dkjb3t4

I guess the beautiful thing about AA card are these:
1. I just bought 125k miles for 2500. This is just crazy and unbeatable.
2. When I bought this, by using the AA card, I got 5000 miles.
3. Then when I redeemed, I got 10% credit in miles, which allowed me to get 13500 miles.
4. I have a sign-up bonus, which is 50000 miles.

In total, by signing up for the AA card, spending 2500 bucks and redeeming two tickets, I was able to get 125K + 13.5K + 50K + 5K miles = 193.5K miles.
This means I will probably be able to get 3 first class one-way tickets (with a little bit more spending on the AA card) from China to North America using only $2500, which is the most amazing thing I've ever seen anywhere.

With the BA card, I am hoping that I can use the sign-up bonus to get some domestic US flights in first class and that will be enough for me.
To get business or first class flights using BA miles seems much more difficult because I only have about 50000 from the sign-up bonus at the moment and the BA redemption rate is much much more expensive than AA, which allows me to buy business class for 50K.

Happy

The 10% rebate is capped at 10k.

If you are willing to buy miles, US miles are the best value - you can redeem 110K to South Africa via HKG on CX business with a stopover at HKG versus 160K AA miles that can only go via Europe (pay BA fuel surcharge) or via DOH on QR, and NO stopover.

But if you think AA miles the best since slice bread and are willing to pay $2500 for it, that is what suits you and others may digress but of course no objection.

dkjb3t4

How much are the US miles?
Are you talking about US Airways?
I would love to buy some US airways miles for my future trips on CX.

moondog

Domestic F is a raw deal with BA points because it costs three times as much as Y. Business, when offered, is a slightly better deal at only 2x Y, but I tend redeem almost exclusively in Y (JFK-YVR being a notable exception) because on the routes I fly most (e.g. HKG-SHA/PEK/SGN/BKK), J is nothing to write home about. And, short flights out of AA and US hubs are a steal at 4.5k points, but almost always waste at 13.5k points (half of them use tiny planes anyway).

dkjb3t4

I see.
What is the best way to use BA points then?

With Chase, I prefer Korean Air first class (Asia to LA).
With AA, I love CX and JAL first class (asia to LA).

Still haven't gotten my BA card yet but when I get it, I am not sure where I would spend the miles on (if I even get much farther than 50K that is).

nux

Direct flights are best due to BA charging awards per segment.
Carriers that charge low carrier surcharges on cash tickets (which BA passes on).
European shorthaul flights on BA (fixed cash component).
J/F is perhaps not worth it over Y for shorthaul AA/US domestic flights, but for other airlines it may be - AA 3 class and most longhaul international carriers.

moondog

Shortish (<650/1150 miles) nonstop flights to/from Oneworld or partner focus airports, mostly in economy class.

dkjb3t4

so short direct flights within Asia or within North America? (e.g. LAX to SFO, LAX to seattle, LAX to LAS, ICN to NRT, ICN to PEK, etc?)

MDtR-Chicago

Have you already exhausted all the Citi AA signup bonuses?

50k Citi AA Platinum + 50k Citi AA Executive would get you 100k miles for $450.

Also note that it was mentioned earlier to transfer UR to Korean Air. They're no longer a UR partner after this week, unfortunately.

dkjb3t4

what??????

Regarding the AAdvantage, I will have to look into that.
It seems that the 90 day spend is higher than other credit cards and the annual fee is also pretty high at $450 but after having booked CX F class, I may be enticed by those AA miles.

dkjb3t4

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...th-korean-air/

I will lose the main reason why I use Chase currently if this is true.
What is another option for frequent flights to Asia through UR??

umc

You can transfer UR points to Singapore Airlines and book award tickets with Singapore Airlines. You can also transfer UR points to United and book award tickets with some other Star Alliance airlines such as: Eva Air, Asiana, ANA, Thai Airways, and United. Transferring to United used to be an excellent option because it used to cost only 60k miles for one-way business and only 80k miles for one-way first class to many Asian countries, Now it costs 80k miles for one-way business class to Asia. However, I still like United because of their great availability. If you don't mind flying economy, it's 40k for one-way to many Asian countries.

dkjb3t4

Nah, I wouldn't use credit card miles for economy.
United sounds way too expensive. 80000 miles for business is not good value.

Regarding Singapore Airlines, that is still somewhat valuable.
I don't know how many miles it costs to fly from LAX to ICN using Singapore though.

umc

Well, I think it's still good value if you want to burn your miles on luxury travel and have no other option. Business class on Eva Air or Asiana is good enough for me. Of course, you may think otherwise.

I don't think Singapore has direct flight from LAX to ICN. They fly SFO-ICN for 65,875 miles + $205.50 in business (one-way), and 74,375 miles + $218.50 in first (one-way). This flight is operated by Boeing 777-300ER.

From LAX, they have direct flight to Tokyo for the same amount of miles, but you get to to fly A380. I guess you can do LAX-NRT-ICN for more miles. I have not checked this.

moondog

In the context of the big picture of all frequent flyer schemes, UA's redemption levels and other policies are actually still quite good (i.e. try earning and spending --before the miles expire!-- in pretty much any Asian FFP and you'll think more fondly of UA). But, it just so happens that AA's and AS's FFPs remain extremely good.