Mvoight -- I'm flying with someone that has never seen Miami. We actually want to stopover there. Ideally, we'd stopover in MIA to start, and we'd fly back through ORD, because I have actually never seen Chicago, and figure we could start our HNL trip by visiting Chicago (I also felt like going ATL -> ORD was backward and adding on needless time, but after checking distances, it's about the same as going to MIA)
Thank you all for the responses. My new plan is (and please let me know if I'm messing anything up):
Departure
Oneworld Partner Award
ATL -> MIA (stop) (AA); MIA -> CDG (Iberia) (I don't believe I could make another stopover, but correct me if I'm wrong); CDG -> FCO if I want
Now, this would be For 80k I could do Business, and for 100k I could do First Class, if I'm not mistaken. This seems strange to me, given that I believe it would be 125k for First Class all-AA (there are so few milesAAver 62.5k's).
Return:
FCO -> ORD (stop); ORD -> HNL (taken later)
Should be able to find a MilesAAver for this, so 50k business.
ORD -> ATL coach (booked with extra miles or with a different airline for 10-12.5k.... I think putting this flight 3h after the other would be safe?)
It seems like AA never has two first class milesAAvers. So, if I go with a partner, we, cumulatively, must pay 162.5k for a first class 3-cabin plane. Is this generally accepted to be true?
Ideally, we'd have 2 first class 3-cabin planes both ways, get the trip to HNL, and stay in MIA for about 24 hours for 157k miles or less, without ridiculously long amounts of time in the air. Unfortunately, I think this is slightly out of our reach, and we will need to take Business on the way back (which is fine).
And does anyone have any idea how long I could delay my ORD -> HNL trip? Would 5 months be acceptable?
You really should indicate when you desire to fly: next week? or next year? It makes a difference.
I did! It just got lost with all my rambling. Sometime May through September 2012. After checking availability, it actually looks like there are plenty of MilesAAvers over the summer. As a result, we are more willing to go to BCN/CDG/LHR instead of FCO. I was shocked to see MilesAAvers available to LHR during the Olympics. I wonder whether there are still unbooked hotels that I could get with Marriott/Hyatt points...
Thanks.