Mattymess

Hello everyone. My honeymoon is coming up in October and I've been racking up miles for the past 9 months in preparation. I managed to accumulate a few hundred thousand miles with a couple different programs and am now hoping to use them to get my future wife and I over to Bali for some much needed relaxation (and lots of surfing).

For miles, I have:

AAdvantage: 165k
UR: 51k (another 50k in about 2 weeks)
United:54k
Capital One: 205k

I've been trying all the techniques I know of to find award flights, but I'm having serious difficulty. The problem is that I really only have enough miles in AAdvantage for 2 round trip tickets, but they have no awards. I even tried booking each leg at a time (LAX>HKG>DPS, LAX>TPE>DPS, etc).

Does anyone have any ideas on how best to get to Bali and back? Maybe some cities that I haven't tried connecting through?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Gardyloo

Moving this to the Information Desk board.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

Mwenenzi

AA has one way awards
It is cheap at fly to DPS from SIN (and other close airports). Maybe HKG

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"The problem is that I really only have enough miles in AAdvantage for 2 round trip tickets, but they have no awards"

How did you determine that there are no AAdvantage awards available to DPS?

s0ssos

Capitalone doesn't have "miles" per se. It is cash. And there are flights to Bali usually pretty cheap in economy.
Presuming you are looking for higher classes, you have mainly 2 options.
You cannot use your United miles as they are only good enough for one ticket (on ANA).
You can try using AA for one-world: I know CX flies there, JL probably does as well. You can either use JL's website to search for availability or BA (better, more accurate to what you can book with AA). Other option is to see if you can find availability on Qatar (I think you can connect through DOH)

Another way is if you split it up into two alliances. Use your AA miles to get to Asia. And from there get to Bali.

Merlinrnr

You can try JAL via NRT or HND. Or CX via HKG. Or MH via KUL. Try flying into Jakarta and buying a separate flight from there if need be. You might find better availability closer to departure but for a honeymoon that may not be ideal.

erik123

You can check the air asia route map and see which airlines fly to those starting points (e.g. TPE). You need to call the airline (e.g. AA) to check for JAL and CX availability. Don't rely on the on-line booking engines.

I would try for 2 AA one way business awards on CX - using UA to return from TPE (buying a one-way air asia DPS-TPE). Please note that Air Asia has a good and cheap business class (Air Asia X). Also, buying Air Asia from Indonesia typically requires a travel agent.

I believe you can move UR to UA if you get a Chase Ink or similar card.

FindAWay

OP - because of AA's award chard region definitions, I'd definitely recommend you look for redemptions to HKG and purchase/redeem a separate ticket to DPS. CX is a OneWorld carrier based in HKG on which you should be able to find availability - just NOT ON AA's WEBSITE. AA doesn't show all availability for all partners on their website. CX's availability is shown on BA's website though. Also, be sure to search segment by segment (not simply "LAX to DPS" or "LAX to HKG") when searching - find out which carriers fly specific routes and search for those...e.g., you may search ORD-HKG because CX flies that non-stop and then you search LAX-ORD to find flights to connect to the TPAC flight.

In case it is helpful (though, you won't fly QR because AA would price what we flew as 2 separate awards), I detail the miles and money my wife and I spent on our trip to Bali earlier this year in my trip report linked in my signature.

Mattymess

I used BA's website and there were no flights to DPS on the day we want to leave.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Did you search separately for LAX-HKG (or LAX-TYO, TYO-HKG) and HKG-DPS, or did you just search for LAX-DPS? As noted by others, ba.com is often not good at displaying connections on award searches.

Mattymess

That was my original plan--to fly from LAX > HKG and then either buy or redeem a flight to DPS. Problem is, BA is not showing any award availability for 10/26 from LAX>HKG.

How accurate would you say BA is? Think I'll have better luck if I just call AA?

I haven't tried searching from ORD though, which I'll do now. I just hate to have to tack on the additional time to an already long journey...

Mattymess

I searched separately for LAX > HKG and HKG > DPS. No availability on the day we want to leave.

FindAWay

CX 885 LAX-HKG shows economy availability on 10/27. And, DFW-HKG on AA metal is open 10/26 in economy.

How tied to leaving exactly on 10/26 are you?

In which class of service are you looking to fly?

EDITED TO ADD...

For business class, how about something like this (similar options leaving the next day too):

19:15
25 Oct
LAX
20:43
25 Oct
SFO
American Airlines
AA0356

--connecting to--

01:45
26 Oct
SFO
05:00
27 Oct
HND
Japan Airlines
JL0001

--connecting to--

[EITHER]

10:00
27 Oct
HND
14:10
27 Oct
HKG
Japan Airlines
JL0029

[OR]

10:45
27 Oct
HND
15:05
27 Oct
HKG
Cathay Pacific Airways
CX0543

Mattymess

We have a post-wedding brunch on 10/25, but we could theoretically leave very late that night (after 9pm) or leave anytime on Monday. We don't go back to work for one day between the wedding and honeymoon, so we're pretty set on leaving on either 10/25 (late night) or 10/26.

We could probably find a way to make this flight. Luckily getting to SFO from LAX is easy and cheap.

01:45
26 Oct
SFO
05:00
27 Oct
HND
Japan Airlines
JL0001

The ideal situation would be to leave directly from LAX. I know CX flies there direct, but the only availability I found wasn't until Wednesday the 28th.

We'd love to fly biz class, but if it means waiting until the 27th, we'd rather fly economy on the 26th.

How did you find all those flights so quickly?

FindAWay

I included a flight with availability leaving from LAX around 7pm on 10/25...it wouldn't cost anything extra.

You can fly biz class with connections on the 25th or 26th...no waiting until the 27th.

british airways website...search SFO-HKG, YVR-HKG, LAX-HKG, DFW-HKG, ORD-HKG, etc. and then, once you find a flight, search LAX-[XXX] to get it done.