help needed with creative use of miles....
 

i thought this might be a fun exercise to see how creative we can get....

so here is my dilemma....my whole family is heading over to the US next year (april-may) for my cousin's wedding & i have been conned by my siblings to pay for their tickets from delhi to new york....:p

instead of spending around inr 300k for 2 business class tickets, i thought about using some of my miles & upgrade vouchers to save some money....they are young & adventurous so they don't care which route they fly & how many connections they have to take as long as they can fly in comfort....:D

i'm not willing to spend all my miles & vouchers on this trip so lets say i would be willing to fork out up to 20 jet upgrade vouchers, 100k jet miles & 200k kingfisher miles....

we all know how difficult it is to get a single redemption or upgraded ticket on jet for this route so while the simplest route would be del-bru-jfk/ewr on jet, it will also be most difficult to get....redemption tickets out of lhr are expensive so that is another route i would prefer to avoid....

the cheapest (creative route) i can come up with is:

del-mxp-del on jet (one upgraded ticket & one on miles which would cost a total of inr 65k, 6 vouchers & 108 miles)....
mxp-cdg-mxp on easy jet (2 return tickets should come to around inr 10k)....
cdg-jfk-cdg on air france (using kingfisher miles which would come to about inr 36k & 200k miles)....

bringing the route to del-mxp-cdg-jfk-cdg-mxp-del & the grand total to around inr 110k, 6 upgrade vouchers, 200k it miles & 108k 9w miles....

any suggestions welcome....:)

What about DEL-LHR-DEL on IT - I find buying cheapest fare and upgrading better use of IT miles than full redemption
(You would spend 45k on a low ECO fare VS almost 30k in taxes and earn / pooled under family scheme - about 10k miles). Total round trip redemption would be 108k IT miles, 90K cost.
You could then go with a 9W/SN combo ticket - fare by 9W ex LHR for approx 44k inr each and upgrade the BRU-EWR-BRU using 12 vouchers or 100k miles.

cost would be 180k inr, 90k it miles, 12 9w vouchers - plus you'd earn back about 16k miles on each ticket.

You could also look at an IT Y fare to BRU - your ECO fare would work out to 55k (110k total 2 tickets) + same miles to upgrade. And then do a full redemption on BRU-NYC-BRU on 9W for 160k miles.

Not saving much on cost but you'd be earning miles by using upgrades rather than flat redemptions. With YQ's the way they are today, I personally prefer doing upgrades (Especially with IT where the upgrade cost is basically the difference of miles (56k biz redemption - 26kbiz redemption), unlike 9W which makes upgrading with miles a silly option.

thanks for the suggestions avm2806....a couple of problems though....

can you upgrade a cheap economy ticket on kingfisher????i know you have to buy a ticket in 's' class in order to use vouchers....isn't it the same with miles????

i was initially looking at upgrading bru-nyc-bru but the problem here is that there is no guarantee it will get done....as of now the upgrade is not available & jet is very likely to waitlist it till the very end, at which point it may or may not clear....i am pretty confident of one going through but two will be tough....

I think you can upgrade any Y fare into J on Kingfisher. My uncle recently upgraded himself using vouchers and my aunt using miles.

Both tickets were purchases from Southall Travel = Cheapest consolidator ticket.

that only works if you have plat status....otherwise you can to buy a ticket in 's' class or above in order to upgrade using vouchers....not sure about miles....

from the king club site regarding upgrade vouchers:

Exactly - those are the "new" Kingfisher upgrade rules - put into play about 1.5 to 2 years ago...previously there was no class requirement, other than a paid economy fare.

Maybe mileage upgrades are different??

i hope so too....

It makes sense now. My uncle was given comp plat status and upgraded using vouchers. My aunt on the otherhand is a nobody status wise and used the miles for upgrade. Again both tickets were southall travel and were the cheapest going.

I have a gut feeling that any Y fate can be upgraded through miles. Hope that helps you with your family obligations.

come on guys....any more suggestions????

Keyser, there's not much more we can add since you are the expert, not us (at least not me). Anyway, here's my 2 cents: Follow your plan from DEL-MXP. Then use 9W miles on AZ for MXP-FCO-JFK/EWR. Or use IT miles for MXP-JFK on DL or MXP-CDG/AMS/HEL-JFK on AF/KL/AY. I'm not sure about the costs, but should be similar to what you suggested. Also, I hear that Europe-US award availability is generally pretty good on Skyteam carriers.

that's a good idea....hadn't thought of that....i guess the cost should be the same as on air france & i wouldn't have to fork out extra for the mxp-cdg-mxp tickets on easy jet....

Besides the options of connecting at LHR, MXP & BRU from DEL, you also have an option to fly Finnair DEL-HEL-JFK on your KFA partner redemption.

Also, the HEL-JFK segment can be taken 'one-hop' by using partner redemption on 9W/AF/KL/BA/BD/OS/VS/LX/SN et.al. or a combination of those.

Messy... it's too bad SEAsia-NA is so expensive with 9W and IT miles. 260K vs 100K AA/UA for r/t J award.

Are you avoiding LHR? You could also try BA MXP-LHR-NYC using IT miles.

i inquired about that....the tax element is too high....a cdg-jfk-cdg segment on af will cost about inr 18k return in taxes & fees....mxp-lhr-nyc on ba is coming to inr 21k one way....