Youngtraveldude

Looking to take a bigger trip in Feb/Mar with our family before our daughter turns 2 so we have one less ticket to buy. Yes, don't worry, I know we still have to pay some $$ for her and that it's often 10% of the fare, which if in business, can be a decent amount. Anyway, looking to mainly do the trip on miles & points as we have a healthy chunk of Skymiles & Chase points (and Hyatt points for lodging). I have been searching for flights for quite some time and have yet to find flights I get excited about. I'm trying to avoid flying Delta on the longhaul flights and instead fly on a Skyteam member. I think part of my problem is that there aren't too many Skyteam members to get excited about, compared to the other alliances, especially flying West to Asia/SE Asia. The best I've found so far are one-way from MEX (way more beginning in US) to various places in Asia/SE Asia for 90K skymiles (which is great) but on China Airlines. For whatever reason, I'm getting overly excited flying on China Airlines...is my perception wrong and in-fact China Airlines has a pretty solid hard and soft product?

Anyway, looking for any tips anyone may have. Live in Austin but happy to position (or have the return end) to Mexico, Caribbean, Central America etc. There are better options out of Europe but that's a bit too far of a positioning, especially with our 2 kids under 4. I have searched endlessly to find a KE 747-8 route but as you probably know, it's nearly impossible to find availability, let alone for more than 1 seat.

So, anyone have a good idea for a US (with positioning as an option to Mexico, Caribbean, Central America) to/from Asia/SE Asia one-way Skymiles redemption on an 'exciting' airline? I would be very happy to use our ~500K Skymiles on one-way to or from Asia/SE Asia and then maybe some intra-Asia since I've seen much better options intra-Asia. And then I'd plan to use Chase points (either booking biz with Chase points/$$ or transfer Chase points to a Chase airline partner) for the other long one-way.

Thanks in advance, y'all.

Adam1222

I think your best bet will be to narrow down dates and destinations, and see what's available. Theoretically, the parameters you've provided leave thousands of combinations. As for "exciting" airlines, I'm not sure what you mean. Depending where in Asia you're going, there are reward routings with legs on pretty much every partner- including routings via Europe. You could do, for example, JFK-CDG-HAN with the second leg on Vietnam Airlines. For planning purposes, though, youre going to have to decide whether novelty of an airline, costs, date, or destination are the most important option.

matchbox20_is

I don't have any clue what qualifies as NE/NW/SW/SE Asia, but I found TPAC to be incredibly difficult for reward redemptions last time I went. I used Amex to transfer 80k to Avianca for LAX-ICN-LAX in Y on Asiana. It was fine.

By the time you finish waiting 1:25 for the baggage to come out at ICN, you won't even care what cabin you were in.

Youngtraveldude

Thank you. Yes, fair feedback about trying to narrow in as there are too many options. We have narrowed in on likely spending the bulk of the time in Thailand or Bali likely with a 1-2 days in Hong Kong to take the kids to Disney there. That said, I'm just looking for good options to get/come back from the general Asia/SE Asia region. Once there, shorter connecting flights to our final destination are fine. When I say 'exciting,' I'm just looking to get good value out of the Skymiles and have a memorable and enjoyable experience at the airport and with the hard and soft product. We've been fortunate to have great redemptions on Cathay, Japan and Qatar, so unfortunately in this case, we've had a taste of some of the best which I realize will be hard to match in this case.

Adam1222

Good value is whatever is available the days you want to go. Don't focus on the airlines.

hockeystl

Trying to find (3) award seats using SM to SE Asia during peak season? And at a reasonable redemption value? Since DL no longer flies their metal to any SE Asia cities that means almost no chance of a last minute Flash Sale using SM either. So....good luck....

I'm going to BKK in January and had to redeem AA for CX F LAX-HKG-BKK then used AmEx MR for SQ J BKK-SIN-EWR. Not a single seat on ANY routing on ANY day in J at anything resembling fair value using DL SM's for the months of Jan/Feb/Mar '24 when I searched earlier this summer.

RealHJ

CI is one of the best in flight product and service in SkyTeam. Along with GA and VN, CI is one of the top 3 SkyTeam airlines for in-flight cabin, food and service quality in J.

CI flights are notoriously hard to get, and many routes are still cancelled and they are running at low capacity. If you can see any CI flight available (may need to look 331 days out), grab it ASAP. Chances are soon it'll be gone, never to be seen again.

alphaRobot

What we did is look for flights going to HND (Haneda) or ICN (Incheon) since these are the Delta hubs in the region. Then just get another flight from there to your final destination.
It made the flight search easier since the system doesn't have to look for connecting flights from the hubs to wherever you are going.

You can also look for flights going to Bali or Jakarta (Garuda airlines) since they are Skyteam partners.

Adam1222

One option is to look at separate flights from Europe as well. There's reasonably priced flights available on VN and AF to HAN and BKK, and AMS-CGK on Garuda

RealHJ

Either that, or from NRT/KIX/ICN. Those three airports are served by LCCs, so relatively easy and quick to go there (vs. the rather uncomfortable way to Europe, and the chaotic airports there), then can book onward flights.

Of course, doing either defeats the whole purpose of an FFP award ticket, which should get you from point A to point B (via up to 4 connecting flights on up to 4 different airlines, and possibly on a routing that you could never buy as a revenue fare). Thankfully DL isn't doing pricing by segment as BA and VS are doing, but it's coming soon (VS is using DL's reservation system and is doing segment-by-segment pricing; so everything is built and ready for that when DL is ready to take another plunge deeper and make SkyMiles even worse than it already is).

AfterHour

Delta award redemption is not based on segments, but, I believe, it's in accordance to the ticket cash price.

travelinmanS

Sometimes you can find a somewhat reasonable redemption on DL to HND or ICN in economy. If you want to go anywhere I�m biz it�s probably gonna be something like a million sky miles round trip.

erik123

DL awards on partners from Europe are also very good value - especially to the Middle East and South Asia.

FYI - I've done dozens of long hauls with an infant and I suggest prioritize the shortest possible routing - not exciting airlines.

RealHJ

Yes (though not always precisely consistently so), but thankfully not for for all routes. Avoid NA and EU and you can still find some last remaining decent values. .

Scudsone

FYI - I've done dozens of long hauls with an infant and I suggest prioritize the shortest possible routing - not exciting airlines.[/QUOTE]

I second this. We�ve flown to three continents with our almost 2 year old so far, 8 long-haul round trips. The flights themselves haven�t been so bad but connecting and waiting around in airports (even in lounges) is the killer. I�d try for non-stops as much as possible.