brodermo

Planning a 2 week trip to Australia and trying to figure out the cheapest airfare. I only have 24K miles and no status.

I can buy another 60K miles (through the current 100% bonus offer) for $825 and then use a *A redeption flight (plus redemption fees). Otherwise, the cheapest I found was Delta for $1623. If I buy miles, will I still get credit (more FF miles) for the trip? Any sugggestions?

dcpatti

If you fly on miles, you do not earn any more miles. Buying the miles to take the flight means less out-of-pocket spend but on the other hand, the earnings might be worth it to you to pay for the ticket. It's about 20k miles round-trip in earnings depending on your routing.

If you fly DL you cannot earn to *A so if you're trying to put all your miles in one place, fly UA/AC/NZ and credit to US.

If you want to fly on *A then your gateway cities will be LAX, SFO or YVR. Even the direct AC YYZ-SYD isn't a nonstop; it stops in YVR. So if you are looking for an award ticket, start by searching between any of those three cities and SYD and see what your options are.

FWIW I have taken this route in J on AC and NZ; both are fine choices but if I were rebooking it again tomorrow, I'd book NZ through AKL. The connection in AKL is well worth it to experience the lovely J product that NZ offers. Nothing wrong with AC as a choice (and they have been having some nice sales/promo codes lately if you are leaning towards a paid journey). But the NZ trip I took last year stands out as one of the best flights of my life, period. The NZ Koru Club in AKL is a real treat, too. It is a fairly low-stress connection in AKL and only 3 hours across the Tasman to SYD.

Also for a paid trip consider the NZ "skycouch" if traveling with a friend, I don't think you can get this option on miles but if paid J is not in your budget and there's two of you, the extra room and extra recline can make a 14-hour flight a lot more enjoyable.

Finally, if you decide to buy miles, I'd strongly recommend buying enough to get the trip in business class (J). It is a long flight and no matter which carrier you choose, 15 hours in coach sucks. Spending a little more for a few more miles is a good investment in my book.

neotope

When are you going to Australia? Do you plan on only visiting SYD while in Australia?

Last September I went to SYD by going PIT-LAX-SYD-SFO-PIT on a paid UA ticket. Luckily I caught a Twitter fare so the ticket was only $750. While in SYD I booked an award ticket on NZ to go SYD-AKL-SYD. The ticket was 25,000 miles in business class which was great value for me.

belfordrocks

Look for availability on Air NZ in Business from LAX-AKL-SYD, it's the best chance of being up front in the US-Aus segment. There's also some availability on UA F/J from SFO, but it's not much.

axpmaluga

Make sure if you buy the miles that there is award availability to SYD.

tommyleo

I agree. ^

My gf and I did PHL-LAX-AKL-PVG-BKK-HKT-BKK-PVG-SFO-PHL over the winter holidays -- all in J using miles. Took NZ for the LAX-AKL-PVG legs and it was fantastic. Totally worth the extra 30,000 miles to fly J instead of Y (coach), even if you have to pay 1.4 cents miles for those extra miles.

Also, notice my routing. If you fly to Australia, you can route back through Asia and take a multi-day stopover at any *A hub city in Asia -- for the same miles you'd spend just going to Australia. That is the best way to maximize mileage awards, IMO.

(My exact routing will be hard to get because I was very lucky to get it, due to an illegal connection time in PVG that US had to correct at the last minute; but you might be able to do something like PHL-LAX-AKL-SYD-BKK-PVG-SFO-PHL.)

kamchatsky

NZ J is a fantastic product. Definitely worth getting it over Y even if paying more for points. You will not regret it.

belfordrocks

Routing via all on the outbound and via Asia on the return is a good idea- there is often good availability on Thai To America

ffI

You can buy 50k miles, get the 50k bonus, then fly to both AKL and SYD in 1 ticket. I went for 140 miles in F class
IAD-SFO-SYD-AKL
AKL-SYD - STOPOVER
SYD-YVR-YYZ-DCA

So you do not need to waste more miles or money to see 2 places.
See tommyleo's post for ideas on an asian stopover as well.

Also note that a stopover is >24 hrs and if you are willing, you can get "non-stopovers - less than 24 hrs" in SYD, PVG, BKK before the actual stop in HKT in tommyleo's trip. This will let you glimpse the cities on the way.

tommyleo

Excellent tip. Anything less than 24 hours is considered a "layover" -- but you can often book and take advantage of a long layover. I had a 13-hour layover in PVG, which allowed for an awesome day trip into Shanghai. Also had a long layover in BKK, which allowed for a very cool "evening trip" into Bangkok!

neotope

One thing to keep in mind is that NZ removed J from their trans tasman narrowbody fleet so only the widebody fleet has J. I would make sure if you are flying NZ through AKL to SYD that you can get J all the way. I would not want to fly to AKL in J and then get stuck in Y for the segment to SYD.

leuraflyer

You could also consider coming via Europe with a stopover at one of the Star hubs in Europe. I did this in reverse from SYD over Xmas/New Year. Finding award seats in F or J from Europe to Australia is usually much easier than trans pacific. Thai in particular seems to have very good availability coupled with excellent service and lounges in BKK. You could route via ZRH and try LX F or J or FRA (and use FCT in FRA if on LH, which is easier than finding trans atlantic LH F). Since you can only have one stopover you will have to go all the way in one go on either the outbound or return but a bit of creativity with less than 24 hour transits can give you a break or two.

brodermo

Thanks! Lots of options to consider. Looking forward to an early/mid August trip.

Vacation time

Yea in dec. Going from east coast thru Europe to bkk to syd with return from syd to Korea lax east coast. I was denied Thai airways from lax to bkk then syd. Illegal routing .

johnep1

As stated above, flying coach for 15 (or even 8) hours sucks. When you're looking at buying a $1200 coach ticket vs. a $10,000 business class ticket it's easy to not see the value in the upgrade. But when using the US miles buying game, where a coach ticket is $1200 and a business class ticket is only $1500, it's somewhat silly to fly coach if you don't have too. Sure, people survive flying coach on long flights each day, but that doesn't mean it's fun.

I've become quite spoiled due to the ability to keep buying miles, and now I really don't like getting on an international flight unless I'm in F. On a US-Australia trip, the extra 30k to go from a 110k J ticket to a 140k F ticket costs less than $500.