Originally Posted by sthubbar:16927312
UA/CO seem to have the best flights from Beijing to San Francisco, meaning non-stop and leaving in the afternoon both ways. December of this year, wife son and I are planning 3 round-trips PEK-SFO, SFO-HNL, SFO-MCI, for Hawaii vacation and Christmas with parents. Best total price is about $6,500. 330,000 points, would reduce that by about $3,400.
How you are planning to use the miles to bring down the cost? Asking because if you are thinking of getting saver award tickets for 1 our 2 of the trips there is a high likelihood of no inventory being available by the time you have the miles.
I think American Express Membership Rewards points can transfer 1:1 to Continental, so I'm thinking getting the following cards:
AmEx Platinum 50k (try to bump to 100k)
AmEx Business 50k (try to bump to 75k)
AmEx Express Gold 75k (Can't find links or codes for this)
It might be too late to apply fire the amex cards. As you probably know, sept 30th is the last date to redeem MR points for OP miles and that it takes 6-8 weeks to get the bonus miles, you'll be at the mercy of some good MR rep to post you miles a lot sooner.
Sorry to discourage you about your plans but it is more likely that you'll end up wasting your time and effort.
Mileage plus Explorer 25k (forget $25k for 10k pts, maybe 5k for add'l card)
Onepass Plus 25k (forget about $25k for 10kpts, maybe 5k for add'l card)
This is between 225,000 & 310,000 points.
FICO is 770+ so approval for the cards should be little problem assuming apply for all on the same day.
Thanks for helping line this all up.
Do you have the most recent link/codes for these offers or others?