Originally Posted by
jpez
Please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong thread or was answered somewhere I didn't search, as I'm still somewhat of a newbie.
I am trying to plan a trip with my significant other in late fall/early winter, either to Australia/New Zealand or to Thailand (likely the first). As flights to Australia are obviously extremely expensive, I am wondering if there is a way to try to fund my trip on miles somehow. I currently have an American Airlines personal credit card (also a Hilton and Hyatt), but no other airline rewards credit cards at this time.
I'm trying to look into this now, and I am willing to open a couple cards (so is my SO) to fund the flight for free. We aren't huge credit card spenders, so any cards that you have to hit a really high spending goal (e.g. 10k or 20k) will not work for us.
I'm hoping someone has done this before and can share a little information with me. I am looking for (1) what airlines even fly to Australia and (2) the cheapest possible way for me to do this trip. Also, any other advice is appreciated, as it will be my first time.
Thank you in advance for all your help
Depending on where you live in America, you'll have different options for flights. Most likely, it will come down to flying either OneWorld (with AA miles) or Star Alliance (with United miles).
AA is 75k miles roundtrip in economy, United is 80k roundtrip in economy.
The good news is that you could get the 150k AA miles needed or the 160k United miles if you start now.
For the AA miles, look in to the Citi/AA Visa and Citi/AA Amex for your wife. That will net you 100,000 right off the bat and the minimum spends aren't too bad. Depending on what AA card you have, you might be able to get the Citi/AA Visa Biz card, and that will be an additional 50k for you. There is your 150k needed.
For United miles, your best bet is going to be to go the Chase route. If both you and your wife got the Chase United card, you could have 50k each (100k total) with after the first purchase on each card. Then, you could either get the Chase Sapphire Preferred for both of you and have an additional 100k total. That leaves you with 200k, which is enough for your coach tickets on United.
If you have questions, shoot me a pm or an email on the blog. Hope this helps!