Originally Posted by
jwbcwhit87
First Post, so first things first.
1. Thanks to everyone who is active on this thread (and FT in general) from whom I have learned a ton so far!
2. I have researched explorer awards semi in-depth so far, but need to get a better understanding of the fine details/availability.
3.
Questions are below:
1. my hometown city is a non-international airport, so I believe I need to route from one of these airports (in my case ORD is nearest). I am curious for other FT'ers if they just position to one of these airports, when booking one of these Awards?
2. My travel is very flexible, but I want to get a headstart on booking the awards (9+ months out at least). My interested booking is: ORD-PEK,PEK-SYD, SYD-AKL, AKL-LAX, which is just under 20k miles flown. Is there any glaring issues with this routing/booking?
3. To my knowledge, I can not end my travel in the same city I start it in? This is why my routing starts in ORD and ends in LAX, I then just book one-way tickets home.
4. (maybe the most important, but tougher one to answer, idk). Any advice on how hard these flights are to book biz class in (I am targeting 20k miles flown in biz class for 130k AA miles)? Would love to get Cathay Pacific biz class for the ORD-PEK segment, and then the next best biz class seat for the AKL-LAX segment (tips on best seats accepted!)
-Thats it for the moment, sry for the long (first post)! Again, thanks for the help and advice!
1. You can start and end an award anywhere. My award started and ended on two different continents as an example. I do have separate awards to reach those points.
2. ORD-PEK on CX would involve going ORD-HKG-PEK. PEK-SYD, I'm guessing you'd want to go PEK-HKG-SYD, but you could go PEK-NRT-SYD. As for AKL-LAX, you'll have to route back through Australia, or up through HKG. Here, it might make sense to go PEK-HKG-AKL, then AKL-SYD, then SYD-USA, if it is possible for you to flip the order of destinations.
3. You can start and end in the same city if you want. This also allows you to have an open-jaw in the middle of the award if you so choose.
4. Getting from AKL or Australia back to the USA will definitely be the toughest part of this award. CX ORD-HKG usually isn't tough to find. If in doubt, you could fly ORD-EWR-HKG, J award availability on the newer EWR-HKG flight is generally quite good.
Good luck!