gooselee

What's the best way to discover if there is Virgin Australia inventory available for booking using Virgin America points? Would of course not want to transfer MR unless I know there are flights that can be booked.

TMM1982

Just FYI but I've been told that VA has very little award availability for VX members. Buyer beware.

bgriff

Not sure if this is true -- in general what VX can book should match what DL offers, and you can search for VA awards on Delta's website.

VA has tightened up availability on trans-Pacific flights in general, so both VX and DL would have limited availability on those flights relative to what they had a year ago. But there are tons of awards available on VA shorthaul flights -- I just booked an HBA-MEL award for 2 in business class using VX miles a couple of weeks ago with no problem.

It is definitely possible that you might speak to a VX agent who doesn't know what they're doing, since I can't imagine they do many of these awards and from my experience it appears their process is very manual -- I didn't even get an automatically-generated confirmation email, just a "handwritten" email from the agent I spoke with summarizing my PNRs and flight details -- so if DL suggests there's space and a VX agent can't book it, it's probably worth a HUCA or two.

weski

We are considering buying tickets via AMEX mileage but upgrading to Business using United points. Any recommendations? I hate to blow all the UA or AMEX, but the upgrade is important. United wants 175,000 miles each, but I guess it would be "guananteed." Flight is in December 2016.

TMM1982

Have you thought about trying to transfer AMEX MR to KrisFlyer and booking a suite from to your destination?

Irish80

I was on the phone today with VX trying to redeem my Elevate points for roundtrip from LAX to SYD in November or December in Business class for two. Nothing available at all. I'm sure VA's reconfiguring of their business class seating contributes to the lack of flights. She suggested I call back in a month but I doubt that it will affect the availability. She did mention that getting flights in Australia such BNE to SYD is very easy so intra country flights shouldn't be hard at all.

TMM1982

Yes I mentioned this in my post on Jan 25. It's disappointing to me b/c I have the points with VX to cash them in for a J VA to Australia but unfortunately never any seats.

MasterGeek

Which airlines or frequent flyer program allow holding an award seat to allow time for the transfer of miles from Amex MR ?

mia

Membership Rewards points transfer instantly to many airlines and the question does not arise. See Wikipost at top of this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...fer-times.html

puls

Can I open this Pandora's box again?

My fiancée has me convinced that New Zealand is the honeymoon destination of choice, and during high season (next February), to boot. Given our travel patterns and a cursory availability search, I'm feeling this may in fact be doable in F with stopovers somewhere in Asia (or even somewhere else) in both directions.

We have about 500K MR points between us (though split 350K/150K, which could complicate things) to apply to this endeavor.

Can anybody advise what the most efficient use of them might be?

Aeroplan wants 110K in each direction, but it looks like maybe they don't allow routing through Asia with their unpublished MPM restrictions.

ANA is roundtrip only, and one of us doesn't have enough for a 225K F roundtrip.

KrisFlyer wants 255K roundtrip as a *A award or 238K roundtrip as an SQ award (does that seem right?), which is high, but they allow one-ways and it seems like they're more lenient on routings? (We also have some Citi/Chase/SPG points to transfer if needed.)

I'm far less familiar with the non-*A partners, so I'd appreciate any insight on them, as well. I'm totally open to complicated options with multiple and/or nested tickets, if it helps. There are just a huge number of options that I'd like to get a handle on.

bgriff

SQ is possible but risky. They would allow a circuitous routing via SIN to get to AKL on SQ metal, but oddly they are simultaneously super-strict about routings on *A awards so you aren't likely to get away with a via-Asia *A routing on a single award. If SQ awards on your routing are available near the end of the calendar now, you could take the risk and transfer points over to SQ to be ready to book when your dates come up, but SQ longhaul awards go fast, so you run the risk of transferring points and then not being able to get the flights you want.

If SQ flights don't work, then your next best option might be looking at multiple awards (one to Asia, then a separate onward award). You might even want to consider options where you book through one program to get to a midway point in Asia, like HKG or BKK, and then book the rest of the way in a different program.

