jhyler

I've long read of upper class award travel to Australia being the holy grail of AA award travel, but never thought it would matter to me. Turns out I was wrong, and I now need to book a couple of LAX-BNE awards for next year. I can't do main cabin in those seats for that long a trip. (Premium economy would be fine, if and when AA starts offering awards in it...).

Anyway, the question is this: with these awards being so scarce, should I just call AA and pay whatever AAnytime award level X charge they might quote, or is this a routing where an award booking service is likely to come up with something significantly better?

Thanks!

Mwenenzi

jhyler Welcome to FT

Premium cabin awards (PEcon- Bus- First) USA Australia are hard to get. 2 on the same flight 4 times as hard. You need to be flexible with date & route.

Consider LAX/SFO to/from BNE/SYD/MEL. Only QF flys LAX-BNE non stop. You do not need to fly to/from the same airports out & back. Book as one ways. Also consider Fiji Airlines.

Keep looking before you pay the high aanytime awards or give $$$ to award booking service (its a simple route)

Dedicated AA forum threads:-

• HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance
• AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)
• Australia New Zealand AA forum--->AAdvantage award to / from Australia, New Zealand (master thread)
• QF AA forum --> AA miles awards: using / redeeming AA miles on Qantas (QF) & related (consolidated)

3Cforme

A connection in MEL takes you a long way out of the way. It turns a 13:55 flight into a 20:25 slog, minimum, on the date I checked.

Remember that AAnytime awards are available only on AA metal.

JDiver

The good news is BNE has been the Australian Airport with better availability. I’ve secured business awards to or via BNE awards for two in Business six times.

The bad news is QF releases award seats something like 355 days out initially and AA can’t display or book until 331 days out.

electriclarry

If you are willing to travel to Australia in the downunder winter, there are business class seats from San Francisco for many days in late July and early August. As of this posting they are NOT listed on AA.com,but, they are listed on QF.com, awardnexus., and I would guess expert flyer? You must call AA to book any seats you find, and besure to check aa.com again before to tell them not listed as available on aa.com so they do not charge a $40.00 booking fee!

Hint one aa rep tried to sell me a business class flight that 94% economy travel, be aware. Also if usually travel out of SFO try searching LAX-australian cities. I found many flight QF56 available days in May from LAX-BNE but the same flight not available if you searched SFO-BNE on QF.com

After two years of trying I just booked a business class round trip!!!!

jridge

Give more information on when this would be and how flexible the dates are ("I now need to" sounds a bit inflexible).

jhyler

Thanks, everyone, for your help. The more information: my wife and I are on a cruise out of BNE on October 5, 2019 (returning November 3, but I'll deal with that separately - and hopefully, what I learn in booking the outbound will help). Given jet lag and allowing for a little paranoia, we want to be in BNE no later than October 4. Earlier, say up to a week, is doable. My wife and I live in the SAN area but have been known to drive up to LAX for flights since my wife is not a fan of the Embraer equipment that dominates SAN-LAX. But we'll accept most any routing that gets us there. Obviously we'd prefer a SYD connection, but if MEL is what it takes we'd do it. HKG I would try to avoid. I've been warned about the reliability of TN, so might avoid them if I could, but as I said, we'll do what it takes.

FWIW, I'm a MM on AA but have retired now so am not accumulating the miles like I once was. Not enough miles on other carriers to be germane here.

enviroian

I wonder how hard it would be to get saver J tickets on that big white beluga I see at DFW D everyday.

Mwenenzi

OK. So you have a lot of time & flexibility.
And remember the date line difference. Leave USA on a Monday evening and you arrive in Oz Wednesday morning.

AA flys LAX-SYD & LAX-AKL
QF flys SFO LAX DFW JFK HNL to BNE SYD MEL (not all airports to all airports)
TN & FJ are options
UA DL & VA also fly USA to Australia. And UA LAX AKL
Connecting to BNE in AKL vs SYD is not a big difference overall when considering the trans Pacific flights

aztimm

I used AA miles and flew F on the QF A380, SYD-DFW, a few weeks ago. It really wasn't very difficult.

enviroian

what's the F redemption? What's the J redemption?

EF doesn't list QF right so use BA.com to search?

Thanks

aztimm

The redemption chart is on the AA site here:
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp

Business is 80k, First is 110k.

And yes, QF is on EF, and that's how I found availability. I booked back in January for mid-October travel. The availability for F didn't show on AA, so I just called and an AAgent booked it for me.
On the outbound (SFO-MEL), I was able to book on aa.com. But I'd highly recommend the extra 30k, it was MUCH better.

jhyler

Following up on aztimm's experience, I checked EF and found pretty good award availability on QF from late June through late August. If that represents a sliding window of availability, I should find my dates showing up in mid-December. I think, though, that this may more likely be reflective of electriclarry's observation that awards are more readily available during the Aussie winter.

I've got my alerts set; we'll see.

Thanks again!

enviroian

what are Sydney's winters like? It's hellish here in Dallas in July. Might be a welcome reprieve.

rowsign