chellie99

Hello --

I have a large stash of Citi TY Points, and I'm trying to figure out how to utilize them to get 2 economy tickets to SE Asia (Bangkok or Singapore) later this year. AA prices are high, so using them to book a revenue ticket doesn't look like a good deal.

There's alot of Star Alliance saver awards available, but it seems like more of the transfer airlines have fuel surcharges, like KrisFlyer, that make it more expensive than just booking a revenue flight!

Has anyone else be able to get to SE Asia with TYPoints? Any hints?

Thanks!

garykung

How big?

When?

CX is an AA partner within OW. Asia Miles, CX's reward program, is a Citi TY transfer partner.

How much exactly?

Due to lowered fuel price, the fuel surcharge is not as high as you imagine.

bobert24

AF/KLM Flying Blue is also a transfer partner, and opens up (at least some) Skyteam airlines for you. (Garuda Indonesia is Skyteam too, but my understanding is that their awards are a pain in the butt to book.)

dukerau

It's very possible that you'd be better off using your points at 1.33cents each towards a non-AA flight (I'm assuming you have Prestige since you specifically mentioned that AA flights are expensive in the context of using TY points to book revenue fare). Fares to SE Asia can usually be found for < $1000 from many parts of the US. $1000 fare is just ~75k points vs award flights that will run you 80k (Flying Blue), 90k (Asia Miles), or ~60k (Singapore) + fuel surcharges. I just did a search for ORD-BKK round trip 9/2-9/17 and Cathay charges $882 or ~66k TY points. Starting in LAX or JFK is even cheaper. Plus you get the benefit of not having to deal with award availability - many more options. The only negative is you use the flexibility that comes with most award bookings.

taliesin

I'm not sure what dates you're looking at or what your origin in the US is, but I just picked dates at random and found AA flights (some segments are JL codeshares) from SFO-SIN for around $1000. At 1.6 cents/point, that's 62.5K per ticket. That's basically the same as what an award ticket would cost, and you likely have quite a bit more flexibility in terms of flights. For economy that seems like the way to go to me.

And just to check, I just looked on the TY Travel Center, and I was indeed able to find several flights for under 50k, both on AA/JL and others (even with the lower 1.33 cent/point rate).