lailai88

Been lurking for a couple weeks now, trying to wrap my head around all these cards, miles, and points! First time posting.

My partner and I are trying to quasi-churn for miles for traveling to Europe. Right now we're very flexible and don't have a set time yet, possibly this fall or next spring. I have pretty good credit, last checked it was 778 on Credit Karma.

Currently, the cards I have are:

- Chase Bold Ink Plus (just got this week)
- Amex Blue Cash
- Some random Citi card with poopy cashback

- More random store cards, Macy's, Kohl's, Sears.

I signed up for the Bold Ink Plus because of the 50k bonus and the 5x for office supplies. Now I'm kind of stuck on what other cards to sign up for in order to receive points that would be useful to get to and from Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy, possibly a few other countries) for airfare and hotel.

I was on the verge of applying for a Citi AA Platinum Select card, until I realized that Chase's Ultimate Rewards does not partner with AA. So this made me realize that I will be somewhat working around what UR offers because I plan on applying for a Chase Sapphire Preferred soon. Speaking of which...

Cards I'm planning on applying for very soon (like in a few days):
- the afforementioned CSP
- Citi HHonors
- Barclay's Arrival

What else should I consider? Can I make the Citi AA Platinum work (they're having a 50k bonus right now, but it won't mean anything if I can't use it). Ideas, suggestions?

And please move this thread if its in the wrong area...

dukerau

There's a 100K Citi AA offer though it has a $450 annual fee (not waived) and $10K in 3 months spending requirement. Also comes with $200 statement credit so net $250 cost. You're right that AA doesn't partner with UR, but you can book one-ways with United and AA. So you can use AA miles to book 2 tix to Europe and United miles to book the return. However, you have a long list of destinations so it's important to mention that doing one-ways eliminates the free stopover that comes with United bookings.

If I were you, I would sign up for the 100K AA offer, book 2 biz class one-ways to Europe. Then use 60K United to book 2 economy one-ways back (biz would cost 55k each at best, 70k each on a partner which is more likely, and you don't need to sleep on the way back so economy isn't so bad). Then you can look to Avios to get you around in Europe when trains are too long/expensive. Make sure to open an Iberia and British airways account now. Once they are open for 3 months, BA Avios can be transferred to Iberia Avios. This makes the Iberia flights cheaper in terms of fees. UR can be transferred to BA Avios, and from there you can either book BA/IB flights or transfer to IB Avios to book of it's cheaper.

For hotels, consider Club Carlson (apply to this one next if you're going to do it at all and read the thread on it beforehand - US Bank hates inquiries), Hyatt (2 free nights at Park Hyatt Paris?), IHG (80K sign up offer), and the Citi card you're talking about if it's the 2 free nights one.

lailai88

Firstly, thanks so much for taking the time to give me some advice. I've been reading so much about this stuff I feel my brain is going to explode and it seems to more info I read, the more confusing it is!

I've seen that 100k Citi AA offer, but $450 AF and 10k spend is A LOT, especially when I have to meet spend requirements with my other cards. But $250 (after $200 statement credit) is hard to argue with for two one-way flights to Europe. So I have question about this... what would the fees for this flight look like?

I had figured that separate one-way flights are the way to go. But I was enticed by the idea that if you booked through Ultimate Rewards that there was a 20% discount, according to the Chase booklet I got. So that's why I thought about just trying to collect as many UR points as possible to use the 20% discount, but how accurate is this 20% savings? Or is this just sort of a fluff discount and a smart shopper who looked around could match the savings easily on non-UR partners?

Thanks so much for the tip about British Airways and Iberia Avios, I'll open those accounts now. Also, what are you thoughts about UR points for Virgin Atlantic?

Also, we'll most likely be flying out SFO or LAX, somewhere along the west coast. We live in Portland, but we will have to drive to the bay area to drop off our dear old dog who can only be dog-sat by my partner's parents who live there. I mention this in case there might be some ideas associated with flying out of the west coast.

dukerau

Ah, you're a little new to this. Chase UR can be used towards purchasing flights at a 20% discount. So if you find a nice round trip flight that costs $1200 on the airline's website (or expedia, wherever), it will cost 96,000 UR per person.

The alternative is that Chase UR are transferable to several airline programs - United, British Airways, Korean, Virgin Atlantic, and Southwest. You must have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus to be able to transfer points to airlines. Then, you can use those airline miles to book travel. The disadvantage is that you are subject to the airlines' award availability and you will not earn miles for a flight purchased with miles. The advantage is that it is (generally) much cheaper. The same flight above, if available as an award flight, could be just 60,000 United (=60,000 UR) per person. Or, for the real value of miles/points, you can fly business class for 110K round trip on United or 140K round trip on United's partners (Lufthansa, Turkish, Swiss, Austrian, SAS, others).

When booking with United miles (and AA as well), you can just book one-way for half the price, so 30K in economy, or 55K/70K in business. On AA, it's 30K in economy, 50K in business; and just 20K in economy between Oct 15 and May 15. So that's how you can book one-way on each airline. Booking one-ways with $$ is rarely worthwhile as it's often more expensive than round trip.

To get an idea of what type of availability you would have with miles, just go to united.com and search for Award Travel for some dates you are considering. On the search results, the blue buttons will be the low "saver" rates (what you want), and the yellow buttons are the "standard" rates (much higher). You can also search on aa.com for American awards, looking for sAAver awards, not the higher-cost AAnytime awards. Be careful on American as you will not want to book any itinerary that has British Airways for the transatlantic flight. BA charges "fuel surcharges" which can be $400-$500 each way. So that negates a ton of savings. With most award bookings, looking the furthest out (10-11 months) will show the most availability. Opposite to $$ airfare bookings, planning super early helps in award bookings.

