Originally Posted by
SVT997
Hey everyone, I hope this in the right place. I searched around the website and didn't get much info.
This I find hard to believe.
Originally Posted by
SVT997
Anyways, I am planning on going from LAX to DXB in early June. I don't really know where to start with the whole mileage/points scenarios and what airlines to choose. I'd like to go Emirates and it seems they have a good rewards program but they cost more. This is my first international trip and I plan on traveling more but am pretty unsure of how to go about the whole airline miles scenario. Thanks!^
Do you know what your credit is like in terms of score, history, etc? You'll need a decent history and 700+ score to really get into the game, but scoring a single return trip LAX-DXB-LAX shouldn't be too hard. Emirates is a bit of a toughie, especially for premium cabins, but as far as I know (and I don't have much EK--Emirates 2 letter code which you'll probably see more of in this thread--experience) you'll probably do better transferring to an Emirates partner like KE (Korean Air) or AS (Alaska). That said, I'm not sure that AS's redemption chart for EK has been published yet, so it may be tough to plan on for now.
The easiest way to get KE miles is via Chase Ultimate Rewards which you can transfer to KE at 1:1. Get both the Sapphire Preferred card and Ink Bold or Plus cards and that's 90k plus spend. And according to
this link, you'd need 70,000 KE miles to go in economy or 140,000 in business (or the unreasonable sum of 210k for first class). With a few well done purchases via the UR mall, you could be up to 140k pretty quickly.
So, if you're set on Emirates, I'd go with Chase. If you're open to other airlines, you might check into getting 2 AA 50k cards (two browser trick, check the AA thread) or maybe still the Chase cards and transferring to United. Going on LH (Lufthansa, a United partner) would be a nice way to fly, and business class is cheaper via United.
Welcome to FT!