pekkle

Hi all!

I have over 320,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points and am trying to figure out logistics to get my family to Taiwan in September. The issues:

a) Passengers:

4 adults, one of whom is my 93-year-old grandmother
1 18-month old (will be 18-months-old) then

b) Departing cities: LAX (grandma / another adult), SFO (the rest of us)

c) Prefer Asian airlines

d) Ideally I'd get 2 business class roundtrip tickets - one for my grandmother, who hasn't flown on a plane in over a decade, and another adult to accompany her.

The rest of us will be in Economy class.

Hopefully my points will cover the entire ticket cost.

My questions:

a) Is it better to figure out the airline first, then transfer the points, then use them to purchase the tickets, or

b) To attempt to do everything through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal?

c) Some combination of the above?

Is this even feasible?



Thanks!!

Mwenenzi

How many freq flyer miles do you have with United MileagePlus, KrisFlyer & VirginAmerica?

Credit card transfer links
Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Programs forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l-program.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...tc-2017-a.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...mes-rules.html Old closed thread

Freq Flyer Award assistance tools
Use at your own risk. (These are not recommendations)
These links give a guide of ff miles needed. These may not be up to date.
Availability is from the airline ffp web sites/phone.
Award flights are never guaranteed. You need to be flexible with date and route.
Frequent flyer miles/points are not equal to or burn. They are not 1 to 1
If a multi segment award check the rules/cost carefully. With some ffp’s it can be 2 or more awards or cost more ff miles/points than a direct flight.
If the award is on partner airline it may cost more miles/points than an award on the ffp airline.
Some awards/airlines/routes can have cash surcharges, in addition to real taxes.
Real taxes/regulatory fees are the same for all airlines on the same route/class.
Some carrier imposed surcharges can trigger additional real taxes when the flight changes from non-revenue to revenue.
-AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds --> http://www.awardace.com/ Has surcharge indication
-Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> http://www.flyermiler.com/
-http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ast-miles.html --> http://www.awardhacker.com/

Consider these http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html

aircam

Transfer to UA and redeem on BR. You would need 160K for each RT award ticket in Business.

Yoshi212

Check for availability first.

jbeans

Best case scenario (and best value for your points) if you can find 2 RT award tickets in business, which would cost your entire point balance. And then just find cheap coach tickets to buy with cash.

LondonElite

This is probably the best advice. The group flying economy may even be on a different flight.

pekkle

Thank you for the advice!

s0ssos

A few things to note: OZ has quite good availability.
SFO is much harder to find award tickets from vs LA.

If you just wanted to fly biz, at least in the past, if there isn't availability on NH/BR/OZ then CA usually has good availability. Just not as nice. And UA you can try the miles and upgrade route, if you really wanted business (not as good as the others though).

pekkle

Thanks all! As a follow-up I was able to transfer most of my points (due to a restriction in having to transfer in lots of 1,000 pts at a time) to KrisFlyer, and pay $40 SGD / 1,000 KrisFlyer miles to get 2x EVA Air business class seats LAX <-> TPE (175,000 KrisFlyer miles per round trip ticket). I'd transferred 332,000 points over so had to make up 18,000 miles.

At the time I called, the SQ non-stop flights required a total of 462,000 KrisFlyer miles for the SaverAward availability(!!).

So in essence, for the cost of an economy class ticket (or a little more) + fees I got 2 x business class seats for my grandma and another adult. I doubt this is the best best deal, but it works for me!


Thanks again!!

travelbugging

The best deal is whatever you make of it and honestly this post warmed my heart and I think it's priceless. Very kind of you to get business tix for your grandma and the adult accompanying her! I hope you and your family have a great time in Taiwan!

garykung

Can someone do a fact check for me in case I am missing something?

Whose stupid idea is that when UA charge the same ticket for 160K, OP chose an airline that requires more miles?

Am I missing anything?

ponickka

+1 on this thought!

BuBu4

Not exactly UR but i just bought Elite class for $1070 with EVA. $700 using UR for economy, for $300 more u can get elite. earn 3k points with CSR.

leave from LAX.

pekkle

Ah doh! That was my own fault ... I think the first few posts suggested UA which I'd missed.

(I was hoping for an SQ flight so called SQ customer service and didn't realize the difference in mileage cost between SQ and UA partner award mileage requirements ... =( . ).

I could have had miles leftover. Oh well.

Clayfu

don't forget, your 18 month old will be charged a hefty fee on Eva so book it under your economy flight tickets. I think 50% of the cost of the ticket for a lap baby.