Hi all,
Y'all have always been a great help so I'm back for more! I'm planning a trip, to book next month and to be taken in March 2009. I'm going to use AA miles so I'll be doing a OW150C, which (correct me if I'm wrong) will get me 25,000 flight miles to play with. Here's the routing I'm considering:
DCA-JFK-MAD-CAI-AMM-BKK-HKG-NRT-LAX-IAD.
The airlines are:
DCA-JFK = AA
JFK-MAD-CAI = IB
CAI-AMM-BKK = RJ
BKK-HKG = Cathay
HKG-NRT = Cathay or JAL
NRT-LAX = JAL (hopefully!)
LAX-IAD= AA
Questions:
1) The reason why I am starting the transatlantic part of my journey from NYC instead of IAD is that IB has a flight from NYC which gets into Madrid at 7:10am. THe flight to Cairo departs at 4:30pm. Do I have time to go into Madrid? (I'll only have carry-on luggage.) If I don't have time my routing will be IAD-MAD-CAI. I may take a bus/train to New YOrk to start because AAs DCA-JFK flights are not known for their timeliness!
Plenty of time to visit Madrid since there is a subway stop at the airport.
1a) Is MAD-CAI daily? Is AMM-BKK daily? (I know I can look it up myself but if any of you know offhand that would be helpful. If I don't get any responses to this subquestion I'll look it up myself!
)
MAD-CAI is 5 days a week, and AMM-BKK is daily flights on RJ.
2) What is award availability like on IB and RJ? I know it can be very difficult on Cathay and JAL.
Had a friend who booked some IAD-MAD flights last year with good availability. Don't know about RJ.
3) Better chance to get a flight with Cathay or JAL from HKG-NRT?
With 8 daily flights between CX and JL, you should be able to get a seat unless travelling during a holiday.
4) WHich airline would be better HKG-NRT, Cathay or JAL?
Unless you fly on the 1 or 2 flights with 3 class services, it will be a regional biz class. But way better than intra-Europe biz or AA's domestic FC.
5) I'm only planning one night in HKG. If so, will I be able to see anything or should i just skip it and do BKK-NRT?
I suggest you check the HKG forum here on FT for ample suggestions on what to do with 24 hours in HKG. HKG is a bit easier to travel locally, so I would go for that rather than the chaos of BKK, IMO.
6) WHat are my chances of scoring JAL from NRT-LAX. Would I have a better chance using another gateway? (Either Osaka in Japan, or SFO, NYC...in the U.S.)
When I helped some friends book a trip for a trip to Tokyo in Jan 08, JL seemed to have better availabilty than AA for biz class seats. Go figure.
7) Does the Qantas award planner still show availability on all airlines. THey seem to have changed the interface from the last time I booked a OneWorld trip and it seems more difficult now.