andreycpp

Hello Flyers!

I have around 140K MRs that I would like to deposit to one or another mileage programs so I could redeem them for an economy round-trip from USA/California to Russia for 3 people.

What would be the best FFP to use?

So far I've looked at:
1. British Airways: with current 40% promo that would give me ~200 avios. From their charts it looks like SFO->DME one-way is 35K + they allow to use smaller miles amounts + dollars, so looks like I could use this for 3 people round-trip.
Charts: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...r/public/en_gb

2. ANA - their current charts are based on distance. The SFO->DME flight with one stop is usually slightly more than 7K miles, so if I understand correctly I fall under 7,001-9,000 which is 43K miles per person one way. Does not look good to me. Link: http://www.ana.co.jp/wws/us/e/asw_co...ikeiair_1.html

However their new charts for 2015 are based on zones and show 45K miles. People are saying this is round-trip: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/all-n...12-2015-a.html

3. Aeroplan - the charts show USA -> Europe 2 at 75K. Not sure I can use smaller amounts of miles + dollars like on British Airways.
Link: https://www3.aeroplan.com/FlightRewardChart.do

So what would be the best option?

Also, could you guys suggest which of these 3 have better reward ticket availability for economy seats?

Thanks!

guear

I would suggest to pay the flight out of pocket. A quick search shows round trip cost $900/person in January while using BA cost 70k point and $700. I believe the other 2 programs you mentioned have high surcharge fee as well. You can plug in your trip to the respective program website to find out their surcharge fee.

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk. The BA tool that you used is misleading, because it appears that there would be no money required if redeeming 35,000 points, but the tool does not pickup fuel surcharges and taxes which apply in addition to the points. (The money amounts shown on the other rows are optional additional amounts if you choose to reduce the number of points redeemed. The fees and taxes apply to all rows.)

azepine00

To minimize pain and suffering i would look at lax-svo on su and book those through dl.
i think yq etc should be pretty minimal but you will need to add a few miles.

If you go avios route check lax-dus-mow on ab - those also have minimal or no yq.

Where in russia btw - that country is kinda big and getting bigger...

andreycpp

Thanks guys for the info!

The flight is to Moscow and around Jul/Aug 2015.

Regarding BA - does it mean BA is a bad redemption for TATL flights in general if it adds such huge surcharges/fees?

Regarding DL and lax-svo su - I could not find this flight when booking using miles.

In the past I used to fly this route on United/Lufthansa. Seems like I could book on these through aeroplan/ana. Somewhere on this forums I saw people claiming aeroplan/ana have no surcharges for United. Can you guys comment on this? Also, does anyone know for sure whether new ana award travel table is round-trip or one-way?

Thanks!

azepine00

You can call dl to ask (no online), get af flying blue account or check expertflyer for seats.. usually early enough award space exists

If u post dates i can look up in expertflyer