travellingwineO

I'm a newbie, but have been lurking for a while & trying to educate myself as much as possible, both here and on multiple websites (PointsGuy, MileValue, View From the Wing, among others), but have come to the point in my planning where I really need some help from the experts here. Please be gentle.

I am planning a trip to Vietnam for my wife and I. Ideally, I'd love to go in March or April of next year but I realize that may not be realistic and would be willing to push the trip out to the fall or even March or April 2017.

Current points/miles:
Alaska 127k
Amex 72k
Barclay 52k

Just signed up for Chase Sapphire, so should have roughly 50k Chase Ultimate Rewards points within a month or so.

My current strategy:
Use my Alaska miles for First Class on Cathay Pacific SFO-HKG-HAN (with a few day stopover in Hong Kong).
For return, I would love to return on SingaporeAirlines, converting my points to KrisFlyer Miles for a First Class Suites award SGN-SIN-NRT-LAX. The trip would be part of a 50th birthday celebration and finishing the trip with a flight home in the suite would be a phenomenal end to the trip.

Is it realistic to think I could score two suites? If so, I would sign up for a Citi Prestige card for another 50+k points and convert my Amex/Chase/Citi points to KrisFlyer miles.

Would I be better off signing up for the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard for 75k miles and looking at Cathay Pacific First Class (or some other airline) for my return?

I'd love any advice, including any suggestions that are different than what I'm thinking if my assumptions are completely off base.

Thanks in advance.....

Gardyloo

Welcome to FT!

I'm moving this to the "Information Desk" board where you're likely to get more help.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

mnscout

Re: Singapore. Realistic--yes, likely--not very, considering you're not very flexible. Sign up for Khris Flyer and check availability around your dates.

I believe Cathay F should be around 75K. I would recommend calling Alaska and see if they have availability for 2. It might not be that easy. You can't search Cathay on their website.

What you might be overlooking is Emirates to HK. 100K in F or 75 in J, and availability from JFK is unreal. And it's a cheap British Avios flight between HKG and HAN on Cathay subsidiary Dragon Air. Or use Barclays to cover the cash price. Apply for more Alaska cards and Chase British if you can. And BofA also has a banking 25K bonus.

ChrisFlyer66

I think you can find Cathay award space using the British Airways Avios award search tool. That's how I usually find it, before booking it with AA miles.

SingaporeDon

+1 on SQ availability. Unlikely to find two suites saver awards using SQ Krisflyer miles on the SIN-LAX flights, and you won't have enough miles for a standard award.

CX J redemption is 55,000 AA points, and CX or JAL F is only 67,500 AA points, less 10% if you have the AA credit cards. Tremendous value, and availability not too bad even in F, especially close-in. You can book CX J redemptions using AA now, and closer to flight date, pay the extra 12,500 miles and upgrade without paying any change fees.

travellingwineO

Thanks for the tips everyone. I signed up for a KrisFlyer account last week and there was actually suite availability on a single flight mid-week late April. Given that my accumulation of points/miles will take at least a couple more months, I may start with a Citi Prestige Card. I'll follow that with the AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard and take it as it comes. If we don't manage the trip until Spring 2017, so be it.