MilesBuzz! - Award travel in peak season

Hey guys,

I have a problem: I want to utilize my points for awesome first/business award travel on some of the best airlines (cathay pacific, Singapore, JAL etc.) to someplace warm in late December. However, I cannot find any award availability on any of those partners using United, American or US Airways miles. I have enough miles on those carriers for first class travel but do not know how to find available routes (from Philadelphia) to any fun summer destinations on first class (Phnom Pen, Singapore, Thailand, Rio, Etc). Any help would be awesome. Here are my balances:
United: 120K
American 130K
SPG: 30K
AMEX PR: 50K
Avios: 50K
Chase Ultimate Rewards: 120K

Thanks!

When using United it might help to route through ICN and fly Asiana. They have availability more often.

For Cathay, try twice a day searches on ba.com - and keep trying.

I'm surprised you can't find anything on CX.....There are a ton of flights to choose from and if you are flexible with dates you should at least be able to grab a seat in C.

The trick is to find the big flight (the one US-Asia) first, because that is the one that should be in the best seat on the best carrier. You are flying from PHL so that makes things a bit more difficult since the majority of the 'big' flights are from NYC/CHI/LAX/SFO or even SEA.

Here's how I would do it:

First, it would help a lot to download software like KVS or Expert Flyer so that you can just press a button to search. I like KVS.

Then, I would research where CX flies from the US to HKG, which would be ORD/JFK/YYZ/SFO/LAX. If you type in these cities to HKG into KVS in 3 seconds it will tell you if there are seats there. BA website is a little bit annoying and not recommended. The connecting flight from HKG to DPS/BKK/HKT/others shouldn't be too difficult to grab, and worst case there should be seats in Y. I think F is 135K so you'll need another 5k if you want to go that route.

With your UA miles, you can probably find a flight out of PHL on US in C to Europe, maybe FRA/MUC/ZRH (for a stopover), and easily catch a TG flight in C to BKK. These aren't the top choices, but there will definitely be availability on something for this route, and you get the European stopover.

You can also look to other *A choices with your UA miles over the Pacific, but it might be more difficult. Apparently OZ has new F suites flying from ORD in the fall, so maybe checking ORD-ICN would provide some availability? The blogs have been all over this, so maybe availability has dried up. You'll probably find that UA is the only other airline with availability besides OZ.

It's not really that difficult - I highly recommend using a tool like KVS, and not wasting lots of money on an unnecessary 'booking service'

Then, I would research where CX flies from the US to HKG, which would be ORD/JFK/YYZ/SFO/LAX....
I found the CX F I wanted by starting in YVR. @:-)

I'm surprised you can't find anything on CX.....There are a ton of flights to choose from and if you are flexible with dates you should at least be able to grab a seat in C.

The trick is to find the big flight (the one US-Asia) first, because that is the one that should be in the best seat on the best carrier. You are flying from PHL so that makes things a bit more difficult since the majority of the 'big' flights are from NYC/CHI/LAX/SFO or even SEA.

Here's how I would do it:

First, it would help a lot to download software like KVS or Expert Flyer so that you can just press a button to search. I like KVS.

Then, I would research where CX flies from the US to HKG, which would be ORD/JFK/YYZ/SFO/LAX. If you type in these cities to HKG into KVS in 3 seconds it will tell you if there are seats there. BA website is a little bit annoying and not recommended. The connecting flight from HKG to DPS/BKK/HKT/others shouldn't be too difficult to grab, and worst case there should be seats in Y. I think F is 135K so you'll need another 5k if you want to go that route.

With your UA miles, you can probably find a flight out of PHL on US in C to Europe, maybe FRA/MUC/ZRH (for a stopover), and easily catch a TG flight in C to BKK. These aren't the top choices, but there will definitely be availability on something for this route, and you get the European stopover.

You can also look to other *A choices with your UA miles over the Pacific, but it might be more difficult. Apparently OZ has new F suites flying from ORD in the fall, so maybe checking ORD-ICN would provide some availability? The blogs have been all over this, so maybe availability has dried up. You'll probably find that UA is the only other airline with availability besides OZ.

It's not really that difficult - I highly recommend using a tool like KVS, and not wasting lots of money on an unnecessary 'booking service'


I forgot to add that I need tiks for both me and my wife. Every time I look up those flights for one ticket it comes up open but for two tickets it has no availability.

You should be able to find 2 seats on cathay closer to departure but of course, that does not with for advance planning. I doubt you'll be able to get anything on singapore air

LH F is easy to find, but you won't see availability till 2 weeks out. 3-6 days out and almost every route has avail open including the 380. However USA-ASIA IN F using UA miles is 70K o/w. your a little short for 2 tkts but I believe can use some of your other points. You can go USA-GERMANY LH F (then) Germany - S E Asia in TG F. Coming home use AA miles for CX or MH (I like MH a lot)