Lufthansa and United both offer FRA-IAD service; transferring UR points to United (whose miles can also be used to book Lufthansa flights) will likely be your best bet. Check availability at United.com before transferring points though; transfer is instant and you can do so during the booking process if you find flights you want. Economy flights are 30k UR points/United miles each way.

Also - if looking to make the same trip with AmEx MR points - you can transfer to ANA and book a roundtrip on United for 55k miles/AmEx MR points. ANA passes along Lufthansa's fuel surcharges, which United does not. So if you want to book a flight on LH metal, I'd recommend you use United/UR points; if on United metal (and assuming you have roughly equal MR/UR points), use ANA/AmEx points.

Hi all,

I am based out of Hawaii, and need to get to Europe in C/J... Any pointers as to the best transfer partner to shoot miles to?

I've previously used AA miles and got some *great* awards, especially with the 10% mile-back promo with having an AA card. (Circa 50k each way, after the miles back!)

Sapphire Preferred card holder here.. Tips appreciated.

Thanks!

HNL-mainland is the hard part. From there, cheapest option would be DL, AF, or KL with KE miles (80K roundtrip), but getting the mainland leg will be tricky unless you just bite the bullet and buy it, and KE has a reputation for being a bit challenging to deal with by phone. Beyond that, lots of options through UA, BA (with fuel surcharges), and now AF/KLM.

I haven't seen any recent reports of UA bookings via Asia, but if they'll still do it, you'll find wide-open availability to ICN on OZ and multiple options from there, plus spottier availability HNL-TYO and onward. It's a little farther that way, and definitely not bookable online, but you'd be doing the community a service if you'd test whether UA will let you book those routings and report back! 70K for one-stop service to most of Europe would be pretty sweet if it works.

Thanks - I will look into the Westbound option. I am based in KOA, not HNL, if that makes a huge difference.. I guess I may have to get myself to HNL

Do you have a link or some reference point for actual redemption process on partners with KE miles?

Not off the top of my head, but Googling should turn you up some blog posts. You can only redeem for yourself and family members you've registered on KE's website (which requires copies of marriage license for spouse & birth certificate for kids, but otherwise straightforward), and you can only redeem for KE flights online. Redeeming partner awards requires calling and apparently more forms, but I haven't had occasion to do that yet -- I just put the infrastructure in place for when it becomes useful.

I did google that a few months ago and I am yet to read about actual partner redemptions - only speculations on how in theory it can be done...

It also seems that KE awards are almost impossible to book - or can I finally do this online?

For example, I can search a HNL-ICN, and ICN-LHR awards separately and both are available, but when I try to combine them, it finds nothing online..

Last time I played with KE, tickets on their own metal were bookable online, but trying to book HI-Europe priced as two awards. I'm pretty sure you have to call for Skyteam awards, but I don't know whether you can get them to price a HI-Europe award via ICN at the 80K level. I have seen reports elsewhere of patience being rewarded on KE telephone bookings, but no reports either way on that specific award.

Hi Everybody,

So apologies in advance if this feels redundant or newbish to anyone but I find it sometimes most effective to utilize forums to explain personal circumstance as opposed to getting bogged down in research, which I tend to do.

So! Here's my background:

- I'm going to Europe for a month in November.
- I've been saving my Chase Sapphire points just for this and I have around $1,100 worth of a balance.
- I'd like to deploy them as best as I can.
- WOW has some seriously cheap flights which I could pay out of pocket for.
- Basically just need 3 flights: 1 out to Amsterdam, 1 Mainland flight intra-trip (TBD), and one return flight home from Barcelona.

I know when booking via the chase portal and also exploring options outside of WOW, it'll be more expensive and draining to my points, but having said that, I'd obviously like to utilize these points and not have to pay out of pocket for a flight. I get what comes with WOW (expectations, bags, upsells, delays etc...) so no need to go into that.

Let's just say you were in my shoes.. how's the best way to go about maximizing points here? - Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks so much in advance for any time.

Welcome to Flyertalk, riggyk
I am moving this thread over to our Forum dedicated to Credit Cards.
Please follow there.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

For the flight home, your best bet is likely transferring the points to United. Barcelona to mainland US is 30,000 points ($300 worth using your language). You likely can't find better out of pocket rates.

When redeemed for travel points are worth $0.0125 each. Do you have 88,000 points or do you have 110,000?

Apologies.. so about 88,000 and 5,000 to hit next run.

Also I'm showing United (One Way) from Barcelona to San Fran as starting at $3,000......