Originally Posted by
thepointsguy
Just curious- where would you recommend transferring Chase UR points if someone wanted to fly a solid first class product non-stop from, say, Boston to London? I understand United has lower fees, but A) Their first class pales in comparison to new BA first and b) there aren't a whole lot of Star Alliance flights with true first class nonstop from North America to London. And the only nonstop would be Virgin Atlantic, who doesn't have first class.
Transferring to Korean wouldn't be smart because Delta doesn't have first class and even finding low-level business class availability is tough.
Or how about Southwest?
Believe it or not, there are people who think it's a great deal to use BA miles for first class, especially since award availability is excellent. $700 in fees isn't all that much when you consider the price of first class tickets, or even buying business and upgrading to first @:-)
Taking a step back for a second, and considering the value proposition, United miles are arguably more valuable than Avios awards. Certainly not for every award on the planet (such as short haul last-minute awards, as mentioned above), but for a large majority of awards that involve connections- and more complex awards, such as mini-RTW's which may cost 120K with UA but 400K+ with Avios. So when looking it from this perspective, converting your valuable Chase UR points into not-so-valuable Avios points isn't such a wise idea.
The lack of routing flexibility with Avios would annoy anyone who is not flying non-stop, and given the dynamic nature of award availability, flying nonstop isn't always possible. The fact that you pay, literally, for every connection and every layover in Avios versus a fixed fee for all flights from North America to Europe with UACO miles is reason enough to avoid Avios- and that's not even considering the award taxes/fees.
You mentioned UA first as being sub-par, but the same can be said for AA first. Then, you neglect to mention Lufthansa and Swiss first class- which are arguably two of the best products in the sky. There is really no contest between Star Alliance and Oneworld, at least transatlantically- other than AA and BA, Finnair's award space is scarce, and Iberia is mediocre at best. Compare this to not only LH and LX, but also CO/UA and US (with flat beds in business, as opposed to AA's angled flat), as well as SK, SN and OS- even TP at a last resort, offers a semi-decent product across the pond.
Finally, even supposing there was award space on BA, non-stop, in first class for my desired dates, the sign up bonuses from the Chase cards you linked would still not be enough miles to get me there and back on BA first. Either way, the referral links are inappropriate.
I think I'll bow out of this debate, where I am discussing a blogger's independance and objectivity with some who is.....a blogger, complete with links on every FT post to his/her own blog. And I'll skip the follow-on explanations of the distinctions, thank you. It's not that they're wrong, or right. It's just that it doesn't matter.
Roll eyes indeed.
Of course bloggers have every right to post basically whatever they feel like. Is it within my right to conjure up a blog post saying that the best way to fly first class transatlantically is by transferring SPG to Air NZ Airpoints at a 1:65 ratio? Yes. Can I also expect to receive criticism by offering such "advice"? Also yes.