MaxVO

If/when the website works, and provides quotes for the surcharges, that should give us enough specifics to compare the ANA route to avios. It appears they're both not trivial to figure out, but might have different sweet spots.

theplayer

love the Boston to Dublin round trip for 25K avios on Aer Lingus...Use Dublin as your gateway to other European destinations.
Edit-looks like they devalued, off peak 26K miles now, but old price didn't have a peak and off peak.

edcli

Cathay Pacific.

Maldives is beautiful but not sure about now.
Would suggest going to Bora Bora (via Air France) instead and it's not to far from West Coast.

TravelStar

How can you use Avios for Air France awards?

mia

You cannot, but you can transfer Membership Rewards to FlyingBlue.

slm9555

I would go on this trip sometime between December 17 and February 18. In regards to not beautiful right now are you referring to the weather or something else?

Do you suggest Bora Bora over Maldives in general or just for certain dates?

edcli

I know I'm going to get flak regarding this but here is my take.

I did consider the Maldives for a family vaca last yr. I went there during my honeymoon (over 10 yrs ago) and had a great time. I wanted to share the experience with my kids.

After doing some research, I changed my mind. Maldives is a Muslim country and some citizens have gone to join ISIS. I'm not saying a Maldivian is more likely to be a terrorist. However I will say tourist in the Maldives is a very soft target. All the resorts are on their own islands with a ton of Westerners. If there were a terrorist attack, there will not be a quick response time.

Bora Bora is just as beautiful. Although I will give that the Maldives may be a bit more romantic b/c it is more secluded. That's my 2 cents.

TravelStar

In my experience, Round-trip from LAX to PPT Tahiti using Flying Blue points are very hard to come by. Especially in Premium Economy or Business.
Although they charge a lot of points, Etihad has tons of availability from the west coast to Maldives (one stop in Abu Dhabi) and is a Membership Rewards partner.
Also, you could get to Maldives using Avios from LAX to Doha (and on to MLE) on Qatar.
For both Etihad and Qatar, you might find better award availability if you search awards in two segments.

jaymar01

While nobody can predict weather for a one or two week holiday...in general during the months of December, January and February.....statistically you're more inclined to get dry/sunny weather in the Maldives, and wet/overcast weather in Bora Bora.

bajrbajr

Are you sure the Aer Lingus BOS-DUB o/w @12.5k Avios is still available?
I think the raised it to 20k Avios o/w.

Also, it seems the Air Berlin routes are gone from BA and Avios redemption...
The JFK-DUS route was a bargain at 20k o/w and no fuel surcharges.

Aholton

i am trying to book a flight from Boston to Tokyo on JAL. I was going to transfer Amex miles to BA or Asia Miles. AM is better redemption rate,even with Avios Amex promotion it seems but given uncertainty of how long it takes to transfer was thinking of going with a transfer to Avios.

any thoughts?

guv1976

What class of service? How many MR points are needed in each program, and is there any difference in the cash component that each program charges?

Aholton

Business class.

Avios wants 220,000 Avios points for a round trip Boston-Tokyo flight whereas AsiaMiles wants 120,000 AsiaMiles for the same thing. Takes are slightly higher on avios

guv1976

For what it's worth, if you were willing to connect -- or stop over -- in ORD or NYC in one direction, you could bring the number of Avios required for the trip down to just 180,000 BA Avios (129,000 MR points) by utilizing BA's multi-partner redemption chart:

http://www.headforpoints.com/2016/03...s-redemptions/

MaxVO

Good option to keep in mind, thanks!