Originally Posted by
Youngtraveldude
Looking to take a bigger trip in Feb/Mar with our family before our daughter turns 2 so we have one less ticket to buy. Yes, don't worry, I know we still have to pay some $$ for her and that it's often 10% of the fare, which if in business, can be a decent amount. Anyway, looking to mainly do the trip on miles & points as we have a healthy chunk of Skymiles & Chase points (and Hyatt points for lodging). I have been searching for flights for quite some time and have yet to find flights I get excited about. I'm trying to avoid flying Delta on the longhaul flights and instead fly on a Skyteam member. I think part of my problem is that there aren't too many Skyteam members to get excited about, compared to the other alliances, especially flying West to Asia/SE Asia. The best I've found so far are one-way from MEX (way more beginning in US) to various places in Asia/SE Asia for 90K skymiles (which is great) but on China Airlines. For whatever reason, I'm getting overly excited flying on China Airlines...is my perception wrong and in-fact China Airlines has a pretty solid hard and soft product?
Anyway, looking for any tips anyone may have. Live in Austin but happy to position (or have the return end) to Mexico, Caribbean, Central America etc. There are better options out of Europe but that's a bit too far of a positioning, especially with our 2 kids under 4. I have searched endlessly to find a KE 747-8 route but as you probably know, it's nearly impossible to find availability, let alone for more than 1 seat.
So, anyone have a good idea for a US (with positioning as an option to Mexico, Caribbean, Central America) to/from Asia/SE Asia one-way Skymiles redemption on an 'exciting' airline? I would be very happy to use our ~500K Skymiles on one-way to or from Asia/SE Asia and then maybe some intra-Asia since I've seen much better options intra-Asia. And then I'd plan to use Chase points (either booking biz with Chase points/$$ or transfer Chase points to a Chase airline partner) for the other long one-way.
Thanks in advance, y'all.
I think your best bet will be to narrow down dates and destinations, and see what's available. Theoretically, the parameters you've provided leave thousands of combinations. As for "exciting" airlines, I'm not sure what you mean. Depending where in Asia you're going, there are reward routings with legs on pretty much every partner- including routings via Europe. You could do, for example, JFK-CDG-HAN with the second leg on Vietnam Airlines. For planning purposes, though, youre going to have to decide whether novelty of an airline, costs, date, or destination are the most important option.