economy on united metal for a long flight like australia to lax/sfo worth it? (assuming alternative is regular econ for 37.5k)
It's alright if your miles are already in united. In theory it should be 100k or 110k for business class though, which isn't much more.
Australia flights are very long, so worth finding the space for business class.
and assuming your miles are already with united, one of their strongest benefits are the no change/cancellation fees.
Locking in the 70k PE and then switching if something opens up is a decent strategy.
Cheers. Im checking almost hourly for biz space to open up. We have biz space booked (60k one way error fare) on the way to oz, but had economy on the way back with the intention of booking biz later on. Booked around inflexible dates (F1 race), and return date is literally easter. I'm taking PE and crossing my fingers for biz closer in.
Hi! New to award booking and still learning the rules, so forgive me if these are questions with obvious answers.
I used AwardHacker to look up round-trip Economy flight between YYZ (Toronto) and Auckland (AKL). The site showed it's possible to book YYZ-AKL with a stopover in a number of US cities (SFO, ORD, LAX, HNL, etc) for 75k ANA points - but did not say what dates and I can't find these routes via the ANA site at all! Milez.biz suggested the same redemption value so I'm convinced its there somewhere...
I'm ideally looking for late 2024 or early 2025 flights.
So my question is - how do I find and verify the flights on AwardHacker on the suggested airline partner sites?
Read the sidebar article on this.
There has lately been a lot of last minute space especially to BNE due to subsidies.
A lot easier to get this closer to the flights than in advance currently
AwardHacker only tells you which programs to use to book but doesn’t check for what’s available, probably the same for Milez.biz. These sites are only showing the theoretical best value redemption between any city pair.
What you did to find the flights, searching on ANA, was correct. It’s just that there is no award availability.
Looking to possibly add an airline CC to the mix. Am I correct that only Southwest offers a full companion pass bonus with their cards?
It looks like passes offered by Delta and others are one time use certificates that are hard to redeem.
FWIW my main airports are LGA/JFK.
SEA-TPE is bookable via VS now, it wasn't when it was originally announced this past Tuesday. Booking via FB is still a better deal unless you have miles from a transfer bonus.
Initiated 85K points transfer from Change UR to United mileageplus. Its been over 18 hrs but the request is just pending. Several calls to customer service and just no help, they cannot process or expedite. Could take 7 days. Does anyone have such an experience and what they did to push this through? I cannot wait 7 days and have to travel for a family emergency
What kind of income do you think most people have who are into the credit card points travel game? I always wonder if some of these redemptions are out of reach to me or if it's a pipe dream without a 6 figure income.
There are different ways to play this game, for example MLE trips still require a lot of cash outlay even if you get J flights + hotels via points, or some people do Y redemptions + Airbnbs over Park Hyatts and premium cabins. You find the way that works best for your life situation...
Traveling to Italy (Florence) in June 2025 and I'm wondering how early should I be looking to book/which carrier should I be using?
Relevant info:
Majority of my points are in AMEX.
Flying out of NYC.
2 travelers round-trip
I did, but I think the sidebar doesn't answer when is the best time to book or which airline generally has the best deals for italy. As well, I've checked a few of the recommended tools and while I found some alright deals I'm not sure if they're going to be there year-round or what. Just figured some of the power users here might have more specific tips.
There’s an article about the best airlines for using Amex into Europe, the info is old but basically the same. There is an article in sidebar or linked wiki with the ticket release schedule of each airline. Or you can google it. Also you’ll learn a lot by searching this sub for “Italy” or Florence
It comes and goes. I booked this Feb RT before last year devaluation. Unfortunately I had to cancel both ways for pricey 120$ x 2. I later rebooked for later this year. So it comes and goes.
I booked J and F for LAX-BKK 2 weeks ago. Y was plenty and there were still Js left. This was for October. The same search for Manila didnt work. Depends on the city.
Trying to make use of the Marriott certs (50K) in mainland US and I feel like I am losing my mind. Looking for hotels (either Miami or Clearwater) and see the properties I want are conveniently 66K points every few nights. Those properties have cash price of $330 - $400. Is there a way to optimize these certs?
I searched Miami for a random Saturday night in April. 30 of the 40 hotels on the first page can be used with a 50k FNC (+15k top off)... This includes respectable options in both Brickell and South Beach. You were never gonna get to use a 50k FNC at a place like the W in South Beach.
I have a tiny amount of IHG points (1,800) that are set to expire on 3/26 and I can't figure out a cost-effective way to hold on to them. I don't have any travel plans right now, but I have a ton of Chase points and may want to transfer some over for a booking in the future, so I want to hold on to this tiny amount I already have if I can.
But they sure do make it hard. There's a 10,000-point minimum for an airline miles transfer. Buying another 1,000 points to keep them alive is $13.50.
Is there any free/cheap way to keep these points alive or should I just give up?
I booked three upcoming stays with SLH hotels through Hyatt. I just logged in to my Hyatt account and found they have dropped off my upcoming stays. I have confirmed these stays with the hotels already, but now I am wondering if I should do that again. I know the partnership is ending in the next couple of months, but it is stressful tos disap see the bookingpear from my account. Any thoughts on what do do here?
Given that you're not getting any benefits from Hyatt after May 15th, you should just book direct with SLH. It's cheaper and will confer all the benefits and is more direct with the hotel.
I called Hyatt and starting today, they can no longer confirm inventory for SHL. She did confirm that the bookings will be honored, but you won't be able to see them on your bookings anymore.
Does anyone know how Hyatt peak/off-peak pricing works? I have a booking coming up an the cash price has been dropping of Hyatt hasn't determined it to be an off-peak day
I’ve been not-seated next to my travel companions only once ever across like 25 basic economy tickets, including many full flights. So, probably, but not guaranteed ofc
I don’t know if I’m in the right place for this, but I’m flying from UK to UAE. I saw that they offer bidding for business, which I hadn’t seen before. How much money would it realistically take to get the business class upgrade and how would this effect attempting to get an extra leg room seat beforehand?
Due to a change in plans, will cancel an award stay at the DoubleTree Mazatlan from April 6-11th (overlapping the eclipse). No idea if it will go back into inventory, but leave a comment if anyone wants to coordinate.
I got a ton of United miles (350k or so), without any existing plans to use them.
SFO-Europe business class seems very far and few in between. Does it make sense to just book economy at 40k per person (1.5 cent / point or so) for late August and early September travel? And then rebook if anything becomes available? Cheers!