But to answer your question simply, if you are flexible and play the game (reading a lot here and asking questions - we're all here to help!), you could fly in economy for 120K miles (United and/or American) + taxes/fees, which will be as low as $10 and at worst $150 per person (avoiding the traps like BA flights with their outrages fees).

Flying out of PDX shouldn't be a problem. If you don't want to take on the $10K spend in 3 months, you and your partner can amass the miles on lower spend requirements cards, though you may need 2 of those instead of the 1 big one. Lots of ways to skin this cat.

Virgin Atlantic has high fees for transatlantic flights from my understanding, so I don't think they're a good use for that. But I'm no expert in their miles.

lailai88

Again, thanks for your answers. I KNOW I'll have more questions!

Oh, maybe I need to clarify. We CAN'T fly out of PDX because we HAVE TO drive to the San Francisco bay area to drop off our dog with my partner's parents who live there and can take care of him while we travel. So we can fly out of SFO or even LAX, since my family lives down there, I don't mind seeing them before we leave.

Yep, the $10k spend is pretty daunting. Will talk with my partner about it. The problem with earning points is that I'm the only one who can do it because he has either has bad credit or non-existent credit... he has checked in a while and is kind of scared to (that's a whole other issue, let's ignore it for now ). So I'm the one who is applying for the cards and earning the points, but we're trying to spend together for it. Right now we're doing some home renovations and that's why I even started doing all of this, because I know we'll be spending lots of cash and we figured we may as well try to get some airfare and hotel stays out of it!

Question: I just applied for the BA Exec Club, just like you told me to, and received this message:
Is it okay if I don't have the physical card, as long as I have an account number?

Alright, I'm gonna go back to checking out offers and deals and really nail down the next batch of cards I'll be applying for on Monday.

dukerau

Yes, you don't need the physical card at all, really.

KennyBSAT

You may find very few business class seats to Europe available with AA miles except on BA with 500+ surcharges each way per person. If 10K spending seems difficult now, consider just getting the regular 50K AA card(s) since economy seats are only 20K miles per person during the off-peak periods you want to travel.

My advice: try to get 120K UA and 80K AA miles, then you can book on either or both. There is a lot to read and learn on the spending miles end.

Another possibility besides UA and AA is Air France miles transferred from AMEX - 25K one-way to Europe with ~$125 surcharge.

StartinSanDiego

I'll just back up to your earlier post and say-- have a plan of action. Look at the cities you want to go to, see what hotel chain has a hotel there, and what airline flies there from LA, SFO or where ever. That is pretty much everybody, since those are big hub cities.

If you want to go to Europe, great, either Star or One World alliances will get you there. AA has a great program and a HUGE plus of 20K o/w during off peak, which is essentially every date except the summertime. Then (eventually) they give you a 10% points rebate, so it's really 18K o/w.

I suggest that you concentrate on a complementary set of credit cards... like UA and Ink or AA and BA and Membership rewards. The reason for this is that both of these will boost your point balances to an amount of points that are redeemable. If you have, say, 53K points in one program and 19K in another... you are still pretty far away from 2 r/t tickets to Europe. Both the UA and AA program allow for o/w redeemptions, though, so that opens up some options. Don't apply for so many cards that you miss your spend thresholds or go bonkers trying to keep track. Do join Award Wallet to help you with your new hobby.

Keep reading-- I know I was completely glazed over when I first discovered FT. Keep at it. It will all start to make more sense.

lailai88

Thanks for responding. So many questions!

This is TOTALLY a newbie question, but does AA ever fly to/from Europe on their own planes? Who else do they partner with for flights to/from Europe? (I'm asking about what other partners they have if I'm not using British Airways in order to avoid their surcharge).

When you say "UA", you mean United, right? (United, which is part of the Ultimate rewards program.) I kind of/but not really, look forward to how to make sure I get as much as I can out of the miles. Oy vey!

Which card is this?

lailai88

Thanks for your info! I know you can't tell the future, but do you think that AA will continue to have such good miles rates during off-peak times and also the 10% rebate? Like has it always been this way and will continue this way for a while?

Just signed up for Award Wallet. Thanks for the heads up!

I totally get what you're saying about UA and Ink OR AA and BA. That was my question in my initial post. And dukerau had brought up the point that I could diversify and sign up for AA/BA because, as you said, both UA and AA allow one way redemption. Because... as I see it, with the points I'm earning right now through UA and Ink, just from the sign up bonuses (IF I can get all the cards I apply for), it will only get 2 one-way tickets. So then, if I can take advantage of the sign-on bonuses for some AA cards, then I hopefully I can get us home, hahah. I guess what I'm saying that I'm very reliant on the sign-up bonuses for this to work, and there's probably only so many UA and Chase Ultimate Rewards cards I'll be allowed to get.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"Which card is this?"

In this context, "AMEX" means an American Express card that participates in the "Membership Rewards" program. MR points transfer to several different FFPs.

AA does operate its own flights to Europe -- including an LAX-LHR nonstop -- but it can be challenging at times to find premium-cabin award seats at the "SAAver" (low-tier) level. AA also has several partners that fly to Europe from North America with low or no surcharges: AB, AY, IB, TN, and 9W. Of special interest to you may be TN's year-round LAX-CDG nonstop; AB's seasonal LAX-DUS nonstop; and IB's seasonal LAX-MAD nonstop.

lailai88

Thanks so much for this info, but you'll really have to excuse me as I'm just starting to learn this stuff. But what are these airlines spelled out, AB, AY, IB, TN, and 9W?

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Google is your friend:

http://www.airlinecodes.co.uk/airlcodesearch.asp

(Search for "IATA" codes on the linked page.)