Piecing Together a South Asia Trip
 

I am trying to plan a trip to India in early 2014. Here are the absolute minimum requirements of the trip:

--must go from NYC to BOM or BLR, in business class or above.
--need three tickets

Here are the "would be nice" parts:

--would love to fly F instead of J
--would be nice to have a stopover somewhere (ideally somewhere in Europe that's not Zurich, London, or Paris)
--adding a "free oneway" on the trip would be nice

I am willing to pay for part(s) of the trip if it makes sense. More on that below.

My initial thought was as follows:
JFK-HKG-BLR in CX F using AA miles (willing to book 2 F and 1 J)
BLR-XXX in Y using cash
XXX-JFK in F on a paid ticket (if you know what I am referring to you know why I've X'd it out).

My thinking was that the last F leg is a very good deal and I'm willing to pay cash for it, and I can earn a bunch of EQMs in the process.

The problem is that AA doesn't permit routing via the Pacific to India. I toyed with the idea of an explorer award but I'm not sure that makes a whole lot of sense -- JFK-HKG-BLR would be kind of crazy expensive (like 100k miles in J or something, as opposed to 90k in F if AA would permit TPAC routing).

So my new idea is to do the same initial routing, but use Avios for HKG-BLR. But I wonder if I could do better.

One option: instead of XXX-JFK, fly BLR-JFK(stop)-(wherever) using AA miles and the North American gateway stopover option.

Another option: just fly back from BLR in J using UA miles -- much simpler, and perhaps stopover in Europe using OS or LH -- but could I get 3 on one flight?

Any thoughts on the best way to do this?

I have about 300k DL, 50k UA, 400k AA, 200k BA, 250-300k Chase UR, and 200-250k Amex MR, so I think I can make this work on most airlines/alliances

Thanks in advance!

Piecing Together a South Asia Trip
 

Using AA miles you can also consider BA via LHR or EY via AUH. I am not sure on availability on F for these carriers though.

The problem with BA are the high fees flying through LHR. I suppose EY is an option though I think I've have to call AA to book it. I guess then I'd be looking at:

67.5 NYC-HKG CX F
12.5 HKG-BLR CX (KA) Y
90k BLR-NYC BA/EY F

So 170k r/t to India in F, which I guess isn't terrible overall. I may actually be a little short on AA miles but I can probably work that out. It's really the fuel surcharges that get me on the BLR-NYC leg...

It is 22.5K AA miles for HKG-BLR in Y on CX (KA).

I just booked DEL-HKG-LAX(stop)-xxx-ATL with AA miles + Avios for the DEL-HKG part in CX J ... just be aware of YQ on the BA Avios redemption on CX.

Also, don't forget to add a free one-way to the end of BLR-NYC if it ends in JFK!

Ugh, yeah, I realized after the initial post about the YQ on the CX segment.

If I were to fly HKG-LAX(stop)-NYC I would be limited by MPM on HKG-JFK, right? In fact, I guess I could go HKG-JFK(stop)-LAX, assuming I was under the MPM?

Between the two of us my wife and I have 450k AA miles. So 67.5kx3 = 202.5k will get us JFK-HKG. I guess the same number would get us back from BLR in J on EY -- say, BLR-AUH-JFK(stop)-XXX(free oneway). It would really burn up our AA stash but I guess that's one option.

Too bad AA got rid of DEL-ORD because it looks like I could hit EXP this year and I could have used SWUs to upgrade :(

You should not be limited by MPM. You could very well do CMB-SIN-HKG-LAX/SFO(stop)-NYC for 67.5k in F. That way you need to purchase BLR-CMB (should be cheaper?). Or possibly vist MLE if that's something on your radar.:). Note the CMB-SIN would be in J or you could get the entire above route in J for 55k

I can't help you with DL miles, I don't do anything with that program.

I am, however, reasonably well versed with both AA and UA.

My first thought is that I think you will have a hard time having your cake and eating it too. Trying to get F AND the stopover might be hard.

Using AA miles:

You can't get a European stopover on a standard award.

AA only permits stopovers in North America. For a European stopover, you'd be forced onto a one-world award, allowing you to stop wherever you want. This has two downsides: AA hasn't been releasing much inventory on its own transatlantic metal, meaning you're likely going to have to fly BA and pay their fuel surcharges.

I'm not sure why you consider the explorer award to be crazy expensive. If you're flying east coast - LHR - DEL, that clocks in at ~7900 miles one way, or ~16,000 miles round trip. For a J award, that's 130,000 miles. If you go through Asia, you'll probably bump yourself into the next distance band, which will cost 150,000 in J.

You reference the 90k partner award on AA "if they'd let you route over the pacific". Well, that's one way. So round trip in F is going to cost you 180,000 miles.

AA's one world award in the 20k-25k range is quite well priced for J; I find it has much less value for F.

You will run into a routing issue -- the 1W explorer award requires that you fly two partners other than AA. That might make a European routing more difficult, trying to come up with two partners and avoiding BA's surcharges might be a challenge.

Flying through Asia, you could take CX on the way out and JL on the way back, satisfying that requirements. Plus, you have the flexibility to stopover wherever you want.

OP,

Flying with UA miles is probably easier. You will be able to stopover in a variety of places, I don't think you're limited to *A hubs.

I don't think you'll get three people in F; I think you will have a tough time getting any F at all.

Looking at random dates in April 2014, it looks difficult to get 3 people in J on the Europe-DEL sector. Oddly, there are a handful of dates where you could get 3 J seats on NH or OZ.

Thanks. The reason I thought I'd use AA miles is to get CX F; there are two seats available for many days when I am thinking of going in 2014, and CX often releases unsold F inventory close in. I am willing to go 2 F and 1 J, though obviously if another F gets released I'd move up the third person.

That would also permit me to go JFK-LAX(stop; North American gateway)-HKG on CX.

Then HKG-BLR on KA using Avios (unfortunately huge YQ but maybe unavoidable here).

Then BLR/BOM/CMB/MLE/whatever-(Europe; stop?)-NYC using UA miles -- which should be 60k for the one-way in J.

So in total it would come to 140k for the "RTW" with one leg in F, one in J, and the "connecting" HKG-BLR leg in Y...

I have had trouble finding *A availability from India (BLR or BOM or even DEL) to NYC though... that's the hard part.

Do you have to go to BLR? CX has BKK-DEL and BKK-BOM that have lower YQ on then. In addition, I don't know when UL is joining OW, but it'll soon be possible to go to CMB on CX and connect to a UL flight.

You can go upto CMB on the same itinerary rather than taking HKG-BLR. From CMB the cheapest entry in India should be MAA for ~$104 @ April 2014 in Y but BLR could be had for as low as $115 oneway!

Cathay has discontinued flights between BOM and BKK effective April i believe...

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize YQ would vary so much between cities in the same country.

Thanks, this is great to know. I didn't realize CMB is considered "Asia 2" (which permits TPAC routings). So I could fly JFK-HKG-SIN-CMB for 67.5k miles in F.

Would be nice if UL has joined oneworld so I could hop up to India using Avios, and then return from India either on UA as described above or on a paid ticket...

Also 9W is partner to AA/UA/US and can take your from CMB to India*. Do not know the redemption cost though.