Group and Event Travel Planning - Tips For Travel Rookies — Seattle to Denpasar

My family (~10 people) is planning a 2 week vacation in Feb of 2014, but we have no experience coordinating a trip like this on a strict budget. So I’m looking from airfare advice from the experts:

When is the best time to buy for a trip in Feb of ‘14?
Which 2 week period in February would be the cheapest to fly there and back?
Which airline makes the most sense in regards to us gaining miles as easily as possilbe to get to Bali?


I think that last question will inform my other questions. Which card to get will largely be dependent whatever air-miles program the airline we choose uses, yes? Are there any questions that I’m not even thinking of that I should consider?

Thanks for the help!

-Chris

My family (~10 people) is planning a 2 week vacation in Feb of 2014, but we have no experience coordinating a trip like this on a strict budget. So I’m looking from airfare advice from the experts:

When is the best time to buy for a trip in Feb of ‘14?
Which 2 week period in February would be the cheapest to fly there and back?
Which airline makes the most sense in regards to us gaining miles as easily as possilbe to get to Bali?


I think that last question will inform my other questions. Which card to get will largely be dependent whatever air-miles program the airline we choose uses, yes? Are there any questions that I’m not even thinking of that I should consider?

Thanks for the help!

-Chris

Try this (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/group-event-travel-planning-700/) forum for help with planning for a large group.

Thanks for pointing that out! I’ll see if anyone has advice there regarding group rates. But if anyone on this thread has advice for which airline would be the best for miles to Bali, I’m all ears!

Thanks,
Chris

You might be better off using the SPG Amex. With SPG, if you transfer in 20K increments, you get a 5K bonus. So you will, in effect, get 1.25 miles for every $ you spend. Most airline CCs will just give you 1 mile per $ spent (on most items at least.)

And another benefit of getting an SPG card is that you can get a very nice 25K sign-up bonus right now. And if there is more than one adult at your house, each one can get their own card with their own sign-up bonuses. And (it just keeps coming), each adult (assuming their credit is decent enough) can get 2 SPG cards (one personal and one business by using your SSN as you Tax id).

And finally, Starwood will allow people at the same address to transfer their points (no fees) to each other. So if each of you have 50K+ SPG points from your 2 cards each, that is 100K SPG points which can be used for 125K miles in the airline program of your choice. Or you can use them for hotel stays instead, should you want/need that choice.

Each FF program is different, but most will let you start making award reservations somewhere around 330 or so days out. If you are wanting to get Business or First class awards, you may want to start looking as soon as awards can be ordered. If coach is enough, then you might not have to be quite as diligent. But the chances of finding 10 Business or First award seats on the same flight will probably be imposible. You may even have problems just getting 2. Coach seating is usually a bit easier to come by.

As to which airline is the best, you may get better answers asking this within MilesBuzz or by looking at the various airline forums. I don't know that there will be a cheaper time within February, but again, you can search the various travel websites to see what the sale fares might be. You might want to look at how prices fluctuate this coming Feb. (2013), but there are probably a lot of variables (fuel prices, weather, world politics, etc) that might ultimately affect prices that who knows. Again, start looking as soon as tickets can be purchased.

Given that there are 10 of you, I'm not sure that that is enough people to get any type of group airline discounts, but you might check each airline to see if they have some type of small business program. I used to purchase my family airline tickets using my small business account and everyone would still get their FF miles, but I would also get some "special" points in their business program. I could use those for free upgrades, free flights, etc. I do believe Delta now has one and I would guess AA would have one as well.

each carrier will have info on the mi needed for your trip.....

for 10 pax, you should be able to get a group discount from most ant carrier....

take a look on expedia/orbitz for feb 2013 to see what the carriers & prices for a quick start in your learning.....

ta?

if y'all are going to try to churn cc's for awards, then try to pick the alliance w/the most options.....

i suspect that getting 10 awards on 1 flight might be tough, so you probably wont all be on the same flights....

Bali is popular place and I think now most any alliance has a lot options.
Booking with miles I don't think they would give a group discount, would they? doubt it.

But my only advice might be to go for United because chase has a good relationship with them. And you can transfer points. Bold 50k, freedom 30k, sapphire, 50k, united 50k. If you and your wife both do that and put your spending on the sapphire or freedom, you can rack up miles. That alone is 180k each. 360/32.5 (price of a oneway to bali) is 11 one ways.
Maybe then you both double dip in American Airlines 50k (two browser for Visa and Master card) and then get the biz card. 150 each. That should get you all the return home if you are willing to credit card churn. It might be worth it though... after all 10 round-trips could cost a penny or two.

Welcome to FT. Your posts have been merged as we do not allow cross-posting. /Moderator

Ten may get you some lodging discounts in smaller properties, and maybe a discount on some airlines... but nothing good in terms of using award miles, only challenges, IMO. Think separate itineraries for some and joining up in DPS.

One thing to think about is if the ten are to travel on frequent flyer miles, I'd imagine it is going to be quite difficult to find ten award seats on one itinerary. Forget "which airline would be best" and begin checking what each member has in terms of FF miles and begin searching alliances and partners for seats as well as in terms of miles. As well, some airlines are easier to find award seats on.



Good luck.

Thanks for all the ideas so far!

We’re not really concerned about being awarded better seats. Coach is perfectly fine for us. The biggest concern is bringing the price of a $1,100 - $1,500 ticket down to be as affordable as possible.

My line of thought: If I can identify what airline generally has the cheapest flight from Seattle to Denpasar; then identify what Frequent Flyer Affiliate Program is associated with that airline; then identify which card would be best for that program.

Does that sound like the best plan? Or are there better ways to reduce the cost?

Thanks again!
Chris

*@JDiver — Good to know. Thanks for merging.

We’re not really concerned about being awarded better seats. Coach is perfectly fine for us. The biggest concern is bringing the price of a $1,100 - $1,500 ticket down to be as affordable as possible.Another thought, assuming you have some Delta miles, is that I think Delta will allow you to combine cash with miles to reduce the price of your tickets. You might check the Delta forum to see if that might be a possibility as that could reduce the cash amount you would need for the flights.

This is great feedback. Thanks for the tips everyone!

Quick question: Because I’m so new to this, I’m not exactly sure how air miles translate to real miles. Does anyone know how I could find out how many air miles it would take to get from Seattle to Denpasar?

Thanks!

Each airline will have their own "price" for an award ticket. To find what that might be, you can check their websites. Since I mentioned, Delta, on Delta's website you can find their SkyMiles Award Chart (http://dmn.delta.com/skymiles/direct/charts/index.shtml). You can use it to find out how many miles it would take on Delta. Each airline will have a similar awards chart.

Note in looking at their website, it even has a link to pay with miles and cash. In looking it over, it looks like you may need to either be an elite or get the Delta credit card (and hopefully a lot of bonus miles too.)

As you are in Seattle you may also want to look at flights that go out of Vancouver. That may help drive down the price a bit. You may also want to check out one-way ticket prices as well. e.g., SEA-DSP and then YVR-DSP and back through LAX or SFO. Just a suggestion. Also, you may want to call the airline sales directly and see what type of discount you could get or even call a travel agent and see if they offer discounts. Check out the A-List that was just published in Conde Nast a month or two ago.

P.S. I LOVED Bali - your family is very lucky!