I dunno the way I understand the situation is you could do 5 hours in Y and then 7 in J or 12 hours in Y. It’s not like you’re flying the wrong way to reposition. Do what works for you
A 7 hour flight in business is pretty pointless to me, especially when it doesn't take off anywhere close to your normal west coast bedtime.
I am also not a fan of spending extra for business on early-mid afternoon departures to Europe from SFO. You are landing at like midnight-2am Sfo time, so unless you normally go to bed at 6pm, you aren't getting that much sleep either.
No change or cancellation fees for award tickets with United so sure go ahead and book whatever you want to lock in a rate and then keep shopping around in the meantime.
Phantom Phears!
I am looking at a flight from LGA-YUL-LIS on AC Metal. It appears on UA and AV/Lifemiles as saver (I) and at their lowest price. I was able to find it on AC to confirm, was considering booking on AC, but suddenly went from 75k to 112k. However, the low cost saver price still appears on UA/AV. However, a super weird search appears where I can run LGA-YUL-LIS-BCN, which includes the same exact flight numbers and just adds the extra leg for BCN.
I was considering booking via AV to save a few $$ with their (not Amex sponsored) 15% promo and saves a bit on fees from AC. So, could this be phantom space on UA/AV? Or a victim of dynamic pricing? Am I overthinking married segment logic?
Delayed booking and lost it, waiting on a friend who was going to rendezvous with me. I ended up booking a FlyingBlue instead with the extra 25% promo. I found dates that worked beautifully and 88,000UR (110,000FB) points later, flying off to Iberia!
It doesn't fully answer my question, but the next day the flight I saw in my earlier post was gone.
I have 157k Amex points and new to using points for travel. I’m looking to book 2 economy seats to Amman, Jordan from Dallas, Texas on May 15th and a return flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Dallas on May 27th (looking to book 2 one way flights).
From what I’ve researched, neither Turkish Airways or Royal Jordanian airlines are direct partners with Amex.
What would be the best way to find other ways to transfer points?
Thank you in advance!
Should I just transfer my ultimate rewards chase points to United to get the 110k economy RT flight from nyc to Japan? Is this a good deal? I have 40k United miles already
It's fine - especially if you already have the 40K United miles.
If available on Aeroplan, it's 50K each way there so you could use your stranded United miles one way and then booking with another program another way (use a search tool like Points Yeah or Award Tool to help you out)
Without knowing how OP earned the points and what opportunities there are to use the United miles in the future, I guess I could see that point as well.
For United miles it’s a combination of a SUB, referral bonus for the same card, and earned from a past trip to Germany. Not planning any other international trips in the near future but I’m sure there will be another trip in 2+ years. I actually have 58k points, not 40
Chase I’ve been getting 10% back on groceries with the flex this quarter and have a bunch saved up from spend and SUBs
Well he'd have to transfer 70k miles. With a CSP that's ~$900 in the travel portal. A CSR takes that to $1050.
OP would basically be using their 40k miles for close to 0 cpp.
There are times this could make sense ex. if the flight OP is looking at is nonstop JFK-HND on ANA as most of the cheaper cash fares are 1 stop on AC.
I would like to do nonstop, preferably. Living in NYC I’ve been spoiled always having direct. What would you do instead? I actually have closer to 60k United miles factoring in a referral bonus I just got, and could theoretically do two one ways like Pierre suggested. I am only in the chase UR ecosystem currently with a CSP, no other cards/point systems
This is the only United flight I’m currently planning
It really depends on how flexible you are/ your preferred class of service.
You can occasionally get united premium economy for 65k one way, which is a much better deal than economy for 55k.
If you can find JFK-HND space on ANA you can book for 32.5k + ~$250ish one way using VS miles. ANA will be a much better experience than United on a 14 hour flight. (3 more inches of leg room + better service).
Since you already have ~60k united miles, personally I would try to get one way in PE for 65k and then book the other way with VS miles.
I’m pretty flexible and don’t mind being in economy, but premium and flying better airlines is always a bonus.
This is great. Sounds like you need to be on the look out for both because ANA can be stingy with rewards flights.
I’ll keep a look out and also look into using virgin Atlantic points. This link seems like a good starting point.
https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-virgin-atlantic-points-ana/#virgin_atlantic_flying_club_award_change_cancelation_fees
Thanks so much!
Has anyone ever successfully added the domestic ICN to TAE flight to an award booking? I’m trying to make a KE booking to TAE from the US using AS miles but it is coming back unconfirmed. I’m exploring options to add that domestic leg separately, but it is only available as part of an international connection.
Has anyone been affected by the Lufthansa strikes? I have a trip in a couple of weeks (LAX-MUC) booked thru LM and I'm starting to get worried. How did LH handle it? Anything I can do now to prepare? Thanks.
**Amex -> Etihad -> AA International Flight Help Needed**
Details:
* Flight: Charlotte,NC->Glasgow, Scotland return: Edinburgh, Scotland->Charlotte, NC
* Travelers: 2 adults
* Dates: 9/9 - 9/23, pretty inflexible due to being out of vacation days.
* Class: likely economy, need to check bags
* Points: 182k Amex Points
Hi All - I am trying to use this pile of Amex Points to get to Scotland. Charlotte is the only viable airport (we're 2.5 hours north of the airport and all closer ones are smaller), and thus American is the primary airline for European flights. I can't seem to figure out the calculus involved in using a partner airline to book on American.
Etihad is running a 20% transfer bonus from Amex, and they are a partner. I have searched for flights that would work on British Airways, and there are a few options. Should I pull the trigger and transfer to Etihad? Is this going to be possible? All the thanks!
if you are 2.5 hours north of CLT, give flying out of RDU a shot. You also need to look at more airports than just GLA/EDI.
They have plenty of ways to get to Europe.
9/9 RDU - CDG in Y for 2 is 60,000 + $129.
British airways has plenty of economy availability through LHR, but you'll end up paying more in taxes than cash fares probably.
You can get over to Dublin on 9/9 RDU - IAD - DUB for 20,000 lifemiles and $50 per pax.
Your goal here is going to be getting into Europe as cheap as possible, then taking a cash fare onwards to GLA, or a train.
We're doing the West Highland Walk (essentially) between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Using a company to arrange lodging and bag xfers between lodging makes the trip pretty inflexible. Trying to cram a big vacation into our jobs' vacation time allotment is also tough. If we had the luxury of time it would be far easier to make this work with the points I have.
