Originally Posted by jennj99738

Hello!
I'm not a new FTer but it's been a long time and I generally just use my points for hotels and upgrades so I'm not very familiar with how to optimize my points for this trip.

I am heading from the US to BKK in September. I am in LAS but can take a short flight to LAX or SFO if it helps me get the best deal. I would like to fly in a premium economy cabin on this flight due to length. I don't have a ton of miles/points so I was thinking I'd like to use points to upgrade from an economy fare to PE. I have about 100k miles on UA and 130k AMEX membership rewards points. I have a few points (23K) in a Capital One account that I could also transfer. I could also use points and dollars to pay the PE fare instead of just the upgrade, if that's doable.

Most of the flights that come up for my dates are on Cathay Pacific, Singapore, ANA, and EVA. I think all of those are pretty good? Is there a way to know how many miles I would need to upgrade and/or how many miles I could use to pay part of the PE fare on any of these airlines? I see that Cathay or Singapore would not give me an estimate without already having miles in their bank which I don't want to do.

Also, is there a better partner to try to find these awards on? Like United for Star Alliance or Delta or Virgin?

I hope this is the right forum for this. I wasn't sure where to post these questions. I appreciate any assistance you folks could give me.