GrayAnderson

So, all sorts of caveats apply here, but the long story short is that I want to go to Australia and/or Japan in the next few years. The reason has a lot to do with rail service cutbacks in both places (the last Japanese sleeper trains are being phased out over the next few years, and there's a good chance that I've missed my chance to grab the Sunlander in Australia).

So, let's assume that I could not care less about wacky travel times. I'm used to planning around Amtrak for cross-country trips, so if I spend two days in transit both ways? That's just life. I'm hoping to cash in a large pile of Elevate points for a conversion on one of the airline's partners to one or both, preferably taking advantage of one of the Flying Pullmans out there*. I should be able to pile up the requisite points in a year to 18 months (Feel the Earn is doing a lot for me on this front, even with just one qualifying transcon trip [and me groaning about having not seen it before my last one]).

So the question is: Who should I be looking at to play around with, points-wise? If I have to do an odd connection somewhere, that's something I'm used to doing as-is and I'm willing to be flexible as long as it isn't somewhere a US Passport is likely to get me detained. If asking here is bad form, my apologies for not going through the other airlines' forums on this...but I really don't care if I'm connecting through Tokyo or Dubai en route (somewhere like Tehran would be another matter). Routing restrictions are a consideration, and I don't know which partner is better or worse on this front.

*The private room accommodations standing in for several of the airlines' FC offerings are also on my list, if only because I have this nasty feeling they might not last forever...and all else being equal, as much as I'm not a fan of flying, this would be like having had the chance to grab the Super Chief under Santa Fe, the 20th Century Limited in its heyday, or the original California Zephyr and having not done so...fanciest airline experience in decades, yadda yadda yadda.

VegasGambler

I want to go to Asia next year, also on elevate pts, and I was evaluating my options. I decided that Signapore Airlines was the best bet because:

1. Even though they are a more expensive ariline, this does not show up in the number of pts required for award travel (a business class ticket to Asia might be $4k+, but it's still only 95k elevate pts)

2. The reason that it's more expensive is that they cram fewer people onto the plane, meaning that you will be more comfortable. For example, for revenue flights, Hawaiian is a significantly cheaper option to fly to Asia (if you are willing to stay overnight in Honolulu) but their "business class" seats are narrower than the economy seats on Singapore.

3. They are known for having great service -- this is important on a long flight, IMO.

4. No BS "fuel surcharge" fees. I don't consider an award flight to be an award flight if you have to pay $1k+ in fees. With Singapore Airlines, you pay $38 in fees for a RT flight SFO-Asia (I assume that those are airport fees, but the point is, they are insignificant).

VegasGambler

For example, since you mentioned Tokyo as a destination:

LAX-NRT round trip is 40k pts for economy, 95k for business, and 130k for first on Singapore Airlines. Fees are $38 for any of the options. This is a direct flight, so no need to make strange connections and take 2 days to get there.

Unfortunately these are not the airbuses so they don't have suites for F.

If you go through SIN, you can also get from Tokyo to Australia on Singapore Airlines. Unfortunately if you want to go from Australia to/from the US directly, you have to take Virgin Australia which incurs large fees. Still, one possible route is:

(all 1-way; all economy/business/first)
LAX - NRT SQ 24k/57k/78k pts + $20
NRT - SIN SQ 12k/42k/54k pts + $18
SIN - SYD SQ 12k/42k/54k pts + $70

And then to get back:
SYD - LAX VA 25k/35k/45k pts + $381/$381/$431 (econ / prem econ / business)

So thoe whole trip is doable in business for 186k pts and about $540 in fees. If you don't want to fly VA and don't mind one extra stop you could make the SIN-SYD trip round-trip and then fly SIN-LAX to get back. It would cost you some more pts but you would save some money in fees.

I don't have much experience in this -- can you fly LAX-NRT, SIN-LAX as a round-trip? I'm not even sure what that would be called. It's like an open jaw except that instead of the departure and arrival cities being different, the middle city changes for the 2 legs.

GrayAnderson

I have nothing against VA...they just don't have quite the same level of service and I haven't heard anyone speak either way on what their BC is like compared to other FC services. VA also heaps charges on the redemption of points, something which I do take a bit of exception to and would obviously want to avoid. $1000 in redemption charges is equivalent to 34k points right now.

Another workaround I might look into, depending on how they do over the next year or two, is taking a French airline called La Compagnie (I've seen mixed reviews but the rates are comparatively excellent). That would enable me to to CDG-SIN-SYD on an award (albeit probably at the price of about $750 one-way EWR-CDG).

VegasGambler

If I was doing this, I'd do the whole thing on SQ.

LAX-NRT 1-way
NRT-SIN 1-way
SIN-SYD RT
SIN-LAX 1-way

daniellax

From what I gather, SQ does not release first or business seats for partner awards from the US to Asia, regardless of the fact that the Virgin America site lists the number of points it would take...

GrayAnderson

If this is true, then somebody needs to have a talk with somebody else over at VX and get a note tossed in somewhere. Of course, with that being said I have to wonder about if there are other legs that are "just not released" in their system (i.e. going the "long way around" via Europe as noted above).

EXPLAT

How about availability in First between New York and Frankfurt?