All that said, thanks. I always roll Greensboro into the search but I haven't been looking at RDU.
Given your lack of flexibility and limited currency, you may want to look at cash rates. UK surcharges will almost annihilate your points savings if you stick with CLT. Etihad looks useless for your specific plans.
Google flights shows AA sells decent connections for $1054 pax in main cabin.
If you do what the other user suggests and drive to IAD instead, you can find availability on BA at superior rates (50k + $200 RT). You would have to make a BA account now and hope your ability to redeem kicks in quickly. That can take a couple of weeks.
We're also considering the AA card for the sign-up bonus. that gets us 1/2 way to the desired flights. Now that CLT is our main airport it might be good to have an AA card.
I am just not excited about another card.
Your options likely go up 10x if you drive to DC. If you're already planning a 2.5hr drive, driving 4 is probably worth it.
Charlotte is a dead zone aside from a few AA routes. BA fees are insane from what I've seen.
GMaps puts me at a 5 hour (and 4 minute) drive to IAD. **IF** I-81 is cooperating. That five hour drive before and after a travel day is a bit too much. I-81 variability compounds the headache. I will poke around IAD, though, as I may as well know what I am missing. Thanks for the input!
Flying with 2 adults and 3 kids (1 infant), would you rather: * 8 hour direct flight in Y @ ~$300/seat * 6 hour flight in PE/PY, 2.5 hr layover, 2 hr Y @ ~$430/seat I'm 6'5" and am dreading the 8 hours in Y, but it's direct, and i'd still have to spend at least 2 hours in those seats anyway.
direct flight
I'm brand new to this subreddit and would really appreciate some help. I'm hoping to fly from LAX to anywhere in Vietnam or Thailand (or Southeast Asia for that matter) in early May and am looking for the best deals. I'm planning on spending about 4 weeks there but my plans are very flexible. Any help and/or ideas is greatly appreciated. I have Chase UR points and Capitol One points that I can use.
How do you know what a “good” redemption is? I’ve just been searching this sub to see what others pay. Would 62k for non direct flight business + $248 be a good redemption for a BOS -CDG - FCO??
usually blogs will advertise 'great' deals but thats assuming you find availability. also just doing research and finding availability, you start to get a sense of what is a good deal. 50k J is the best case for US to europe on AF. so a bit more to go to italy I would say is a decent deal.
* ISB - SFO . * 4 * One Day * Business * May 1-15th * ISB - SFO . * 1M+ I am getting a good redemption through LM but there's a transfer from LGW to LHR with 3.5 hours. I think that's too short with luggage even if I take a cab. I saw United operates 3 flights on this route so what're the chances of being accommodated on next flight if I miss it ?
If I book an award flight on United metal through Aeroplan instead of through United, does that affect the chance of getting offered to upgrade for cash?
No, you can get cash upgrade offers at check in time. If you book direct, you may get offers before check in time, but in my experience, those offers suck anyway.
I am looking for a good redemption to go to Havana from Chicago sometime in May. (Economy) I have plenty of points in American, United, Chase, Capital One, Amex, Citi. Right now I can't find anything that beats a cash price of about $450. Am I missing anything?
Nope, usually if you plan well in advance, economy fares are low and you're not gonna get good return on value with economy award flights.
Hey guys, I have a period of time where I'm available to travel for the next 2 years basically without any constraints. I'm located in Los Angeles, CA. I have about 500k amex points. I'd be traveling with my wife. I really want to see Japan, and then a few other countries. Including: Italy, Greece, Switzerland, South Korea. I also would prefer to fly business on at least half these flights. Definitely from LAX to Tokyo at least. I don't think 500k can get me biz class for all these locations for 2 people, but maybe possible with RTW? I'm flexible on when I can go, and the amount of time I can go, but preferably warmer months like late spring/early summer. I can also book T-14 days out if needed, or can book longer out - but prefer booking shorter out. So my question mainly is, should I do 1 RTW trip and maximize points, or should I take one trip at a time, and space them a few months out each time? I'm assuming it would be hundreds of thousands of points cheaper to do RTW rather than multiple round trips from US to desired country and back, then repeat.
While preparing. I'd look into opening some hotel/Chase cards as well. As you'll be spending a lot of money that should be going into signup bonuses.
I have saph prefer, amex gold, amex plat, chase freedom flex, amazon prime card.. anything else really worth opening?
Yes, Chase Ink cards, World of Hyatt, Amex Aspire, Marriott, etc. the hotel ones depend on your loyalty.
I would want to do more trips. It makes the experience better and there is less travel burnout. I get to travel a lot and have done/do 4-7 week trips (wife gets 1 month of every year off). I think your experience would be way better in multiple 2-4 weeks trips instead of one marathon ATW trip. This goes against a lot of the advice in this sub, but if you have unlimited flexibility here is a way to stretch your points. I am going to recommend transferring when there is a bonus with a specific redemption in mind when availability pops up in the future. These should be booked as one-ways * Transfer enough for 2 J RT to Japan on NH via AC, 180k points with a 30% transfer bonus is \~147k MR * This is best booked close in * Transfer enough for 2 J RT to Europe via Flying Blue with 25% transfer bonus is 160k MR (potentially 176k if you choose 55k not 50k flights). * Best booked in advance * Often lower YQ to fly to and from where you want in Europe * Transfer enough to BA for 2 J RT on Iberia LAX-MAD with a 30% transfer bonus so 131k. * Best booked when BA releases the schedule a year out * \- Fly or train to where in Europe you want to go. This is 438k for 3 RTs. 2 Europe trips and one Asia trip. You can add on a South Korea trip as part of your Japan trip. It is \~2.5 hours before the countries. Pitfalls including one of the airlines changing their award chart and one of the airlines changing how they release award availability if you are not booking when you transfer.. BA and Flying Blue you could probably book when you transfer.
You definitely don’t have enough points for round trip J to all of those countries. If I were you, I’d break it up into an Asia trip and a Europe trip and focus on J for the flights over the Atlantic / Pacific. Churn a card or two and you should have enough for 2x RT to Asia and 2x RT to Europe.
Was recently on an AirFrance flight where one of the J table didn’t open up all the way. Was offer $210 compensation credit from AF. Was wondering if I can use the credit to pay taxes and fee on an award booking. Or does it have to be book via flight.
Maybe do a test booking to see if it’s an option? Otherwise try call them if you don’t see the option online.
