Air New Zealand Air Points - Staring down the barrel of SIN to LAX in coach

OK - need the experts for this one.

One way flight, SIN to LAX on 10/5

Currently Star Alliance Gold via Air New Zealand. 1200 points

Also have Amex Membership Rewards of 90,000

Company budget limits me to about $2000 for this ticket.

The strategy is to buy a coach seat, and get upgraded to Biz.

How can I avoid buying a ticket and then finding out that no upgrades are available?

Looking at Singapore Air, Thai, ANA, and maybe USair or United.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Welcome to Flyer Talk darkmuff :)

Upgrades are often from the same booking class availability as awards. So using the ANA tool will provide a guide (sign up at www.ana.co.jp/eng and do a search for reward flights).

However, *A-wide mileage upgrades require a booking in a high fare class (eg YBMH for economy to business class upgrades), which will likely cost more than your budget.

I was just kicking around the ANA tool.

So - the trick is:

1. finding the flight with available reward seats in biz class

2. book the flight

3. quickly request the rewards?

...if somebody comes along and buys the seat - then I am out of luck yes?

:confused:

Sorry, I should have expanded on my answer.

The *A mileage upgrade awards (where you use miles in one FFP to upgrade flights on airlines other than the home airlines of the FFP) do not confirm in advance. Thus there is a risk that availability may disappear before any upgrade can be confirmed. If the flight is only a few days away and there are lots of awards/upgrades available then that may be low risk. If the flight is six months away and minimal awards/upgrades available and the route is commonly sold out in business class, then the risk is high that the upgrade will disappear before it could be confirmed.

When using the home airline's miles the rules are a bit different and vary by airline. Some, like NZ allow upgrades to be confirmed in advance (subject to availability) but require additional miles to lock it in.

Note also, often there may be more people requesting upgrades than there are seats available (eg my upgraded flight a couple of weeks ago had 12 requests for only a few seats). Each airline has it's own prioritisation scale, which can involve one or more of status, time upgrade request was made, paid fare class, paid club/lounge membership.

Thanks Kiwi. It is looking pretty tight with the ANA tool. Not many seats available in business on SQ or ANA.

Any suggestions for star alliance carriers that serve that region? Also would be willing to dump some miles from my Membership Rewards into Kris or other...

My back already hurts!!

If you do have to fly in Y then you should at least have access to exit row seating which will make the journey more comfortable.

If it's of any use...

You can fly SIN-AKL on the 4th with SQ in Y for SIN$1387/USD$990... then AKL-LAX on NZ on the 5th for NZ$1672/USD$1154...

Several drawbacks.... It's a day flight from SIN-AKL.. so an overnight in AKL AND the first flight out to LAX is at 1915.....

It is a bit over USD $2000 (if that was the budget currency)

You could then use A$ to try for an upgrade on the LAX flight.... can't say what the chances are!!!!

:confused:

5 October is a Sunday, which is normally packed in business class for AKL-LAX/SFO

Pulled the trigger on United 804 / 890 SIN to LAX with one stop in Tokyo NRT

Was able to get Economy Plus, but the Booking Class is M.

What are the options to worm my way into biz?

- 1250 ANZ points (plus another 350 will be added when I fly to LHR on 9/28 via ANZ business premiere)

- 15000 United Mileage Plus

- Star Alliance Gold

- Amex Membership Rewards 90,000

I tried running the upgrade through the ANZ site's *A upgrade tool but it is saying "Insufficient Funds" - Is this because I am not in Y or B booking class?

Let me know if anyone can help - I have some good point totals but just not in the right place - If i can gift it out to somebody for helping I would be more than happy to do so.

(OK just saw the announcement about begging for miles - sorry - not trying to beg, rather looking to stoke somebody out for helping me but I realize that I just joined up yesterday and the mods prefer a 90 day track record etc)

Thanks all

UA doesn't currently participate in the *A mileage upgrade scheme. So only UA miles, or a UA SWU (which you get with UA 1K status) will help. MP requires 30,000 miles for a one-way upgrade asia to north america from a "M" fare.

that will save me the work of trying to get up to a Y or B level....

Now I need to get 15k points fast??!!

Amex wont transfer, dang. Credit card offers wont post in a week right?

The Web Flyer mileage convert tool is next on my list...

http://www.webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/

If you'd purchased a Y or B level it would only cost 15,000 UA miles to upgrade.

The OP has also posted in the UA forum. Since we prefer that discussion occur in single thread, this one will be locked. Please continue to follow the discussion in UA (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=869002).

SanDiego1K
Senior Moderator