American Express Membership Rewards - Using points for biz class seats SFO-Stockholm w/ baby & toddler- which airline?

Our family will be traveling from SF to Stockholm next Summer (2009). Our children will be 19 months & 3 yrs old when we fly, we're staying with my in-laws and have a 2 hr drive from Stockholm to their home so I really, really want to try to do this business class or I fear I may end up staying in Sweden for fear of not wanting to do another dreaded flight back.

Our miles are with Amex Platinum card. Partner airlines include Virgin (we'd have to then buy a ticket from LHR to Stocholm), Continental, Delta, Air France, etc. SAS and AA are not partners. Not sure about KLM?

We have approx. 150k miles, so we're short for the 3 tickets needed. I'm OK paying the 10% b-class fare for our infant. I understand we can borrow up to 60k from Amex taking us to 210k and then we're still short. What are our options? How much to purchase the remaining miles needed? Is there a limit on how many miles you can purchase? I want to make sure everyone is confirmed business class. What airline would you reco? We're way short on pts unfortunately for Virgin which requires 100k rd trip.

Pls help! Thank you...

SAS is starting service from SFO to CPH in Spring 2009 and last time I checked AMEX and SAS were partners in some way.

Plus changing planes at CPH is SOOO much easier then LHR.

By the way I recommend flying Coach from CPH-ARN as there is almost no difference in seats or anything expect the meals which are Warm in Business and Cold in Coach

Using CO points you can book on any of the SkyTeam partners, including KLM. I mentioned that in my reply to this same question in the CO forum. (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=834286)

As I mentioned there, redeeming from CO on KL will only cost you 80K points each, so that should be appealing in terms of total miles, though the service/seat isn't as nice as the other flight options.

For SAS you can put your miles in ANA or AirCanada and redeem for StarAlliance awards. Sadly there isn't a non-stop flight SFO-ARN, so you'll still have to transfer somewhere. I'd look at Lufthansa to fly SFO-FRA and connect on from there to ARN.

Regarding purchasing the points, the details are on this webpage (http://www.membershiprewards.com/help/homepage.aspx?t=points|2|116|pointsHelp); I've copied them here:
Purchase Points
You may purchase points in 1,000-point increments for $25 per 1,000 points, which will be billed on your Card account.*
*About Purchasing Points

- You may only purchase a maximum of 500,000 points per calendar year.

- You may only purchase points for your own Membership Rewards® program account.

- Corporate Cardmembers and other Business Cardmembers, who have only the Corporate Card enrolled in the Membership Rewards program may not purchase points.

- Points purchased are subject to all the terms and conditions applicable to points, including those concerning forfeiture.

Ok, thank you. So, if I understand correctly, just b/c an airline isn't explicityly stated as a partner airline (e.g., SAS, Lufthansa) doesn't mean we can't fly them via another "partner airline" (e.g, ANA or Air Canada). Sounds like our best bet is to borrow the 60k points, and then purchase the remaining. As for airline, I'll explore Lufthansa adn SAS.

Ok, thank you. So, if I understand correctly, just b/c an airline isn't explicityly stated as a partner airline (e.g., SAS, Lufthansa) doesn't mean we can't fly them via another "partner airline" (e.g, ANA or Air Canada). Sounds like our best bet is to borrow the 60k points, and then purchase the remaining. As for airline, I'll explore Lufthansa adn SAS.

You do understand correctly.

If you do book with Air Canada to get the LH/SK flights it is only 80K points per person for biz class; 100K will get you F seats. Also, Air Canada seems to offer infant rewards for 10K/$100, which is a particularly good deal, especially in lieu of 10% of the fare. Details are here (http://www.aeroplan.com/use_your_miles/travel/flights/air_reward_chart.do).

You're going to pay ~$2500 for the points you need, but that is probably better than the cost of the J tickets. Of course, you'll need to find availability, so good luck on that.

...best bet is to borrow the 60k points, and then purchase the remaining.

Be sure to read the details of the Points Advance program. You have one year to repay the loan by, essentially, spending $60,000 on the card. At that point any balance would be converted to a points purchase at the prevailing rate, currently $25 per 1,000.


When looking for award seat availability you need to work through the airline whose program you want to use for the redemption, because many carriers do not share their entire inventory of award seats with their partners. For example, if you want to fly on Star (LH and SK) it doesn't accomplish anything to contact those carriers directly, you need to search via the Aeroplan or ANA program.

Be sure to read the details of the Points Advance program. You have one year to repay the loan by, essentially, spending $60,000 on the card. At that point any balance would be converted to a points purchase at the prevailing rate, currently $25 per 1,000.


While this is true, it is still a better approach than just buying the miles outright today. For one thing, you get to sit on the cash for an extra year. Plus, you end up only having to buy the miles that you don't earn back the following year. Since the OP is about 100K miles short they're going to be buying plenty of them today and then more when the loan expires, but that will be better than paying for all of them today.