tonrob

Earlier in the year I wrote here and here about starting to construct my big 2015 blow-out trip to take place in late Summer, and I was umm-ing and ahh-ing about how best to get from the US East Coast to Germany.

By fukc have I cracked it!

The other day I realized that you can book one-way awards ex-US on Emirates using Alaska Airlines miles, and that for 100K miles and peanuts in taxes (well, $40) you can fly first class.

This means that you can fly Emirates first class on their A380 in all it's caviar and bling, shower-on-boardiness from JFK to Milan for 100K miles.

Well how about that?

I then also realized that I could carry on to Dubai on the same flight for the same price: 100K miles.....

Hmmm.... never been to Dubai (not the time of year to go, but when it's free).

I then realized that I could stop over in Dubai but then continue to Dusseldorf in first class on another Emirates A380 on the same ticket, all for.... wait for it.... 100K miles.

I didn't even have an Alaska account, so created one quickly as Alaska are a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest, where the transfer ratio is 20K SPG = 25K AK, and I have rather a lot of SPG points. These transfers take at least a few days to go through and are non-reversible, so I've pulled the trigger and pumped 80K SPG across not knowing whether the award availability will still be there when they arrive.

Sitting on the edge of my seat right now.

tonrob

Can't believe I'm posting a link to the DM, but it's worth it for the comedy value of the comments from the usual calibre of readership.

Linky.

g1ant

All well and good. Much as I like flying 1st class, from time to time it's nice to be able to leave the airport and not just transit.

g1ant

In my experience SPG transfer are pretty quick. They do them in batches. I've never had to wait more than two days.

Good luck.

I'll put that one on my list for next year.

tonrob

Yes, of course - completely agree. I posted it for the comedy value of the comments rather than the virtue of the article (or the subject's itinerary) itself.

g1ant

I missed the comments. Just read them. Hilarious.
Especially the one about calling the police.

tonrob

Ok - my SPG points still haven't arrived with Alaska, but I've read that they get pushed through on Mondays and Fridays, so I'll stay on the edge of my seat for now.

I've shelved my Cambodia visit as Mrs tonrob wants to go there as well and would prefer if I wait, so with my miles burning a hole in my pocket I've constructed a new shortened itinerary that will connect with my already-booked Singapore-JFK flight in Singapore Suites Class!

First the side trip from Germany (with Mrs tonrob, Sproutlet abandoned at in-laws). Mrs tonrob's been hankering after Copenhagen for a while and I haven't been before, so Copenhagen it is!

I've booked SAS economy class for the short round-trip FRA-CPH for a total of 33,160 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the both of us. Really not worth doing business as the seats are shit (basically economy seats with the middle one blocked) and includes a meal we won't want. Rather save my points and buy a big pretzel at the airport. In Copenhagen we've booked 4 nights at the Radisson Blue Royal Copenhagen with 2 back-to-back 2 night reservations, one in my name and one in Mrs tonrob's name, each using points from our respective Radisson accounts and each utilizing the 'buy one get one free' awards benefit that comes with our US Bank Radisson credit cards (a benefit that sadly is going away for bookings made after 1st June).

Leaving Mrs tonrob and the Sproutlet in Germany I then make my way to Singapore by way of Vietnam.

After much searching and playing cat & mouse with phantom award space on ba.com, I managed to pinch a first class seat on Cathay Pacific from Frankfurt to Hong Kong, connecting into a shorter business class Cathay flight to Ho Chi Minh City. I flew Cathay First from Hong Kong to JFK last year and absolutely loved it, so am really looking forward to this flight. This was an absolute bargain, using 70K American Airlines miles and a paltry $60 co-pay for a ticket that retails at $4,500.

In Ho Chi Minh City I will stay two nights at the Intercontinental Asiana Saigon using the free nights I earned via IHG's 'Into the nights' promo late last year.

My short hop from Saigon to Singapore will be in business class on Singapore Airlines, paid with 17K Singapore miles (and $90 co-pay) gained by transferring more American Express Membership Rewards points across (I'd also done this before to pay for the Singapore-New York flight). I'll get to Singapore with about 8 hours to spare, plenty of time to pop into town, have a wander and maybe some food at one of the Hawker Centres.

