Evelyn2109

I am wondering if it would be better for me to transfer my miles from my AMEX Gold card (17k) and my AMEX SPG card (20k) to my BA account or to my Aeroplan account?

I currenly have more miles in my BA account than in my Aeroplan account, so I am leaning towards transferring miles to BA and flying on one of its partners like Cathay Pacific. My trip would be in economy in Dec 2012 and I intend to book in Jan or Feb 2012.

In your opinion, is award travel on BA partners easily available for Vietnam if I book early enough?

I appreciate any advice you can give me. I am a newbe and am reading threads on this forum and learning slowly about using award miles advantageously. However, I still have a long way to go

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance.

clacko

are there any bonus promos going on now?....it seems like i the occur from time to time....you are looking at 6 months before being able to book.....good luck...

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

CX does not serve YUL. If you combine two partners on a BA miles redemption, you will be charged the more expensive distance-based redemption rate (for example, 70,000 BA miles to fly YUL-JFK-HKG-SGN one way, or 100,000 miles roundtrip, using BA's oneworld award redemption table).

BA also imposes substantial fuel surcharges for redemptions to Asia from North America.

Evelyn2109

Thank you for your reply and input.

I guess it would be best to transfer my AMEX miles to Aeroplan and work on getting my Aeroplan balance as high as possible and buy the missig miles.

mia

Prior to transferring points I would investigate what fuel surcharges and other fees would apply to a redemption through Aeroplan (and also ANA), versus the cash price of the same tickets. When you buy an economy class ticket you are primarily paying for fuel, and you may find that the fuel surcharges will devour much of the savings versus an outright purchase.

Evelyn2109

Thank you for your good advice, mia. I will do as you have suggested.

Can I ask you a question, please? With Aeroplan miles, I gather it will cost me less in fuel charges and taxes to fly on a star-alliance airline rather than on an Air Canada plane? So when booking award travel, when I call the Aeroplan center, I can ask for a flight on one of their associated airlines that charge less in fuel and taxes? I should do my "homework" regarding flights available on these associated airlines and then call and that would work?

I would appreciate any general suggestions you may have.