Getting to Sri Lanka
 

I'm trying to find the cheapest fare to CMB where I get elite qualifying miles on Alaska or Star Alliance. I got a rate on Cathay for 1280 and i'll get miles on Alaska, but they aren't elite qualifying. I have been playing around with the idea of taking Asiana to Bangkok (960) and catching a connection, but the roundtrips from BKK start at 526, which brings me up to almost 1500.

Any ideas? maybe th bets thing to do is find the cheapest city pair to CMB. any thoughts on what that might be?

I think your question might belong in some other forum, but...

I think you might want to look at
the destinations server by Srilankan. You might be able to
book on it via Emirates.

Another possibility is UA or LH to Delhi and Srilankan to Columbo.

Did UA re-start their flight to DEL that was discontinued in 2001? I do know for sure that DEL is served by several Star carriers including LH and Austrian.

We need more information in order to be helpful.

1. What is your starting city?
2. On what program do you want to earn miles?

If you are starting from North America and you want miles on * Alliance, you can fly to SIN. Then get an award ticket (or buy a ticket) to CMB for 20K RT in coach. You can then begin your trip from there.

But I am confused by the request being in the India forum, and wondering how that plays a part.

UA does not currently fly it's own planes to DEL. Talk about UA code-sharing, and more, do pop up from time to time; however, UA has not restarted regular service since it discontinued scheduled service shortly after 9/11/01. (9/18/01, UA was flying DEL-LHR.)

Sri Lanka is part of the Indian sub-continent; and historically and culturally is well-tied with India.

My apologies. Starting city is Seattle. I am Premier Exec on United and Gold on Alaska. I'm traveling in September. I'm putting this in the India forum as Sri lanka is off the coast of india and considered in the Indian sub-continent by Alaska Air, and therefore requires 100k miles per person, even though Cathay lists Sri lanka as SE Asia.

the buying a ticket for 20 miles from singapore sounds interesting. I might try and do that.

--tim

If you fly into India, you can book a Sri Lanka Airlines flight using Emirates FFP for only 10K miles. You can transfer SPG points into EK Miles.