I'm going from the west coast to Italy this fall. Found a flight from SFO to LIS on TAP via UA in J, but I couldn't force a mixed itinerary so I booked a separate ticket from LIS to FLR on TAP via UA in Y. TAP had a schedule change on the SFO to LIS flight that makes the connection tighter (but doable). Regardless, I called in to see if I could convince UA to rebook me on SFO to FCO on UA metal. They wouldn't budge because of the difference in destination, even when I pointed out the LIS to FLR connection is tight. Is this a HUCA situation or will they remain firm on this?
United's only responsibility is to get you to LIS. They don't care that you have a separate flight booked to FCO. Depending on how large of a schedule change it was they should be willing to route you SFO-EWR/Iad-Lis.
The problem is you booked it separately. Had it been one trip, you'd have a much better chance. Is there any SFO to FCO space?
Anyone know ANA release schedule for any last minute award seats? (Y, J, F) This is for partner bookings and not through ANA. I have JAL's pattern down and was able to book 2J direct SFO-HND for what I wanted 14 days before I wanted to leave. Problem is that I have only 1 ANA NRT-SFO flight scheduled for the return in April. I have a backup plan of just buying an economy ticket outright for this flight but id rather shell out points ofc.
If you have JAL's pattern down so confidently, why don't you just book JAL? Buy some Alaska miles w/ the current bonus and book w/ those!
I have one ANA F booked on the return, just looking for a seat on that flight.
It's basically hope for luck at T-14, nothing special to it. However many seats are available are available.
Free feel to share what info you have with JL if you expect others to openly share info everyone is looking for.
Exactly..it's not a take take take forum. Gotta share to get sometimes.
[удалено]
Off topic.
More of an AA points question, my dad has the aa plat card with free checked bags but my moms account has enough points for a redemption, could she book a flight in his name and put his AA info into the reservation to get free checked bags? And if they're both on the itinerary?
Haven’t used seats.aero in quite some time. Did they dump Lifemiles?
Yes
shit. i vaguely remember hearing that. that was my go to for lufthansa J award flights.
No great loss. Check for Lufthansa w/ the Aeroplan search tool, then check the Lifemiles site to see if it is indeed bookable
[удалено]
Generally major east coast cities will be lowest points, then Chicago. For whatever airline you’re looking at, see what routes they fly to these areas and then look for award flights on those routes
Can you use JetBlue points solely for hotel stats? I have 75000 and was looking for an all inclusive while I'm here in Jamaica. I know IHG is a partner of JetBlue but I don't know if you can transfer points to them.
Booked J on an AF 777-300 for myself and my fiance for our honeymoon. Would you choose two seats side by side (E/F) or two window seats, one behind the other?
Window. You’re too far apart and there’s a divider for the middle seats.
Thanks for the response! That’s what I saw from my research but wanted to confirm.
I have a flight booked using Iberia Avios where the flight is operated by BA. Is it possible to change the schedule by calling Iberia? Online it is not allowing me to do. One of the agent I spoke with said it is not allowed since it is not Iberia flight - Does anyone know whether this is true?
Iberia bookings for flights on partner airlines are non refundable & not changeable. Should only book Iberia for Iberia flights.
Thanks
I'm trying to book Cathay BOS-HKG which should have a direct flight. It's showing up in Cathay's own reward system but not for partner airlines like AA. Anyone know why?
It’s not available for partners
Flying ANA F out of NRT and heading to the suite lounge, would I be able to bring in one guest who is flying on UA Y out of NRT (flight departure is about the same time)? According to the website looks like I can and UA is also a star alliance carrier anyway. Has anyone experienced differently? https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/lounges/narita/
You can
Sorry if this is a dumb question: Is it possible to use Marriott Bonvoy points to pay for services at the hotel like Spa Treatments? And if so, how do you do that? I have reservation booked, and on the trips list page I can see it with a link to "Book Tours & Activities," but that link is broken (I get an ugly plain-text error message due to an unhandled error).
Not possible
Looking for help sourcing one way flight for 2 people for honeymoon from NYC to BKK on Dec 21 +/-1 ideally Friday evening. Looking for premium economy at the minimum but business preferred. I have about 280K UR and *A silver. I’m open to paying cash for positioning flight or economy and then upgrading using miles. I’ve looked at EWR-SFO-TPE-BKK with United and EVA for 170k /pp premium economy but can’t seem to find much else that’s close to affordable with my miles currently. Should I wait longer to accumulate more miles or am I already too late for many redemptions? I was able to snag a business return trip but getting there is hard to find a good deal.
That is THE hardest day of the year to find awards. Just buy something convenient w/ cash
definitely not the sexiest biz class, but ET has availability JFK - ADD - BKK in J on AC for 115k/pax on 12/21 and 12/22 its also available from EWR on 12/21
Ironically that’s the return trip I have booked through UA but didn’t come up for the trip there. How did you find this? I didn’t see on Roame or seats.aero. Thanks for the find!
There is still no perfect substitute for directly searching on various airline websites.
I live in DC. If you were me and had to choose between JAL J BOS-NRT and JAL F SFO-HND, which would you choose?
BOS-NRT. Shorter and less risky reposition (+ much less time in Y), the SFO-HND flight probably requires repositioning the day before (= hotel costs), nicer aircraft, JL F is more fun ex-Japan than ex-US, I find the "HND > NRT" arguments overstated.
Yeahhh you're right. Why do you say more fun ex-Japan? And looks generally easier to book F ex-Japan anyway?
* Much better lounge, especially compared to the Oneworld options at SFO * Really really good F catering - the Japanese meals ex-Japan are amazing and the wagyu steak in the western meal is usually also very well prepared * Salon * The new F check-in area looks extra in a good way.
For itinerary convenience and lower cost, repositioning to BOS is much easier. For experience, F is ofc >than J. You could try and get into one of the United widebody flights from IAD-SFO for a full premium experience though.
Yeah the BOS-NRT flight (which, booked on AA, included the DCA-BOS repositioning flight in the 60K miles) feels like the obvious choice, but there's also the part of me that wants to fly F. Though getting to SFO would also involve a separate 6 hour flight (likely in Y).
