Originally Posted by
Fishwiz
I am trying pull off a very last minute trip with my family (3 travelers total) to visit family in Hawaii. We are 7 days away from my potential departure. RT tickets in Y cost $561 or 43,000 miles. I usually prefer to use miles for my family and have my tickets be paid so that I earn miles (SM and MQM). I am a PM and i'm hoping to maintain that status for next year. This flight would earn me about 6700 MQM and slightly fewer SM. Ideally I would like to be on the same PNR for simplicity. Since there are 3 of us traveling, we are not eligible for complimentary upgrades, right? the only way I know to pay for my ticket with cash and theirs with miles on the same booking would be to use "pay with miles" which would require me to use 60,000 miles for each ticket... not a good deal compared to aware tickets.
So, my question is, what makes the most sense? Should I just book the whole thing as a reward and forget about the MQMs, or is it smart to book them separately (family on reward and mine with cash) and just have the PNRs linked? Is there a different option that I am overlooking?
Flights will be GTF-SLC-HNL-SLC-GTF.
Personally, I’d book my own flight with cash and the rest with miles. Perhaps Id book my flight and one other persons flight with cash, on the same PNR, to get the C+ upgrade, and then upgrade the rest of the family with miles.
keep in mind that there’s no such thing as linking PNRs, aside from noting in each PNR that you are travelling together, and then hoping that the airline reads this when they’re proactively rebooking you in IROPS