Would appreciate your expert advice, trying to get three people from CVG to Rome sometime in August. We have 533K MR in our account. We would like business or first airfare. What is the best airline to transfer to? Is there any chance we get to sit together? Will we have anything left over to use for hotels?
Is there anything else I am not considering?
Thank you in advance
mia
May 10, 12, 8:24 am
If you are trying to travel in August 2012 you should begin by locating award availability, then figure out how to transfer.
Most airlines belong to one of three alliances. You can redeem through one member of the alliance for travel on flights operated by any member of the same alliance.
I would begin by looking at availability through Delta Skymiles for flights operated by Delta, Air France, KLM, Alitalia. Some, but not all, of this inventory will be shown on delta.com . Search in the Skymiles forum for information about locating "partner" award availability. Typically, this would involves searching for availability on (for example) an Air France website, but then booking through Delta.
DO NOT TRANSFER points from Membership Rewards until you have award flights on hold. MR transfer instantly to Delta and several other airlines, which means you can transfer during the booking process.
redtop43
May 10, 12, 9:02 am
There are some services out there that will (for a fee) find you the best options. I don't know the names of any but you can search for them. Fees run $50-$150 per ticket.
Echo Mia's comments big-time, especially to not transfer before you find availability. I booked a trip with Delta for this summer, a somewhat complicated trip (my wife and I going part of the way separate and part together, going eastbound in coach and westbound in business class), it took me 5 calls to DL to get it done. You can also transfer points to British Airways and potentially use them on OneWorld partners, but I think that is not the most economical for long trips. With Delta you probably cannot get first class, only business. One good option might be to transfer to Air Canada and then look for availability on United or USAir.
Watch out for "fuel surcharges." Most USA based airlines do not have them, but most foreign airlines do. You can find that your "free" ticket costs hundreds and hundreds.
If you transfer Amex points to a USA airline, there is a transfer fee, I think it is $6 per 10,000 points, with a max of $99. So you are better off making a big transfer all at once.
If you dig around and are flexible on dates, you should have a good shot at getting business class for 100,000 points per ticket, but it can be hit or miss. I remember one time calling DL to book a coach ticket for my wife and getting answers of 92-120K miles, 200K miles, "nothing at all available," and 60K miles. (Obviously when I got the 60K answer, I booked.)
danpass
May 10, 12, 10:05 am
Another option, you can pay with points. You essentially have $5,330 to use.
With the Plat you'll get 20% points back which will be 106,600 back into the MR account.
mia
May 10, 12, 10:26 am
Another option, you can pay with points.
$5300 might be enough to buy one business class ticket in summer. Should be able to obtain three 500,000 points.
3Cforme
May 10, 12, 10:36 am
I would begin by looking at availability through Delta Skymiles for flights operated by Delta, Air France, KLM, Alitalia. Some, but not all, of this inventory will be shown on delta.com . Search in the Skymiles forum for information about locating "partner" award availability. Typically, this would involves searching for availability on (for example) an Air France website, but then booking through Delta.
Delta.com does not search Alitalia-operated award availability. It will search AF & KL flights but only for specific dates: the flexible date calendars don't support partner inventory.
A combination of Delta out of CVG plus Delta or Alitalia for the TATL segment gives many possible one-stop routings through DTW, ORD, JFK, EWR, ATL and BOS. CVG-CDG-FCO could also work. But, again: put something on hold before transferring miles to Delta.
CynthiaSteffe
May 10, 12, 12:19 pm
$5300 might be enough to buy one business class ticket in summer. Should be able to obtain three 500,000 points.
Huh?
Summer SWISS Business special
from USD 2461.- Zurich
from USD 2440.- Geneva
from USD 2818.- Florence
from USD 3185.- Nice
Thank you. Searching with the American Express engine turns up CVG-FCO fares as low as $3194.99. Pay with Points would require 319,500 points per person, with 20% refunded if hurstpl holds a Platinum card. This is lower than I expected for summer, but 533,000 points is still not enough to buy three tickets.