Note that Air New Zealand business class awards are very rare, so a good planning strategy might be to target Asian airlines that fly in to New Zealand and start looking at options to get to their hubs.

To that end, if you have any UA miles or Chase points at all, be aware that BKK-AKL is just 30K UA miles one-way in business class. TG business isn't the greatest product, but availability is good and that award is one of the best deals on any award chart anywhere these days. Could even be worth looking at a few Chase Ultimate Rewards or UA MileagePlus sign-up bonuses to get the miles to book that.

crimsona

Depends where you're starting from. East Coast to Auckland via Asia works on Aeroplan, but it's really tight. No go for West Coast as the mpm is lower as the distance is closer

Toronto to YVR to Tokyo to Shanghai to Auckland is allowed, anything through Singapore is over mpm.

That would be business, no first on those routes

g8trgr8t

I had to book 5 to Oz and back in business and went through mental gymnastics trying to make it work. Finally paid Josh at Juicy Miles and he found a way to make it work. Money well spent...

boslaw

I have 180,000 membership rewards points. I'd like to take a family vacation to Australia from Boston, preferably flying Premium Economy. What's the best way to maximize the value of my Membership Rewards? (Sorry if this is in the wrong place - I'm very new to using miles).

Thanks

Mwenenzi

You have several ways to achieve this, with varying chances of success and cost

• Use the MR to buy flights from the Amex portal
• Transfer to a ffp and then find PE award flights
• Cash paid tickets
• Combination of any of the above

Amex MR thread Transfer Membership Rewards points to which airline or hotel program?

• You do not give a time or how many in the family (both very important)
• Premium cabin (PE, Bus First) awards USA Australia are very hard to get with any airline or ffp. OW airlines seem to be harder than Star Alliance
• Getting 2 premium cabin awards on the same flight is 3 times as hard,
  Getting 3 premium cabin awards on the same flight is 4 times as hard, etc
  Or maybe a factor of 4, 9, 16 etc (pax number squared)
• With awards need to be very flexible with dates & routes. The outboard & inboard do not need to be same.
• With awards people many need to fly different airlines, dates & routes.
• AA do not offer PE awards (as yet)
• 180,000 MR points will not go far
• Upgrades on USA Aust flights are also hard to get. Without airline ffp status may be tending to impossible

Airlines that fly USA/Canada to/from Australia

• American Airlines AA (LAX - SYD) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner)
• Air Canada AC (YVR – SYD BNE MEL) [Star Alliance]
• Air New Zealand NZ (LAX SFO ORD IAH YVR via AKL) [Star Alliance]
• Air Tahiti Nui TN (LAX via Tahiti. Last segments on codeshares) (AA & DL partner)
• Delta DL (LAX – SYD) (VA & AS partner) [Skyteam Alliance]
• Fiji Airways FJ (LAX SFO HNL – BNE SYD MEL ADL via Fiji) (QF, AA & AS partner)
• Hawaiian HA (HNL – BNE SYD) (AA & VA partner)
• Jetstar JQ (HNL – BNE SYD MEL)
• Qantas QF (LAX SFO JFK(via LAX) DFW HNL YVR*– SYD; LAX-BNE; LAX SFO-MEL) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner) {* seasonal}
• United UA (LAX-MEL, LAX SFO IAH– SYD) (SFO-MEL from 20 Oct 2019)[Star Alliance]
• Virgin Australia VA (LAX – BNE SYD MEL) (codeshares with AC*) (Delta & AC* partner) [*= some routes in 2017-18 link
• and others via Asia & Middle East

PE https://www.awardhacker.com/#f=Bosto...=0&c=w&s=1&p=0
Y https://www.awardhacker.com/#f=Bosto...=0&c=y&s=1&p=0

Consider these Award booking services - a list and some reviews

Realistically the best you could hope for is some of your party on awards and the rest with cash paid tickets.

Good luck with the hunt