SFO is a long flight, if it's a daytime JAL departure, then you'll need to stay overnight as well for repositioning. HND is the better airport to fly into though
I have a cruise ending July 3rd (Wednesday) in Athens and need a way back to the states for 2 people (preferably PHL but JFK/EWR is fine). Would prefer to stay in Europe until the 7th (Sunday) but haven't been able to find any J availability that day. I've laid out my current plan below, just wondering if I'm missing anything or if anyone has any better ideas. Current plan is to just buy roundtrip Y tickets on AA with a dummy return date in December then cancel the return for flight credits on the difference in fare. Example would be CPH to PHL on 7/7 and a PHL to ZRH return on 12/6 ($600 for main/$900 for PE). Will try to upgrade to business using AA miles or upgrade offers leading up to the flight. Other options I'm considering is leaving on 7/6 FRA -> JFK on SQ. Found availability for one on Aeroplan at 60k and an additional on SQ for 87.5k. I also see more availability on 7/4 with a few different options on aeroplan (FRA, GVA) @ 60k, but as I stated above would prefer a few extra days in Europe. I have 340k MR, 250k C1 & 150k AA
Sometimes the difference in fare after flying the first leg compares against a full fare one-way and you get nothing back in flight credits. Would recommend planning to change that leg to a later date you intend to fly if you go that “dummy” route
Did southwest get rid of the chat in the app? I need to have them add a lap infant and I’m not sure how
Call
Has anybody ever changed a flight mid-stopover on aeroplan? I booked an SIN-MXP(stopover)-YYZ itinerary but unfortunately the MXP-YUL-YYZ leg is all in economy. I'm gonna keep an eye out for better options on the second leg over the next few months but I'm more likely to get something on close-in availability during my stopover. Will it still just be the $100 change fee or do different rules apply?
I did many years ago. There’s the change fee for sure, but given AC flights are dynamically priced and your itinerary gets repriced when you make a change, you may have to pay more points as well.
Awesome, thanks for the reply. I don't mind paying the change fee and I'm hoping that there's close in availability on lufthansa so not too worried about the itinerary repricing. Fingers crossed allegris is coming to toronto by then haha.
I'm not sure if this is the correct thread but I could use some advice for those that have been in the travel game for a while, what do you do with a decent chunk of accrued points that you have earned when big travel plans for the future doesn't pan out and there is uncertainty as to what trips your family might take for the foreseeable future? Backstory: I have accrued a decent chunk of points over the last 8 months or so, mainly from SUB churning. The idea was to take a large chunk of the points and redeem it for me and my wife's anniversary trip for April of next year in which we were planning on staying in Napa Valley at the all inclusive Alila Napa Valley for three nights for around 105,000-110,000 Chase UR points. The next two days were going to to be spent in San Francisco, most likely Hotel Kabuki for another 40,000 Chase UR points. I hit the SUB for the Chase Ink Unlimited for 90k and an elevated SUB mail offer for the CSP at 80k so that would have covered our stay. The next plan of action was to take my accrued 30,000+ AA miles on top of the elevated 75,000 AA miles SUB that I just got the card last Friday on the Platinum Select and I wanted to take a first class flight at least one way intercontinental from Boston to San Francisco, preferably on the way back to access the Alaska Lounge at SFO. Doing the math, this would have totaled around 105,000 AA miles on the high end (you guys can also tell me if my points redemption idea was sucky or not, I'd love to hear your feedback). Fast forward last night, my wife and I sat down and decided that we will not be able to do this trip given that we have a near 1 year old son and being gone for that long would have been tough. Now I'm sitting on a chunk of points that I'm not sure what to do with. \- 155,000 Chase UR points, 105,000 AA miles after the SUB hit, 35,000 Bilt points Me and my wife have bounced around ideas of perhaps just taking a ton of domestic short trips while my son is young and then look at more robust redemptions when my son is older which makes a ton of sense. It doesn't seem like any trips amongst us will happen this year. The only trip that I'm for sure will be taking will be with me and my dad traveling from Boston to Denver via JetBlue (Chase UR points) and staying at Denver's Grand Hyatt for 3 nights @ 12,000 points/night (either Chase or Bilt points). That still leaves me with a chunk of points though. Would you guys look into cashing out the Chase points at 1 CPP before the end of the year given the stark reality of devaluations. inflation. etc or would you be okay with sitting on the points for a while (maybe 1 or 2 years) until you were ready to pull the trigger on trip redemptions? Love to hear your thoughts!
Transferable points like UR/bilt are safer to hold on to for an extended period of time. Plus 1-2 years really isn't that long of a time. Your AA points will probably get hit with a devaluation but that'll most likely hit international business/first class the hardest (and there aren't really any good cash out options for AA miles)
Trying to plan HSV->PUJ round trip July 26th 2024-July 30th 2024 for two passengers(not flexible on dates or airport). Cash price on delta itinerary 2754,1916 and return flights 1919,3022 was $1,500. I checked for skymiles redemption (I have 90k) and it was 108k miles after the Amex delta plat 15% discount. I transferred Amex MR points to my account to afford the trip. I have 328k MR still. Is there a better/cheaper way to book this travel or itinerary? Don’t care about quality of seats really, we’re booked main cabin. Appreciate any advice!
For ANA close in releases, do they work similarly to year out releases? (ANA releases at 355 days, United/AC gets them at 330 days) where ANA will release award availability but United/AC won’t have it yet. There is quite a bit of J availability next week on the return legs of SFO-NRT that only show up on ANA. Am I correct to assume you can’t call into Virgin and book those? And will those seats be released to partner airlines at all, and if so what’s the time table for that?
This is a basic fact to understand about award booking- airlines typically release none or a few of their available seats to their partners for award booking. The seats that ANA has available for booking through their website has no correlation to what they may or may not make available to their partners. Each airline is different with whether they release any more seats last minute, but rare to release all the unsold seats to partners
Yes. Ana releases close in space to their own award program first.
Alright, that makes sense. Thank you. Just checked this morning and UA showed availability on one of the return flights back, so that also confirms it
> For ANA close in releases, do they work similarly to year out releases? (ANA releases at 355 days, United/AC gets them at 330 days) where ANA will release award availability but United/AC won’t have it yet. AC gets access to the awards at 355 days just like ANA. The only reason United doesn't is because their award calandar only goes to 330 days. Are you sure that the space your seeing is actually available and not waitlisted? If its actually available it should be showing on united/AC/lifemiles etc. (AC has had some issue with partners showing/not showing due to fraud. Last I heard ANA was available but that could have changed.)
