Hi guys,

I now have enough miles for a trip to oz - largely thanks to amex (2x plat and 2xgold card points) and tesco!

I am considering the following options about booking the tickets (although know how hard availability can be):

1) Buy WTP and MFU for me and wife. This will be £1,600 each ish plus the 50k miles (the MFU is 50k, correct?), so £3,200 and 100k miles.

2) Use amex 2-4-1 and 200k miles to get the flights just paying taxes (£500 each i think). So £100k and 200k miles So spending the £2,200 in option 1 would save me 150k miles.

I have also thought about the availability issue. What is the next closest to oz i can get if I can't get these tickets? Is there somewhere closer than BKK or HKG?

Finally, i have thought about doing a flight to LAX and then one to SYD from there if availability would be better (maybe using AA)? I know for most of this we need to book 355 days in advance, but my job does not necessarily allow this, so might be hard, so any advice on strange routes may help. There does not seem to be much of a saving going ex-EU rather than ex LHR (taxes are €466 each rather than £500, but given poor fx rate and cost of flight to AMS etc), so no point me really doing that.

Any advice greatly appreciated guys!

Cheers

Jamjaw