Originally Posted by
sthubbar
Happy,
OK, so it seems like the flight within the US to MCI is not included in your calculation. I think that is why you have 70k round-trip and I came up with 100k round-trip.
Wrong. MCI or SFO makes no difference, as long as you do not stop anywhere for longer than 24 hours, except at the North America
Gateway.
Asia 2 to North America (including Caribbeans for that matter) is 35K oneway in coach. HNL is North America and if it is the FIRST airport you hit North America, you are entitle to a FREE stopover. The next would be your destination - be it SFO or MCI, it costs nothing extra - same 35K.
If you ALSO stop at SFO (after your stopover at HNL) before you continue to MCI, then you have TWO awards - Asia2 to North America, PLUS Domestic US/Canada. That is 35K + 12.5K.
Originally Posted by
sthubbar
Yes, that is the conclusion I have also reached. It seems that this trip is too close to take advantage of those miles. From your great feedback and those of others, I'm starting to get convinced to go ahead and apply for the AA offers.
You will then have the problem of "how to get rid of 225K AA miles..."
Just to be sure, your credit history if it is very thin (because you may not have spent a lot of your working life in US, and not have several cards, car loan, mortgage etc in your file), you may not get the cards at all.
Originally Posted by
sthubbar
The 19,456 was total flight distance using the Distance Pricer tool and the routes, including MCI, that you suggested.
The awards you are looking at are ZONE based, not distance based.
AA has another award called OneWorld award which is distance based. And you MUST use 2 OneWorld partner airlines other than AA plus other rules - completely different animals than the regular awards.
You would be much better off to UNDERSTAND how award works by reading the corresponding airlines forums and in particular the long-running threads on various awards.
Loyalty programs all have their own rules - one of the major newbie mistake is to generalize program rules. This is an absolute No No. The "currency" you use, is the program rules that govern. So if you are using CO miles, it is CO program rules. At this moment, CO and UA dont have the same rules. The 2 programs do not merge until Jan 2012 and new rules have not been made available. Nobody knows which side's rules would survive. You are using AA miles, then it is AA program rules.