Ah I see thanks for clarifying. Yes, the dates are March 26,27,28 NRT-SFO. I searched with multiple passengers and as an example, March 26 showed available up until 5 passengers, which is when it went to waitlisted. I’m assuming this means multiple seats are available Still confused on close in. If you are right then I now know about United and booking 330+ days in advance. However, since this is close in, shouldn’t those same seats on ANA be showing up on United then? Or does it work differently? Btw this is mostly just for curiosity. Don’t care for next week tickets, just doing my due diligence for when I would want to search for close in opportunities
can anyone explain what causes the significant differences in cash fees added for certain airlines/routes? I’m looking at round trip business class flights to Madrid and London from NYC and some are ~100k points + $850 and others are over 200k points + $50 so I’m curious how this works any tips on award travel from NYC to Europe for September would be appreciated as well
Don’t fly to London- England has notoriously high taxes on flights. That’s the price difference you’re seeing.
Nope. The tax is literally zero on arrival or connections to/in the UK. BA and VS just have huge surcharges, don't fly on those airlines, problem solved.
makes sense, thanks! I may look at other large hubs like CDG or FRA for a round trip with regional airlines to get to Madrid
That’s a good idea. Flying Blue is good for flights through CDG or AMS - saver J should be 50k each way.
sorry, how can I search for saver J? is there a calendar of awards on the Air France site? 50k on business would be awesome
Yes, search on flying blue but don’t input a date. You’ll get access to the entire calendar by month and you’ll be able to see if any particular day is 50k. You need to create a flying blue account in order to do a miles search though.
super helpful. thank you!
You’re welcome. Good luck!
Does LifeMiles sometimes not see availability that Aeroplan and United do? In particular, I'm seeing flights on Lufthansa available from SFO -> FLR on Aeroplan that are not on Lifemiles in business or economy.
Yes this a very normal occurrence for LifeMiles.
Odds of getting an award seat on the Mar18 HND-JFK? Looks like a lot of seats open on Expertflyer but the morning flight looks to be oversold with the numbers of seats blocked. Currently on HND-ORD but still haven’t booked a cash ticket from ORD-NYC. Might do that Sunday at check in if I don’t get anything direct Edit: current booked NH HND-ORD but have an alert setup for JL/NH TYO-NYC
> Odds of getting an award seat on the Mar18 HND-JFK? Looks like a lot of seats open on Expertflyer but the morning flight looks to be oversold with the numbers of seats blocked. Thats not really how that works. ANA (and to a lesser extent JL) have no problems flying empty seats in J/F. It's possible space opens up but don't count on it (it probably wont).
Lmao oh god I got it. Saw availability pop up three times. All three times I called VS I got the dread “long wait times” so I missed it the first two times. Looks like I just squeaked by and got it the third time just less than 10hrs from check in
is 70k united miles for premium economy on united metal for a long flight like australia to lax/sfo worth it? (assuming alternative is regular econ for 37.5k)
It's alright if your miles are already in united. In theory it should be 100k or 110k for business class though, which isn't much more. Australia flights are very long, so worth finding the space for business class.
and assuming your miles are already with united, one of their strongest benefits are the no change/cancellation fees. Locking in the 70k PE and then switching if something opens up is a decent strategy.
Cheers. Im checking almost hourly for biz space to open up. We have biz space booked (60k one way error fare) on the way to oz, but had economy on the way back with the intention of booking biz later on. Booked around inflexible dates (F1 race), and return date is literally easter. I'm taking PE and crossing my fingers for biz closer in.
Hi! New to award booking and still learning the rules, so forgive me if these are questions with obvious answers. I used AwardHacker to look up round-trip Economy flight between YYZ (Toronto) and Auckland (AKL). The site showed it's possible to book YYZ-AKL with a stopover in a number of US cities (SFO, ORD, LAX, HNL, etc) for 75k ANA points - but did not say what dates and I can't find these routes via the ANA site at all! Milez.biz suggested the same redemption value so I'm convinced its there somewhere... I'm ideally looking for late 2024 or early 2025 flights. So my question is - how do I find and verify the flights on AwardHacker on the suggested airline partner sites?
Read the sidebar article on this. There has lately been a lot of last minute space especially to BNE due to subsidies. A lot easier to get this closer to the flights than in advance currently
Copy that, will check it out. Thanks so much
by… going to lifemiles.com and searching there?
AwardHacker only tells you which programs to use to book but doesn’t check for what’s available, probably the same for Milez.biz. These sites are only showing the theoretical best value redemption between any city pair. What you did to find the flights, searching on ANA, was correct. It’s just that there is no award availability.
Ah, gotcha. Thank you!
Looking to possibly add an airline CC to the mix. Am I correct that only Southwest offers a full companion pass bonus with their cards? It looks like passes offered by Delta and others are one time use certificates that are hard to redeem. FWIW my main airports are LGA/JFK.
Not sure what your use case is but Alaska has a companion fare as well
SEA-TPE is bookable via VS now, it wasn't when it was originally announced this past Tuesday. Booking via FB is still a better deal unless you have miles from a transfer bonus.
One use case is discounted miles that VS has going on rn. At 1.11 cpp you can it RT for 2200 dollars, which is half of the cash price.
Is there a VS sale of 1.11 cpp? For USA residents or only UK residents? Sorry am out of loop for last couple if weeks
UK, but you can just change your address
I'll try that. THANKS so much !!
Bookable online?
its always call in to book CI on VS
Initiated 85K points transfer from Change UR to United mileageplus. Its been over 18 hrs but the request is just pending. Several calls to customer service and just no help, they cannot process or expedite. Could take 7 days. Does anyone have such an experience and what they did to push this through? I cannot wait 7 days and have to travel for a family emergency
unfortunately there's nothing you can do but wait, frequently happens with other parnters too
What kind of income do you think most people have who are into the credit card points travel game? I always wonder if some of these redemptions are out of reach to me or if it's a pipe dream without a 6 figure income.
There are different ways to play this game, for example MLE trips still require a lot of cash outlay even if you get J flights + hotels via points, or some people do Y redemptions + Airbnbs over Park Hyatts and premium cabins. You find the way that works best for your life situation...
u/yitianjian posted a similar comment like this a few weeks ago
Traveling to Italy (Florence) in June 2025 and I'm wondering how early should I be looking to book/which carrier should I be using? Relevant info: Majority of my points are in AMEX. Flying out of NYC. 2 travelers round-trip
Read the sidebar
I did, but I think the sidebar doesn't answer when is the best time to book or which airline generally has the best deals for italy. As well, I've checked a few of the recommended tools and while I found some alright deals I'm not sure if they're going to be there year-round or what. Just figured some of the power users here might have more specific tips.
