Amex points for first class trip to zurich
Jun 4, 2006, 4:45 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 23
Amex points for first class trip to zurich
My father (who is here visiting) is interested in using some of his Amex membership rewards points to get first class tickets to Zurich. amex wants over a million points to get the tickets for him. Any suggestions on which airline program he should transfer to for a comfortable first class trip?
Jun 4, 2006, 4:58 pm
#2
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Arizona
Posts: 5,690
Biz elite for Delta
If your father can put up with worn out business cabins and cabin attendants that are beyond rude (not all but a lot) I would suggest Delta. Odd are in your favor that there are NO Sky Saver seats in business but you can "bust the rules" or use "Sky Choice" which means you can book any seat Delta have for sale with no capacity controls for 250,000 miles. Last year you could do this for 180,000 miles but thanks to amex lending delta a huge amount of money and getting a crazy amount of miles for this deal you now have amex giving away more miles and other factors at work that make the cost of ticket using rewards go up
Jun 4, 2006, 6:59 pm
#3
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: CT/ Germany - Ich spreche deutsch
Programs: UA 1K, Bonvoy LTTE, HH Dia, HY Expl
Posts: 4,657
IMHO I would say a AMEX MR transfer to either ANA or Air Canada would work best. You could then claim a Star Alliance First award on any Star Partner including LH and Swiss which offer very good FC products. Without more information on your fathers airport you probably will only get general recommendations like this. For more detailed recommendations I would post more details on where he wants to travel from and if he is looking for direct or connecting flights.
Jun 4, 2006, 8:57 pm
#4
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Portland, OR
Programs: DL MM Plat, PC&HH Gold
Posts: 2,602
Another options is to transfer points to continental. Then you can fly on CO business first, Air France business or first, DL/KLM/NW business.
Reward Type Class Miles
Standard Roundtrip Economy Class 50,000
Standard Roundtrip Business Class 80,000
Standard Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Economy Class 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Business Class 160,000
EasyPass Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 250,000
He may be able to fly in first for only 200,000 pts for 2 seats or worst case 500,000 pts.
Reward Type Class Miles
Standard Roundtrip Economy Class 50,000
Standard Roundtrip Business Class 80,000
Standard Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Economy Class 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Business Class 160,000
EasyPass Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 250,000
He may be able to fly in first for only 200,000 pts for 2 seats or worst case 500,000 pts.
Jun 5, 2006, 11:17 am
#5
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Orlando, FL, USA
Posts: 2,398
Originally Posted by doglover
Another options is to transfer points to continental. Then you can fly on CO business first, Air France business or first, DL/KLM/NW business.
Reward Type Class Miles
Standard Roundtrip Economy Class 50,000
Standard Roundtrip Business Class 80,000
Standard Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Economy Class 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Business Class 160,000
EasyPass Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 250,000
He may be able to fly in first for only 200,000 pts for 2 seats or worst case 500,000 pts.
Reward Type Class Miles
Standard Roundtrip Economy Class 50,000
Standard Roundtrip Business Class 80,000
Standard Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Economy Class 100,000
EasyPass Roundtrip Business Class 160,000
EasyPass Roundtrip First Class/BusinessFirst 250,000
He may be able to fly in first for only 200,000 pts for 2 seats or worst case 500,000 pts.
Is it still the case that you can get an AF F ticket by using 100K CO miles? I know you can no longer do that on DL and I assumed this would be true for all the Skyteam airline points except AF. Good news if you can still use CO miles.
Jun 5, 2006, 11:19 am
#6
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
Figure out which carrier has seats first. All of the options listed above will be fine from a comfort factor. Depending on where he is starting from the options may lean more one way than another in terms of convenience and flexibility. So call the airline of choice and figure out who has availability. Have them hold the ticket and then transfer the miles. That way there is no risk to the miles.
Depending on how many miles he is willing to part with you may end up at the rule-buster award prices, but it is still better than paying $$.
Depending on how many miles he is willing to part with you may end up at the rule-buster award prices, but it is still better than paying $$.
Jun 11, 2006, 11:43 am
#8
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: IAD/DCA
Posts: 31,797
I would definitely say transfer to Aeroplan to use for Swiss.
It ranked #7 (after 6 Asian airlines) in the top 10 First Class.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/trav...17feat_ls.html
100K Aeroplan Miles per First Class ticket. (USA > EU)
DC = He's in DC?
In that case, either LH IAD > ZUR (through Germany I believe) or fly up to JFK first (25K per economy ticket) and then do Swiss JFK > ZUR.
LH ranked 8 right after Swiss, so if you are in DC, I'd go with that.
It ranked #7 (after 6 Asian airlines) in the top 10 First Class.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/trav...17feat_ls.html
100K Aeroplan Miles per First Class ticket. (USA > EU)
DC = He's in DC?
In that case, either LH IAD > ZUR (through Germany I believe) or fly up to JFK first (25K per economy ticket) and then do Swiss JFK > ZUR.
LH ranked 8 right after Swiss, so if you are in DC, I'd go with that.
Last edited by Kagehitokiri; Jun 11, 2006 at 11:50 am