Bartonio

Looking for advice on the best use of ~1M FF miles/points to get my family (wife, son & daughter) to/from Australia for Christmas and New Years this year.

Am starting in the AA forum as this is where the majority of the miles are.

AAdvantage: 660k mi

Also have:
United: 250k mi
Amex: 125k points
SPG: 100k points

Have been hoarding miles for sometime for a family vacation to Australia this Christmas. As this week, we entered the 10 month advance booking window for award travel on American to/from Australia and have found multiple round trip routes that consume all or most of the AAdvantage miles.

The goal is to book 3x round trips from LAX to SYD using as few miles as possible - departure no earlier than Dec 2017, return no later than Jan 4 2018. Original hope was 1 pax in business, 2 in coach but the miles required are forcing this to be 3x in coach.

I will purchase my own ticket as I will need the EQMs towards retaining PlatExec on AA - knowing they will be split between 2017 & 2018 on outbound and return.

All tolled we have over 1M miles/points across AA, United, Amex & SPG/Marriott. Before committing booking for the 3 round trips, just looking for advice as to going the longest distance for the fewest miles possible. Are there any situations where moving/converting miles from one program to AAdvantage makes sense and/or should 1 pax travel on United using those miles?

Thanks in advance for suggestions, tips, etc...!

SpammersAreScum

One consideration for conversion would be that 100k SPG points converts to 125k AA miles but only 50k UA miles. Similarly, the 125k Amex via SPG would be 52k AA miles, but only 25k UA miles (also indirectly) according to this site.

I tried looking on AA for award availability for 3. They seem to be saying MileSAAver is pretty non-existent, but AAnytime is wide open and seems to fit well within your apparent budget. Outbound shows a few early Dec dates at 70k and many more at 90k; return is at 120k thru end of Dec and 150k after. So unless I'm missing something it seems like you could do Econ for as little 190k each, 570 total. No problem, with no conversions needed.

Business for 1 would be 325+195 = 520k at best, so grand total 520+380=900k. Even with both conversions you'd only have 660+125+52=837k. So that wouldn't work.

But! Assuming you can do one on UA for less than the 250k you have, now you only need 520+190=710 for the AA 1 bus / 1 econ option, so only a bit of converting gets you there.

And maybe, if you converted everything to UA => 325k total, you could do 2 there? I don't know.

flyingmusicianlax

OP, if I were you, I would explore the possibility of just redeeming two awards for each one-way on AA. It's 70k AA miles to get to SE Asia in business and another 40k to get from SE Asia to Australia in business. That's 110k miles each way, per person, in business class. Use British Airways' website (you'll need to register a new account) to search for oneworld partner availability. Make sure you search segment-by-segment, otherwise you may get incorrect results.

You can also think about transferring your SPG and MR points to Singapore Airlines. There you can redeem one award to get your family one way in business class from the US to Singapore to Australia. You'll have to pay fuel surcharges, but they're not too steep and the number of miles required is low compared to American carriers (plus the 15% web redemption discount).
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guv1976

The OP should bear in mind that AA and UA each offer one-way awards.

platbrownguy

190k miles for a $1200 ticket = holy wow but I guess people do this


OP also keep in mind that if you have the Amex Business Platinum card, you can redeem your Amex points at $0.01/point but you get a rebate of 50% of the points. So if you redeemed 120,000 points for a $1200 ticket, you'd get 60,000 points back, giving you a roundtrip coach ticket for only 60,000 points -- and it would still be a full "revenue" ticket so you could earn your miles and EQMs if you used that for your own ticket @:-)

Same applies even if you have a different amex, just not with the 50% point rebate

3Cforme

OP: Your search over a holiday is a difficult challenge and you propose to spend a (relative) large quantity of points and miles. You might pay a pro to do this for you:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html

ElmhurstNick

I would be looking at non-traditional routings. NRT/HKG/KUL/TPE/SIN to SYD/MEL/BNE. SCL-AKL. That kind of thing. You have the JAL BOS-NRT

You're BOS based, so you could also go east via the ME3 cities, where Christmas may not be such a big deal from a demand perspective.

DeltaFlyingProf

You can depart on any date in December?
You may want also to consider transferring SPG points to Alaska. You would get 125k AS miles.
There are days when they show at least 2 seats in Y on Fiji Airlines for the outbound at 40k miles per person. Those should also be available with AA miles.
They also show many days with DL in Y for 50k miles. Beware however that DL and AS are parting, so you will have to act quickly, and if you need to make changes later it may be difficult.

Looking at the AS availability, you should not have trouble finding two outbounds in Y for your SPG points. But your inbound is probably the much more difficult thing to find.

JonNYC

Definitely agree.

Mwenenzi

There are numerous threads on FT and the AA subforum on (saver) awards USA to Australia. Premium seats are *** harder to get and at a peak time is **** times harder to get. On your dates the airlines will be expecting to sell every seat for top dollar, especially 4th Jan. You will likley need so split your party and be prepared to travel on different days/airports/routes/airlines. Do not fixate on LAX & SYD as thousands of others do (Look at SFO DFW / BNE MEL and more).
The award booking link is practical advice.

AA subforum links (this thread is likley to get merged into one of them)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ssistance.html
Oneworld and other airline Awards Rules, Information 2015 on
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-thread.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...demptions.html

Airlines that fly USA/Canada to/from Australia (not from all airports to all airports)
- American Airlines AA (LAX - SYD) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner)
- Air Canada AC (YYR – SYD, BNE from Jun 2016) [Star Alliance]
- Air New Zealand NZ (LAX SFO IAH YVR via AKL) [Star Alliance]
- Air Tahiti Nui TN (LAX via Tahiti. Last segments on codeshares) (AA & DL partner)
- Delta DL (LAX – SYD) (VA & AS partner) [Skyteam Alliance]
- Fiji Airways FJ (LAX HNL – BNE SYD BNE via Fiji) (QF, AA & AS partner)
- Hawaiian HA (HNL – SYD BNE) (AA & VA partner)
- Jetstar JQ JQ (HNL – SYD BNE)
- Qantas QF (LAX SFO JFK DFW HNL YVR*– SYD BNE MEL) [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner) {* seasonal}
- United UA (LAX SFO – SYD MEL) [Star Alliance]
- Virgin Australia VA (LAX – SYD BNE) (DL partner) MEL LAX restarting 4 April 2017
And others via Asia & Middle East

nutwpinut

I completely forgot about this. My next mileage run will be this.

dukerau

The SPG-Marriott merger creates good opportunities for indirect SPG-UA transfers. 56k Marriott converts to 25k UA, so 18,666 SPG = 56k Marriott = 25k UA. Or, 90k SPG = 270k Marriott = 7 nights in cat 1-5 Marriott + 132k UA.

I second this recommendation. A few benefits:

• Cathay has better award availability than AA
• Cathay flies from BOS, so no domestic connections needed (if you can find BOS-HKG avialability
• If desired, you could spend a few days in Hong Kong. No extra cost since you're booking separate awards with AA miles.
• You could transfer SPG to Alaska (90k = 270k Marriott = 120k Alaska + 7 nights in cat 1-5 Marriott), and use Alaska miles to book on the same Cathay flights. Alaska charges 40k one way in economy / 60k one way in business, and they do allow routing via HKG to get to Oz, so no need for separate awards.

Bartonio

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies so far, lots of options, lots to think about. Just what I was hoping for. Very much appreciated!