JerLon

I have recently been bitten by the reward miles bug and am trying to get the hand of everything.

In short, my wife and I would like to find a reasonable way to get to Australia and New Zealand (maybe with a stop in Hawaii on the way home) in July of 2014 (the dates may be flexible if it makes a major difference and we could likely go in May/June).

We would like to fly first class if there is a way to make this happen at a reasonable price.

I just signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and have plans at working signing up for this card and the bold card for my wife and I. Additionally there is the Chase BA Visa card with a 50,000 per card bonus. If my math is correct, these cards would add up to a total of 380,000 miles (280k ultimate rewards, 100k ba miles).

I think this gets me my trip and back but not first class (not counting points from expenditures which I would guess will be around 50k-75k).

Is there a better way to get us to Australia/NZ/Hawaii?

I appreciate all of your advice.

FlyingDoctorwu

If you go the Chase+BA route, your options for getting to Australia look like this..... Remember Avios is a per flight redemption program

1) All on BA- JFK-LHR-SIN-SYD. If you can find the award availability then this is an option.. when combined with a 2 for 1 voucher, it can be done roundtrip for 420K avios + fees which can be quite substantial (think ~3-4K for two people)

Alternatively their partner options look like this
1) QANTAS- from the west coast to SYD 300K roundtrip each....
2) Cathay Pacific, via HKG. Also from the west coast. 360K roundtrip each...

Ouch.. Avios are pretty much worthless to get to Australia...

Another option is to go the United route... Granted United isn't as sexy an airline as some of the foreign ones but bringing Star Alliance into the picture makes it a little more palatable.. unfortunately, I think that United greatly prefers that you route to Australia via their own metal.. nonetheless, their own metal is 160K each roundtrip for First.. I think that United has a 30K signup bonus right now...

I would check over in the United forum for other routing options to down under...

One of the best options to Australia, though, is USAirways for Star Alliance awards.. often they have the option to route via North Asia (Asiana), or Europe/South Asia (think Thai) for only 140K miles each... I think that the Barclay card has a 40K bonus that comes and goes... plus, USAirways frequently sells miles for cheap so that your First class ticket to Australia will cost you around 2K... check out the following thread...

FDW

nas6034

What you can do is use an award booking on United from US-Seoul-Sydney-US. Use Avios to go roundtrip between AU and NZ.

fredchopin

Hello FT,

This is my very first post here on FT. Thank you all for the help you have indirectly given me here, and elsewhere on the forum.

I have a question for you all: My wife and I need to fly to Melbourne, Australia next year in March 2014, from the US. I have a Chase UR balance of ~220k points. These are all hard-earned points, from simply having used Freedom solely for everything over the past seven years. (I know... I just recently got into the miles and points game...)

My question is, what would be your best idea to redeem these points for a luxury RT flight from US to MEL?

A bit more context:

1. Redeeming for flights only - we already have accommodation
2. I wouldn't mind paying a little fuel surcharge if the J/F product is worth it
3. I wouldn't mind paying to fly the first US domestic leg to a suitable location like LAX or SFO.
4. It took me over seven years to save up these 220k points... I'd rather not spend it all at once, but will if I have to. I'd like to make the best possible use of it if I can.

Thanks a lot!

P.S.: The best option I could find is to use British Airways to redeem Qantas from LAX - MEL. I figured that there had to be a better way.

fl9999

If you use British Airways, then you would be paying alot of fuel charges around $429 plus more miles.

I checked British Airways miles for your destination:
Economy: 50,000 Avios
Business: 1,00,000 Avios
First: 1,50,000 Avios

Above miles are requirement for 1 person ( One Way Only ).

But if you go with United Airlines:
Economy: 40,000 United Miles
Business: 67,000 United Miles
First: 80,000 United Miles

Plus taxes are just $20.

So it is better deal with United.

LAX88

You should also look at using Virgin Atlantic to redeem on Virgin Australia. There would be fuel surcharges of around $500 each way, but there is actually availability. Good luck finding Qantas or United availability to Australia! As for spending them all at once, to fly J/F you'll certainly have to. But what good are they sitting in your account? Use them. 15 hours is too long for coach.

Note, also, that Freedom points do not transfer to airlines. For that you need CSP or JPM-branded cards.

nall

Qantas is a nicer airline than United, but there's going to less inventory available, especially since you're doing a partner redemption.

But if you can find the seats, have a blast!

dgwright99

I booked Virgin Australia via VS and taxes/fees were minimal. 93k VS miles for 1-way biz award. 80k UA miles for F coming back.

Overall, UA is a better deal, but take what availability you can get on these routes....

dukerau

BA is going to have high taxes and fees, and I believe it will be 100K per person each way for biz, which means you are far short. United will be your best option, but for biz for 2 RT it will be 270K. So you will either need to get another 50K or settle for economy one way. Keep in mind that if you can get to Sydney, it's only 4500 BA Avios for a one-way in economy from Sydney to Melbourne or vice-versa, so I would recommend you searching for getting to Sydney or Melbourne.

eltex

Well, if you want a 'luxury' product like you stated, you better get some more miles. You and the wife can both apply for a CSP card, which would net you 90-100K more miles. To get the luxury product roundtrip for 2 peeps, you will likely need to blow the full 300K miles. Scary huh. Also, you are pushing the time limits for travel this coming spring. I wish you luck, but at this point, you might end up being stuck in coach.

And you still have to figure out how to xfer your points out of Chase, since you don't have a premier card.

fredchopin

Thank you all for the great responses!

I actually do have CSP, so transferring UR points into whatever few airlines Chase allows is not a problem. I'll start looking into VS / UA, while trying to up my game...

electricarod

Hi,

I am new to the points game and have been racking up UR points with sapphire preferred and Ink. I am planning on moving to Australia in September on a working holiday visa and need a one-way ticket. What is the best airline to transfer my UR points to get there? (by best I mean cheapest and realistic to book this type of reward flight). I will have a little over 100k ultimate rewards points by next month.

I am only concerned about getting there as cheap as possible or on the best value so Im flexible. I live in phoenix so found flying PHX to LAX to Brisbane or Sydney to be the best/cheapest bets. Just used google flights and found one ways from PHX to LAX (US Airways) and to Nandi, Fiji to Brisbane for $703 via Fiji Airways.

I wouldn't mind paying $100 or so more to use a different airline that I can book with my ultimate rewards points (if it's a better value, otherwise why wouldn't I just get cash from chase rewards?)

Or, if anyone has any ideas of other credit cards I should sign up for to get a cheap (or almost free) flight to Aus that'd be greatly appreciated! Just trying to maximize my points so that I can travel more places after my working holiday visa is up. But I am on info overload after browsing tons of travel hacking and airline sites and can't decide my best course of action.

Racking up the points seems a lot easier than figuring out how I can maximize them

Any help in the right direction is appreciated!

skibum7732

UA has decent availability for 40k in coach+$25-40 taxes/fees.

patrick.barnes

Australia is a big country, and it depends where exactly you're going.

That said, you can transfer to UA or use Chase's travel agency to get 1.2c/point. You should be able to book any itinerary through that.

Mwenenzi

electricarod Welcome to FT

Award flights to Australia can be hard to get, but a little easier in economy. Look here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...lia-miles.html

Best to check very carefully if Australian immigration will let you in on a one way ticket. Will depend on the exact visa you hope to get.