dave999z

Hello. I am looking to fly from Washington DC to Delhi on May 3rd (or thereabouts). For the return flight, I will want to fly out of Mumbai back to Washington DC on May 17th (or thereabouts).

I have over 200k AA miles, and I would like to use some of them for this. But I am overwhelmed trying to figure out how to check award availability on different airlines (or even figure out which airlines fly there). Does anyone know what the best airline(s) are for this route. I have heard Cathay first class is great, but it doesn't seem to be available, and I think I would have to fly through LAX and Hong Kong anyway. I would prefer to only have one stop if possible, probably at LHR if on British Airways.

If anyone has any advice on how to get started with this, I'd appreciate it.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Welcome to FT!

Award travel on BA will entail high fuel surcharges. If that does not bother you, an award search that includes partners on aa.com will display BA flights, if they are available.

For other one-stop options, call AA and ask about award seats on EY, via AUH.

If you do not mind an additional stop in NYC (or taking Amtrak up to EWR), you'll have more options, including AY, EY, RJ, 9W (from EWR), and even LY (LY serves BOM only via TLV). The aa.com website does not support award issuance for travel on several of AA's partners, including CX, EY, LY, RJ, and 9W, so you must call AA to book award travel involving one or more of those carriers.

If you limit yourself to oneworld carriers, you might find that a distance-based Explorer award will cost fewer miles that two one-way awards (at least if you route via the Atlantic).

ovenbird

I have roundtrip award tickets booked ORD/NRT with outbound in Business and inbound in First. Will I have free access to AC's at ORD and NRT? It's not exactly spelled out at aa.com. Thanks.

dave999z

Thank you very much for this helpful response!

I do mind paying those British Airways fees (they're hundreds of dollars, which kind of defeats the point of free award travel). So I guess I'll ad a stop in New York (the disadvantage of living in DC -- it seems like you can't fly anywhere direct from here).

Is there a way for me to check the award availability of those other airlines before calling AA? If not, are the AA phone agents pretty helpful in taking the time to check different options?

I guess I could just go to Kayak, limit the search to those partner airlines, rank the results, then call AA and have them start checking the best options first.

But I actually am somewhat flexible for the dates on this trip. So it would be nice to be able to see a grid or something of when award travel is available. I suppose they don't want to make it THAT easy for us to spend our miles.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

There are some private online services that will show award-seat availability for at least some of those carriers. And if you have a British Airways Executive Club account, you can check availability on oneworld carriers at ba.com.

But frankly, I think you first need to decide what your ideal redemption would be. If it's IAD-AUH-DEL//BOM-AUH-IAD on EY, I would just call AA and ask if that's available on your preferred dates. If you want to do an Explorer award with, say, AY in one direction and CX in the other, then you could just call AA to check availability, or do some online checking of availability first. As an example, DCA-JFK-HEL-DEL//BOM-HKG-ORD/JFK-DCA would cost only 130,000 AA miles in Business on an Explorer award; in addition, you could have stopovers at your en-route cities if desired. On AA's regular one-way awards, you would only be permitted to stopover at your North American gateway(s).

Keep in mind that AA will let you hold an award reservations free of charge for five days (as long as you've reserved sufficiently far in advance); so if you find something, you can hold it even if you want to keep checking for a possibly better itinerary.

EK029

How does J class on the B777-200 compare with Club World on BA? Is AA better?

JDiver

There are threads out there discussing this, and it's usually agreed upon BA is better - fully flat seats, more privacy for passengers, no dreaded middle seats (vs. 777-200 middle seat, angled-flat seat, less privacy).

I have significant "butt in seat" time in both - Tuesday I will be in my favourite BA B-744 J seat, 62A in the SUD - and have to say there's an entirely new game in town, the AA 777-300ER. That aircraft (also a couple of active threads to browse) uses the same Sicma Aero Zodiac Cirrus seat as Cathay Pacific (which I have previously enjoyed) and US' newest A330s, iirc. I definitely prefer the Cirrus seat to BA's longhaul Business seats.

In the Cirrus reverse herringbone seat, everyone has aisle access ^, nobody has to climb out over anyone else (I recall an embarrassing moment for a woman in BA in a J row seat waking suddenly as I was trying to climb over her from my K seat to get to the aisle for a lav trip). IMO the AVOD screen, USB and 110VAC outlets, etc. etc. are a significant improvement over the current BA and AA 772 longhaul Business hard product.

