yrs

Hi,

I am new to AA, having moved from *A by virtue of US.

My family and I travel frequently travel to India, and were spiled by the generous routing allowed by US (sin/hkg/bkk-maa/hyd/bom/del). The AA award chart does not permit TPAC travel to India. I have done a lot of searching on FT and Google for:

1) Any way to travel AA TPAC to India?
2) What is the best award chart (any airline, any alliance) for travel within South East Asia (sin/hkg/bkk-maa/hyd/bom/del)?

Thank you in advance.

reeg2

1) Yes, but it requires 2 awards.

2) The award chart is the same for all oneworld airlines - you can view on aa.com.

eponymous_coward

Yes. Book two awards.

For most charts your airports are not all considered part of SE Asia- India is usually in a separate zone from SIN, HKG and BKK. Thus, it becomes a multiple zone award and the cost increases.

Is your goal to fly those routes in premium classes or coach? Fly those routes nonstop, or is a connection OK? Given that the dominant airlines in SIN, HKG and BKK and in your Indian destinations are all different, and have different alliances when it comes to HKG (CX/OW) and SIN/BKK/India (SQ/TG/AI, *A), knowing your intended travel pattern and preferred redemption pattern becomes important.

I would probably look for a *A airline where there is distance-based redemption, or where the zone penalty for India/SE Asia isn't too harsh, given that OW only dominates at HKG and AI/TG/SQ have adequate coverage for HKG... perhaps ask in the *A forum?

no1cub17

Do you have to travel tpac? EY awards seem rather plentiful - I've not booked one but they are quite tempting.

Gerbs

I'm not sure whether OP meant best award chart using AA miles only or best award chart regardless of program. Comparing AA and BA is interesting (with the intention to book CX to/from HKG):

AA: 22,500 one-way Y; 30,000 one-way C
BA: 12,500 one-way Y; 25,000 one-way Y+; 37,500 one-way C

FWIW, UA and DL don't appear to be competitive.

eponymous_coward

The problem is that SIN/BKK-India on OW means a connection at KUL on MH (or backtracking to HKG). This inflates the BA cost significantly for BKK/SIN due to a connection now being required (BA Avios price per segment).

This and the mileage disparity you point out is why knowing OP's travel pattens is important.

Personally, I don't think I'd be burning 60k miles for round trip flights in a regional C product like CX's regional C, or MH 738s, especially since OP says this is family travel (multiple passengers). You would be dropping almost a quarter million miles for four passengers on something like SIN-KUL-MAA, on about 4 hours of flight time. You can probably outright buy business class for not too much more than a reasonable cost in miles at that point (especially given MH's financial troubles these days).

I'd probably find a price point I'd be willing to spend, nonstops/onestops that work, and use the FF miles as gravy, rather than prioritize the FFP mileage redemption possibilities over logical travel patterns... but it takes all kinds of horses for courses, I suppose.

smilinganddialing

9W is an AA partner. Back when you could still use US miles, it was a phenomenal deal to do DEL - SIN r/t on 9W in J for just 30K miles. I used that a few times before it went away.

Personally, I would suggest just purchasing flights in this region. India - BKK/SIN flights are very cheap. 9W and AI offer very competitive fares.

MH is in the process of going under and is canceling flights all over the place. I would avoid flying them until they have some sort of stability and wish them well in finding it.

Finally, do yourself a favor and avoid TPAC routings for WAS - India. It's not worth the extra time spent traveling and extra miles. AA miles are not particularly great for getting to India with the exception of EY. Availability on non-YQ heavy partners like QR is terrible and BA will make you pay lots of YQ. AY connections are very poorly timed. DL and UA miles are much better for US - India travel on the whole. I realize some fAAns will come in to remind me that one can fly all sorts of exotic routings but frankly having searched all three alliances/partners, AA is last for going to India.

yrs

Thank you for all the insightful thoughts. We have traveled TATL and TPAC in the past on NW and *A, taking advantage of their generous award charts in routing.

Having read so much about CX and JL in J and F, I was looking into the possibility of travel to India on either. But AA, flying TPAC, takes us only as far as HKG/BKK/SIN, and the last segment seems too expensive using AA miles.

This discussion has given me very good ideas, including buying the last segment and/or taking another look at UA and DL award charts to India.

PS: As an aside, I just redeemed two DL J SM awards for Xmas/New Years for 140K each (on AF metal).

guv1976

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

"But AA, flying TPAC, takes us only as far as HKG/BKK/SIN"

Not so! You can also get to CMB on an AAdvantage North America-Asia 2 award.

arlflyer

I agree with the posters saying that OP should not be looking any further than EY. Especially being based out of the DC area. Good availability out of IAD and on to India. Book the ticket, they pick you up and take you to IAD, good lounge there, great product in the air, easy transit and good lounges in AUH, and you're done with it.

travel4b

Only if you are flying in First.

Microwave

That's a really good point... Assuming the OP has good reasons for avoiding routing via the Atlantic despite the many options available, the OP could trek as far as CMB on an award then perhaps buy a ticket CMB-MAA/BOM/DEL? oneworld member SriLankan serves all three routes (no airline serves CMB-HYD) so there's prospect of mileage earning on these purchased tag-on flights, with a few widebodies even peppered in to MAA. If a Pacific routing is essential, this would be a viable option.

Dave Noble

The EY site at http://www.etihad.com/en-us/experien...had-chauffeur/ indicates that the service is for 1st and business class passengers

asdf1223

I've found very decent QR C availability both close to departure from all destinations and 3-4 months in advance when booking from their less popular cities.

I agree with you on UA but DL is terrible for India redemptions. No one wants to fly Saudia(and their availability is almost gone), DL pulled out of their AMS-BOM flights, AF/KLM serve only BOM/DEL/BLR and have even worse than QR availability. The only saving grace is the VS partnership but only if you want to get to DEL. DL doesn't partner with any Indian Airline so be prepared to book separate tickets and pay huge baggage charges if you want to fly anywhere else.

travel4b

Oops, sorry. You are absolutely correct.