Advice: LAX-CHI on miles...
 

hi there guys i need to go to chicago from lax either on this dates for about 3 or 4 days.... either 7/27/13-7/30/13 or 7/28/13-7/31/13. i know its pretty close but what can i do. basically i just need the cheapest award travel i can get for my miles. btw the flight is for me and my wife thanks :)


i have:

UR: 200k
SW: 25k
Amex: 100k
US airways: 40k
delta: 50k
aa: 100k

Advice: LAX-CHI on miles...
 

All these airlines, except southwest, have close in reward fees. So, you'll be stuck paying miles plus cash, unless you are elite. Also, neither DL, UA, US nor AA have saver availability on the return. So you'll have to pay more.

In Southwest, 28-31 seems to be the lowest number of southwest points at 14520+13920 rt. Slightly more for the non-stop. Not a bad deal.

Unfortunately you don't have enough southwest points for that. You can 1) transfer from chase UR, or 2) you can try to find a trade in coupon connection.

I would call Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to see if they have availability on Virgin America for your dates—if they do, it's only 25,000mi roundtrip per person, tranferrable from Amex.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb...ginamerica.jsp

Another option—your have enough Amex points for two RT tickets in first on United through Aeroplan, which avoids the close-in booking fee (as long as you can find saver).

BA (conversion partner for Amex MR. Can buy AA MilesAAver flights), Delta, and Southwest have no close-in booking fees.

Please do your homework first though :) Do the below:

Search Delta, United, AA, US to see if any have saver availability. For Delta, if not the low tier, see if there are seats at the medium tier too. Amex MR's convert to it too. Compare to Southwest miles. Compare to cash (Amex MRs, along with cash itself, can also buy cash flights)

Is splitting up an option? Or buying 1 award seat and 1 revenue seat on the same plane?

Remember, when searching on Southwest, they fly out of Chicago Midway, not ORD. For LA, you can also consider searching for flights out of Burbank Bob Hope (BUR), Ontario (ONT), Long Beach (LGB), and John Wayne (SNA).

Plenty of medium on Delta like always. Probably some low will open up a few days before travel date.