Elkay21

Hi there,

I've written a few posts in the past but I've been busy with school and haven't had the time to keep up with FT. My mom and I are planning to take a graduation trip to Thailand (or Costa Rica if we change our minds) in 2014, hopefully on miles.

I've only gone on one AA rewards trip before, a nice little open-jaw into YVR and out of SEA. It was really simple to book as I was flying only with AA. So how do you book with AA miles on a different airline? I have NO CLUE how to even begin this process or even know how many miles we'll need. (Or even if we go to Costa Rica, is there an airline other than AA that will require less miles?)

Also, we're collecting miles on both AA and UA. Would it be possible to book one direction with AA and the other direction with UA?

Sorry for all of my silly questions! I don't know how most of this works but I love the idea of cheap travel!

Apieinthesky

Yes, AA and UA both allow one way awards (And actually, all awards on AA and UA are one way, so a round trip is just 2 one ways.

I suggest that you take a look around here and around aa.com. The FAQ (linked below, and stickied at the top of the AA forum), has a lot of useful information.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ere-first.html

On this website, you'll find lots of info on award travel, including the airline partners you can redeem for (oneworld carriers and non oneworld partners) and the award chart for the amount of miles you need.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/redeemMiles/main.jsp

AA.com does not show award availability for many of its partners, so you either need to call AA to inquire about availability, or sign up for a subscription service like ExpertFlyer to look for availability.

I believe AA and LAN both fly to Costa Rica, and you'll need to take one of AA's Asian carrier partners connecting in NRT, HKG, etc to go to Thailand. I am not familiar with the many gimmicks (or even many basic things) regarding AA award travel, so I'll let the more experienced members on this forum help you with routings and such. If you are able to do more research on your own, you may also want to post in our consolidated MileSAAver thread (linked below) to get others' feedback on what you have so far.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

EK029

Thanks for that. I only just missed out booking on the B777-300ER because I am not very familiar with the operations of North American airlines so did not realise this aircraft had a totally new product offering. Oh well..

dave999z

Thanks! That really simplified things. I called and put the IAD-AUH-DEL//BOM-AUH-IAD on EY itinerary on hold. Other than a British Airways flight (which has crazy taxes), or airlines that don't accept Advantage miles, this was the best itinerary I could find as far as total travel time. Some of them (including Cathay) would be just way too long. The times in India are not ideal (inbound lands in Delhi at 3:30 AM, outbound leaves Mumbai at 4:50 AM), but there's not much I can do about that.

One other thing... I reserved business class for now, but I'm wondering if that was smart. It's 90k miles roundtrip for economy, or 130k miles roundtrip for business class. So, question: How is business class on Etihad? Is it worth spending 1.5 times the number of miles just to fly business instead of economy?

I guess an equally important question is... how is economy on Etihad? If it's quite good, whereas their business class is nothing special, then I should just do economy. But if their economy is awful and their business is stellar, then I should do business.

GEXPO

I need to earn literally 45 (forty five) miles to redeem an award, but I can't buy or transfer more miles (reached my 60k miles limit). I've put the award on hold and I have five days to come up with the 45 miles. No AA credit card.

Any quick ways to earn those miles? Does anyone know of any current promotions?

JDiver

Your problem is you have to get something that posts very quickly - and things like AAdvantage Dining (you are registered, right?), etc. don't tend to post within five days. Nonetheless, AA has been known to allow an account to dip slightly negative briefly - it might be easier for an elite or if someone could claim they had miles coming because of a dine or other qualifying activity.

There is a thread, Help: I need XXX miles by XXX date (2012 onward - Consolidated), that might give you some more ideas.

milesmama

I'm good at getting points, not so good at redeeming them....i have 119.000 AA points and am trying to get a one way home from Vienna for 2 of us...on Sept 30, or Oct 1..i need Vienna to Cleveland ohio..will take coach, but would love business...very thing i check is overnight layovers..i'm sure i am doing it wrong....please help...thanks

JDiver

In a little bit, we will probably move your post - we have a "sticky" Newbie lounge where these questions are asked, and we also have some threads with a lot of information. (Vienna, Austria is likely to be mainly daytime flights - most, though not all, transatlantic flights go east overnight and west during the daytime.)

We always recommend checking the FAQ first - this is the best way to start, and they link to various threads, such as these:

MileSAAver / SAAver Award Availability - Assistance & Discussion (consolidated)

AA and Partner Airline Award info, rules (NOT for oneworld Explorer Awards)

As AA does not fly to VIE, you will not be able to use an AAnytime Award (and you may not have sufficient miles); for the same reason you will have to use AA partners (such as airberlin).