Chopping off the bit from JFK-FRA (which I haven't booked yet) and the FRA-JFK leg of my Singapore-New York flight (which helps for sake of scale), this is the Europe-Asia-Europe route I am left with:



Will update more once the Alaska miles post. If anyone has any questions about the miles or the booking processes please shout. Anyone with a credit rating and a little time to spare can do this stuff.

alstonalvin

Focus on where you fly
You’ll have the best chance of earning and actually using airline miles if you concentrate your efforts on the airline or airlines that serve the markets you live in and most often visit for business or pleasure.
Don’t ignore ticket prices.
If Airline A will get you to your destination for $200 and Airline B charges $800 for the same route, you’ll almost certainly be better off with A than with B, even if B is the one you’re trying to collect and use miles with
Consider convenience.
A route that takes you out of your way or a flight that departs or arrives at a ridiculous hour may be a poor choice even if the math shows you’re getting a decent deal for your points.

The Bottom Line
Don't redeem your miles for anything but airline trips – unless they're about to expire and you need to buy something to keep the account active. And remember to factor in time and convenience (and common sense, if there's a much cheaper cash fare) when using miles to save on travel.

tonrob

Welcome to BE! Honoured your first post has been on my thread!

You make great points. I'll say that I have on rare and highly selective occasions broke the last one. I have high BA and AA balances (750K-1MM), and have used some to book hotels, e.g. Mandarin Oriental Prague during a half-price hotel award sale, and once used AA miles to book a hire car. Normal air miles rates for hotels are crap of course, so agree with your stance 99.5% of the time.

The other exception I suppose would be when someone has held the miles for years and obviously can't use them. They're not fine wine, and far better to cut your losses and get some value rather than none at all.

lansbury

In the current market that often isn't much choice. Often those are the routes that come up when you request award travel. As an example I wanted to go PDX - MAN business on United. The route is PDX-IAD-MAN and there were seats for purchase. In fact most of the seats showed unsold. But the award travel kept coming up PDX-IAH-IAD-MAN, with a 6am departure from PDX. Convenience comes at a cost and it usually is priced above free award travel.

tonrob

Something I've come across recently - and I am no way saying this applies to your case, has been that award search engines sometimes have problems with identifying valid connections.

My recent one was trying to find availability FRA-SGN on ba.com. The only routings displayed were lengthy ones via LHR on BA with the high taxes and fuel surcharges you might expect. After a bit of playing around I discovered that there was availability FRA-HKG on Cathay, and - searched separately - a perfectly good array of connecting flights from HKG-SGN. So ba.com would have sold these to me on separate tickets but could not find them together in a single search.

In the end the only reason I was looking on ba.com was because searches on aa.com don't show Cathay awards at all (and it was AA miles I was intending to spend as I would have needed far fewer of those and also the taxes/fees would be negligible).

Seeking award availability in general can often be a game of cat and mouse, where you need to use one airline's site to search for availability in another programme due to IT constraints on the site of the carrier whose miles you're looking to use.

For those who are interested, here are some of the sites that have a better reputation for searching (those I can recall right now):

Use ba.com or qantas.com to search for availability on OneWorld carriers
Use ana.com to search for search for availability on Star Alliance carriers

Of course the pricing you'll pay will be the pricing of the airline whose miles you are using, not the mileage cost that appears using the site you are using to search, so you'll have to cross-reference the relevant award charts.

I found this fairly recent article that breaks things down to a more detailed level.

tonrob

Just found an exceptionally useful thread on Flyertalk regarding how to choose the best OneWorld programme to credit your flights to (e.g. What to consider when choosing whether to credit BA flights to BA's own programme or to AA instead). Very handy indeed.

Deciding on a Oneworld Frequent Flyer Program? Help is here. - FlyerTalk Forums

tonrob

Six videos to watch, but you can simply fast forward right to the end of them. Each has a multiple-choice question to answer at the end, but it doesn't matter whether you answer right or wrong. Whole process takes about 2 minutes and at the end you are awarded 1,000 AA miles and entered into a draw to win a pair of 1st class tickets anywhere AA flies.

Clicky.

GeoffM

A paltry 7962 BA Avios miles are about to expire. Can I afford a bag of peanuts with them (excluding taxes, fees, and fuel surcharge of course)?

Seriously though, Delta is my "chosen" airline, I also have IHG and SPG. Can I do anything worthwhile with those Avios other than spend them? I don't see the point in trying to keep hold of them (I earned them 3 years ago and haven't spent them in that time, so I don't see me doing it anytime soon).

tonrob

You can fly up to 1,151 miles in coach on a direct AA flight for 7,500 Avios and $5. No idea if that's helpful.

If you want to stop them expiring, then buy a 99c song from iTunes via shopping.ba.com.