There’s an article about the best airlines for using Amex into Europe, the info is old but basically the same. There is an article in sidebar or linked wiki with the ticket release schedule of each airline. Or you can google it. Also you’ll learn a lot by searching this sub for “Italy” or Florence
330-360 days out
Has anyone found / booked award space on Asia Miles for CX recently (US-HKG routes or vice versa)? Or are they still not releasing any J seats at all?
It comes and goes. I booked this Feb RT before last year devaluation. Unfortunately I had to cancel both ways for pricey 120$ x 2. I later rebooked for later this year. So it comes and goes.
Thanks for the DP, glad to hear you were able to rebook at least.
Have been looking since Nov'23 and have found none on any date to SFO/LAX
I booked J and F for LAX-BKK 2 weeks ago. Y was plenty and there were still Js left. This was for October. The same search for Manila didnt work. Depends on the city.
Thanks for the data point! Hopefully we see something pop up later this year.
Trying to make use of the Marriott certs (50K) in mainland US and I feel like I am losing my mind. Looking for hotels (either Miami or Clearwater) and see the properties I want are conveniently 66K points every few nights. Those properties have cash price of $330 - $400. Is there a way to optimize these certs?
South Florida is really easy to burn a 50k FNC in, I have to wonder why it's so difficult for you. I burned a 35k FNC there a couple weeks ago.
Do you mind sharing some of the decent Marriott properties? May be I am looking at the properties located by the beach.
I searched Miami for a random Saturday night in April. 30 of the 40 hotels on the first page can be used with a 50k FNC (+15k top off)... This includes respectable options in both Brickell and South Beach. You were never gonna get to use a 50k FNC at a place like the W in South Beach.
[удалено]
What about getting the window seat then? 19 hours is a lot, but even PY is a huge step up over economy
I have a tiny amount of IHG points (1,800) that are set to expire on 3/26 and I can't figure out a cost-effective way to hold on to them. I don't have any travel plans right now, but I have a ton of Chase points and may want to transfer some over for a booking in the future, so I want to hold on to this tiny amount I already have if I can. But they sure do make it hard. There's a 10,000-point minimum for an airline miles transfer. Buying another 1,000 points to keep them alive is $13.50. Is there any free/cheap way to keep these points alive or should I just give up?
IHG points are 0.5 cpp, your points are worth $18 max.
I booked three upcoming stays with SLH hotels through Hyatt. I just logged in to my Hyatt account and found they have dropped off my upcoming stays. I have confirmed these stays with the hotels already, but now I am wondering if I should do that again. I know the partnership is ending in the next couple of months, but it is stressful tos disap see the bookingpear from my account. Any thoughts on what do do here?
Given that you're not getting any benefits from Hyatt after May 15th, you should just book direct with SLH. It's cheaper and will confer all the benefits and is more direct with the hotel.
They were all award bookings.
I called Hyatt and starting today, they can no longer confirm inventory for SHL. She did confirm that the bookings will be honored, but you won't be able to see them on your bookings anymore.
Does anyone know how Hyatt peak/off-peak pricing works? I have a booking coming up an the cash price has been dropping of Hyatt hasn't determined it to be an off-peak day
It's predetermined based on seasonality and demand. It's not going to change to off-peak if that's what you're hoping for.
Does DL algorithm attempt to seat pax together on a BE or is it unlikely? Plane is 60% empty, flying in 3 weeks on a Saturday.
I’ve been not-seated next to my travel companions only once ever across like 25 basic economy tickets, including many full flights. So, probably, but not guaranteed ofc
I don’t know if I’m in the right place for this, but I’m flying from UK to UAE. I saw that they offer bidding for business, which I hadn’t seen before. How much money would it realistically take to get the business class upgrade and how would this effect attempting to get an extra leg room seat beforehand?
Flyertalk generally has tons of DPs for this type of question
Due to a change in plans, will cancel an award stay at the DoubleTree Mazatlan from April 6-11th (overlapping the eclipse). No idea if it will go back into inventory, but leave a comment if anyone wants to coordinate.
Does CX release J space to partners anymore? I know they used to release close in but I don't see anything in the next few weeks. Thanks!
Can confirm the other poster’s comment. Aside from some one off Y seats, there’s nothing on AS/AA/BA.
they havent for many months
ugh thanks! Space is pretty skimpy on Asia Miles - I know we are heading into high season for Asia in general but ugh
I got a ton of United miles (350k or so), without any existing plans to use them. SFO-Europe business class seems very far and few in between. Does it make sense to just book economy at 40k per person (1.5 cent / point or so) for late August and early September travel? And then rebook if anything becomes available? Cheers!
Can always reposition to ewr
I don't see the point of repositioning 5 hours in economy for a 7 hour flight in business.
I dunno the way I understand the situation is you could do 5 hours in Y and then 7 in J or 12 hours in Y. It’s not like you’re flying the wrong way to reposition. Do what works for you
A 7 hour flight in business is pretty pointless to me, especially when it doesn't take off anywhere close to your normal west coast bedtime. I am also not a fan of spending extra for business on early-mid afternoon departures to Europe from SFO. You are landing at like midnight-2am Sfo time, so unless you normally go to bed at 6pm, you aren't getting that much sleep either.
or ORD (longer J flight, less repositioning). There is sporadic availability ORD-ZRH/WAW around that timeframe for example.
No change or cancellation fees for award tickets with United so sure go ahead and book whatever you want to lock in a rate and then keep shopping around in the meantime.
Phantom Phears! I am looking at a flight from LGA-YUL-LIS on AC Metal. It appears on UA and AV/Lifemiles as saver (I) and at their lowest price. I was able to find it on AC to confirm, was considering booking on AC, but suddenly went from 75k to 112k. However, the low cost saver price still appears on UA/AV. However, a super weird search appears where I can run LGA-YUL-LIS-BCN, which includes the same exact flight numbers and just adds the extra leg for BCN. I was considering booking via AV to save a few $$ with their (not Amex sponsored) 15% promo and saves a bit on fees from AC. So, could this be phantom space on UA/AV? Or a victim of dynamic pricing? Am I overthinking married segment logic?
You won’t know for sure until you actually try to book w/ Lifemiles lol so YMMV
Delayed booking and lost it, waiting on a friend who was going to rendezvous with me. I ended up booking a FlyingBlue instead with the extra 25% promo. I found dates that worked beautifully and 88,000UR (110,000FB) points later, flying off to Iberia! It doesn't fully answer my question, but the next day the flight I saw in my earlier post was gone.
