I'm interested in knowing what people consider the best deals for their miles. My favs are:
1. Los Angeles - Istanbul return coach 40,000 miles on BA (7000+ mile trip wow!)
2. Upgrade Y to C LAX - Melbourne, Australia on UA, 13,000 miles one way

1) When I was living in London, U.K., Delta's award for 50,000 miles to go from anywhere in Europe to any of the 50 states made it tempting to go from London to Honolulu. The furthest you could would probably be Honolulu to Istanbul, Turkey or Moscow, Russia.
2) Delta's award from any of the 50 United States of America to India or Pakistan is very tempting for 80,000 miles. The longest trip would probably be from Honolulu to Mumbai (Bombay). Just think from the US to Mumbai (Bombay) - then catch a domestic flight down to Goa or hop across to the beautiful beaches of the Maldives ...
3) Delta's off-season award of 50,000 miles is tempting to Brazil ... Go and see Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or ski in the Argentine and Chilean Andes would be sweet ...!

20K Miles on Northwest from any point in the US to Alaska. This includes connecting travel on Alaska Airlines so you can travel to remote Alaskan fishing and hiking locations.

I think this was in 1986, back when United used to offer "specials" on various mileage awards. It was 60,000 miles International First Class R/T to Tokyo, six nights at the (then) Westin Akasaka Prince Hotel, plus 7 days car rental from Hertz (which I used in Hawaii)! Nowadays they would probably offer this as an auction item with a STARTING bid of 150,000!

The best has to be Canadian Airlines Canadian Plus award from North America to South Africa(yes there is something good about that other airline in Canada). For 100,000 miles you can fly via Europe on Canadian/BA to South Africa in Business Class and stop over in Europe.

BlondeBomber:

Your right about "there is something good about that other airline in Canada." Air Canada *does* have a few good points.

My favourite is a "special" that Canadian seems to have from time to time: Canada to Hong Kong for 40,000, and occaisionally 35,000.

Canadian now also has an arrangement with Amex, where if you transfer 5000 Membership Rewards points to CP, you will get a points discount on awards. For example, anywhere in Canada to anywhere else in N America (excluding HI) -- normally 25,000, but with Amex discount, only 20,000. Some others are Canada to S America or Europe for 35,000, and Canada to Japan for 45,000.

Ken

my best mileage award is my birthday present to Gisela and her girlfriend, and they are on their way right NOW:

120'000 miles in total for 2 International First class tickets on UA: Frankfurt-Chicago-Vancouver (skiing Whistler)-San Francisco-Denver-Aspen (skiing)-Denver-Chicago-Frankfurt! (the partner award is "normally" 160'000, but as a IK I got a 40'000 miles rebate-voucher). Unfortunately those Partner-award-tickets disappear per April-30-99.

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 03-02-99).]

We just did Lima (Peru) to Sydney in United Business. The four tickets came to 280k miles. As Rudi mentions, its really too bad that UA decided to do away with these 2fer awards.

Before I knew of the value of using miles for upgrades and saving the rest for a rainy day:
cashed in a lot of miles (forget how many) to fly first class DEN-SFO-SYD-SYD-SFO-DEN.

I paid for the inter-continental Ansett trips. Came to about 560 bucks.

Not bad to go to Australia for 560 bucks.

But two regrets:

*Using miles instead for upgrades on the U-A flights.
*Paying something for the ticket so I can earn ff miles (Luckily I made PremEx, on the last day of the year!!!)

But it was an enjoyable trip. I want to go back to OZ (If only to go to Cairns and think about dropping out and going barefoot again!)


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CATMAN