American Express Membership Rewards - Redeeming for travel FROM Australia to the US?

I have a bit of strange situation. I have about 310,000 MR points and I'm looking to book a trip from Sydney to the US (with stops at LAX, CLT, NYC, and SFO).

The issue is that I now live in Australia, so I have a few questions:

1) The only two airlines that actually fly planes from Australia to the US are United and Qantas. United doesn't participate in the MR program (I have MP miles already). Is there a way to get miles into Mileage Plus or a Star Alliance partner?

2) Qantas is a partner and currently has a US to Australia deal for 82,500 miles. But I want to do the reverse. Assuming they'll do it, any idea how to achieve the stopovers?

3) In general, what is the best way to use MR to get to/from Australia? For example, both Continental and Delta won't let me search for flights to Sydney though presumably both partner with someone that does.

4) I noticed that on the Amex Travel site, they'll take my ~310,000 miles and apply about $3,100 to the cost of the trip. Is this sort of an exchange generally a better deal that dealing directly with carriers through miles?

Any help would be appreciated.

You can do a Continental reward 15B (http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/onepass/rewards/travel/charts/chart_15b.aspx) to travel from Cairns to the US if you want. Of course, you have to fly CNS-GUM-NRT/HNL-IAH/EWR-Wherever you actually want to go to. You should also be able to redeem this award for travel on KE, who does fly SYD-ICN-several US gateways.

If you want to search for reward travel from the US to Australia on QF (even for redemption on CO) you have to search on the QF site, not on CO.

Redeeming the points for $3,100 in value is a relatively bad deal, particularly if you can get/are looking for J/F travel rather than Y, as those tix are way more expensive.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Cairns? Yikes. That's going to turn an already long trip to even a longer one.

I guess what I want is to book award travel with, say, Continental. Since they don't fly from SYD to LAX, then they would use their partner Qantas to fill that leg. Then I would use Continental within the US, and the use Qantas to fly from SFO to SYD.

Alternatively, a few Star Alliance partners are on the list (Air Canada, ANA, etc.). They could do the same thing with United.

But I fear that it doesn't work that way...

p.

you have US amex or AU amex?

what class do you want to fly? just 1 ticket?

you want SYD-XXX-LAX-JFK-CLT-SFO-XXX-SYD ?

I have a US Amex card. I want two tickets, both economy.

After a little more research, it appears that Continental and/or Air Canada might do what I need. Both partner awards desks don't open for another few hours though.

ok, let me take a look. so 4 stopovers.

go with NH.

the mileage falls between 20K and 25K so
120K economy 150K business

ok>>>

SYD-AKL-LAX-JFK-CLT-JFK-LAX-AKL-SYD

breakdown >
SYD-AKL-LAX = NZ
LAX-JFK = UA PS
JFK-CLT-JFK = US (only nonstop)
JFK-LAX = UA PS
LAX-AKL-SYD = NZ

300K, NZ has flat bed seats, and UA PS is also very comfortable. (only UA PS F and AA LAX-JFK F are better domestically)

hopefully they put you in F on the US flight since there is no C...

NH is ANA, right?

Cheers, thanks for checking.

yup. NH is ANA. ive looked at them a LOT, so i knew what to check. they have some awesome stuff. ^

ask about getting F on the US flight when you book ;)

also, i presume youre flying out of SYD right? cause you could also do any of > Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane if you were closer to them.

oops i forgot about SFO, youll have to add that either at the beginning or end

SYD-AKL-LAX-SFO-JFK-CLT-JFK-LAX-AKL-SYD
or
SYD-AKL-LAX-JFK-CLT-JFK-SFO-LAX-AKL-SYD

(UA PS flies from both LAX and SFO)

welcome to FT by the way :D

Wow, thanks for that. (And yes, I'm in Sydney)

So 120k for economy? Not too bad. Curious, why NZ from SYD to LAX instead of UA?

I've lurked on this site for years, usually everything I've needed was just a search away. Thanks for the help.

its only 30K more for business class. youd have to be crazy not to take that. :D

NZ business class with flatbed seats (VS style)
UA PS business class with 54.0" pitch and 20.5" width
US (hopefully F) for JFK-CLT

UA F some people like (and it is flatbed) but i personally cant imagine ever paying cash or points for it. business class is worthless, especially compared to NZ.

If you're hurting for miles and need to fly in back (and don't be shy if you are), then in economy I'd go for shorter flights over more palatial flights.

SYD-AKL-LAX = NZ (worth it over UA, even in Y)
LAX-JFK = UA
JFK-CLT = US
CLT-SFO = US
SFO-SYD = UA (I would hate to have to connect after an 18 hour flight in Y..)

Thanks for all the tips! It seems I have several options.

Incidentally, I called the Continental Partner Award Desk and they simply refused to do award travel with the trip STARTING in Australia. The lady on the phone told me I was basically stuck.

So Star Alliance it is.

I talked to Air Canada and the lady on the phone was very helpful. She said however that I could only have one stop over and that I'd have to do an itinerary like:

SYD > LAX
LAX > SFO > LAX (sidetrip, separate ticket/award)
LAX > JFK
JFK > CLT > JFK (sidetrip, separate ticket/award)
JFK > LAX > SYD

For 75k in economy or 100k in business. This looks like a bad deal, considering that I'd be backtracking. It would cost another 50k to cover the two side trips unless I used $$$.

AC would seem to be different from the Star Alliance partner award that ANA has on their site (http://www.ana.co.jp/wws/us/e/amc/guide/tokuten/star.html) which can have have four stopovers for 120k/150k.

Business does sound great as I'm 6'4" but I'll be bringing my six month old son. I hope none of you are on my flight!

p.

thats odd about CO.. i keep learning new ways CO/DL are bad :D

exactly, NH has something like CX, where you simply go by miles traveled, and not point to point. you would be between 20 and 25K miles, and be allowed, as you said, 4 stopovers, which is exactly what you need.

if in the future, you wanted to do something similar, but needed more stopovers, you could simply add side trips with additional paid/award tickets ONTO the main mileage based award.

also NZ business flatbeds are 79.5" long , so 3.5" to spare for you :)
http://seatguru.com/charts/business_class.php