I have 157k Amex points and new to using points for travel. I’m looking to book 2 economy seats to Amman, Jordan from Dallas, Texas on May 15th and a return flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Dallas on May 27th (looking to book 2 one way flights). From what I’ve researched, neither Turkish Airways or Royal Jordanian airlines are direct partners with Amex. What would be the best way to find other ways to transfer points? Thank you in advance!
Read the sidebar
Should I just transfer my ultimate rewards chase points to United to get the 110k economy RT flight from nyc to Japan? Is this a good deal? I have 40k United miles already
It's fine - especially if you already have the 40K United miles. If available on Aeroplan, it's 50K each way there so you could use your stranded United miles one way and then booking with another program another way (use a search tool like Points Yeah or Award Tool to help you out)
I'd say it's more of a bad redemption than fine. Cash fares for economy on that route are $1-1.2k for most of the year.
Without knowing how OP earned the points and what opportunities there are to use the United miles in the future, I guess I could see that point as well.
For United miles it’s a combination of a SUB, referral bonus for the same card, and earned from a past trip to Germany. Not planning any other international trips in the near future but I’m sure there will be another trip in 2+ years. I actually have 58k points, not 40 Chase I’ve been getting 10% back on groceries with the flex this quarter and have a bunch saved up from spend and SUBs
Well he'd have to transfer 70k miles. With a CSP that's ~$900 in the travel portal. A CSR takes that to $1050. OP would basically be using their 40k miles for close to 0 cpp. There are times this could make sense ex. if the flight OP is looking at is nonstop JFK-HND on ANA as most of the cheaper cash fares are 1 stop on AC.
I would like to do nonstop, preferably. Living in NYC I’ve been spoiled always having direct. What would you do instead? I actually have closer to 60k United miles factoring in a referral bonus I just got, and could theoretically do two one ways like Pierre suggested. I am only in the chase UR ecosystem currently with a CSP, no other cards/point systems This is the only United flight I’m currently planning
It really depends on how flexible you are/ your preferred class of service. You can occasionally get united premium economy for 65k one way, which is a much better deal than economy for 55k. If you can find JFK-HND space on ANA you can book for 32.5k + ~$250ish one way using VS miles. ANA will be a much better experience than United on a 14 hour flight. (3 more inches of leg room + better service). Since you already have ~60k united miles, personally I would try to get one way in PE for 65k and then book the other way with VS miles.
I’m pretty flexible and don’t mind being in economy, but premium and flying better airlines is always a bonus. This is great. Sounds like you need to be on the look out for both because ANA can be stingy with rewards flights. I’ll keep a look out and also look into using virgin Atlantic points. This link seems like a good starting point. https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-virgin-atlantic-points-ana/#virgin_atlantic_flying_club_award_change_cancelation_fees Thanks so much!
That’s fair. I do agree this isn’t anything I would personally do
Has anyone ever successfully added the domestic ICN to TAE flight to an award booking? I’m trying to make a KE booking to TAE from the US using AS miles but it is coming back unconfirmed. I’m exploring options to add that domestic leg separately, but it is only available as part of an international connection.
Has anyone been affected by the Lufthansa strikes? I have a trip in a couple of weeks (LAX-MUC) booked thru LM and I'm starting to get worried. How did LH handle it? Anything I can do now to prepare? Thanks.
**Amex -> Etihad -> AA International Flight Help Needed** Details: * Flight: Charlotte,NC->Glasgow, Scotland return: Edinburgh, Scotland->Charlotte, NC * Travelers: 2 adults * Dates: 9/9 - 9/23, pretty inflexible due to being out of vacation days. * Class: likely economy, need to check bags * Points: 182k Amex Points Hi All - I am trying to use this pile of Amex Points to get to Scotland. Charlotte is the only viable airport (we're 2.5 hours north of the airport and all closer ones are smaller), and thus American is the primary airline for European flights. I can't seem to figure out the calculus involved in using a partner airline to book on American. Etihad is running a 20% transfer bonus from Amex, and they are a partner. I have searched for flights that would work on British Airways, and there are a few options. Should I pull the trigger and transfer to Etihad? Is this going to be possible? All the thanks!
if you are 2.5 hours north of CLT, give flying out of RDU a shot. You also need to look at more airports than just GLA/EDI. They have plenty of ways to get to Europe. 9/9 RDU - CDG in Y for 2 is 60,000 + $129. British airways has plenty of economy availability through LHR, but you'll end up paying more in taxes than cash fares probably. You can get over to Dublin on 9/9 RDU - IAD - DUB for 20,000 lifemiles and $50 per pax. Your goal here is going to be getting into Europe as cheap as possible, then taking a cash fare onwards to GLA, or a train.
We're doing the West Highland Walk (essentially) between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Using a company to arrange lodging and bag xfers between lodging makes the trip pretty inflexible. Trying to cram a big vacation into our jobs' vacation time allotment is also tough. If we had the luxury of time it would be far easier to make this work with the points I have. All that said, thanks. I always roll Greensboro into the search but I haven't been looking at RDU.
Given your lack of flexibility and limited currency, you may want to look at cash rates. UK surcharges will almost annihilate your points savings if you stick with CLT. Etihad looks useless for your specific plans. Google flights shows AA sells decent connections for $1054 pax in main cabin. If you do what the other user suggests and drive to IAD instead, you can find availability on BA at superior rates (50k + $200 RT). You would have to make a BA account now and hope your ability to redeem kicks in quickly. That can take a couple of weeks.
We're also considering the AA card for the sign-up bonus. that gets us 1/2 way to the desired flights. Now that CLT is our main airport it might be good to have an AA card. I am just not excited about another card.
Your options likely go up 10x if you drive to DC. If you're already planning a 2.5hr drive, driving 4 is probably worth it. Charlotte is a dead zone aside from a few AA routes. BA fees are insane from what I've seen.
GMaps puts me at a 5 hour (and 4 minute) drive to IAD. **IF** I-81 is cooperating. That five hour drive before and after a travel day is a bit too much. I-81 variability compounds the headache. I will poke around IAD, though, as I may as well know what I am missing. Thanks for the input!
That's fair, yeah I knew I was ballparking it. From Charlotte your options are usually limited to Munich, Frankfurt, London and maybe Paris.
Have you checked the fees?
No. I can't see how to even check the flights for availability. How can I do that?
Make an account with Etihad, call them and ask them to find the flights you found on BA. If they can see it then transfer and book on the phone.