Hiya Stretch! Welcome to FT!
What do you mean by painful?
People on this board will run down the best seats to the hottest locations through sheer willpower, patience and flexibility. Those are the keys to a redemption.
Redemptions with any program requires far out planning, especially for popular destinations. IIRC Bora-Bora is one of those locations. I would look at booking that at 330 days out.
I was just playing around with the AA booking site and had success finding the following:
JFK-SFO, in J, for 2. 50K miles/pax for the last week in May
JFK-FRA, in F, for 2. 120K miles/pax for mid April.
I would think these are great opportunities to redeem miles.
My point is, there are great redemptions out there. Some are a bit harder, depending on popularity of the location and the seats other carriers make available to your FF program.
Right now you can get 75K miles for an AA CC with a minimal spend. Get two and you'll have 150K. Get your SO to do the same and you'll have 300K between you, enough for another great trip.
Stick around and learn. I have learned more about FF programs thanks to the folks on this site than I thought possible!
Originally Posted by
stretch_s
Hello all, I'm new to the site. I have had an American Airlines FF account for years and I hoarded many miles which I recently redeemed for a couple first class tix to Bora Bora. The redemption process was painful, to say the least, and now that I am starting over I'd like to switch to a different airline that makes redeeming miles a bit easier. Also, I now live in Boise, Idaho, so I need to stick to airlines that service my smaller airport ( United, Frontier, Continental, Southwest, Horizon, Alaskan, and a couple others). Anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to get a Business Credit Card for the selected airline so I can collect miles on my secretary's business purchases. Thanks for the feedback.
stretch