Eruma

Hi all. I have somehow accumulated a bunch of different points from different credit card signup bonuses. I'm planning to book a flight to Thailand for June so I'm hoping to use these!

Many of the points have relatively high cash redemption rates, but Etihad does not seem to value points very highly (180,000 for a roundtrip - equating to roughly $3,000 cash worth of Starwoods points after transferring 1:1).

Any advice moving forward? Some blogs mention that Etihad points are best used for upgrades but is there a different approach I'm not seeing?

So far, I have:

50,000 Southwest
50,000 Ultimate Rewards
90,000 Amex Membership Points
30,000 Starwoods
50,000 AA

Thanks for any ideas.

l etoile

Welcome to FlyerTalk. I'm going to move this to our Information Desk forum as I believe you'll find suggestions there.

l'etoile
sr. moderator

SanDiego1K

Where will your travel originate?

dukerau

What class? From where?

AA can get you on Cathay, Qatar, or Etihad. 35K/55K/67.5K each way in Y/J/F. Your Starwood points can get you enough for a premium cabin one way. United can get you back in economy with what you have, or you can transfer your Amex to Aeroplan/KrisFlyer to book on Thai or Singapore.

KennyBSAT

Unfortunately AA's transpac to Asia rules get in the way of QR and Etihad, and published fare rules may also get in the way. If you can share your origin(s), destination(s) and some potential travel dates we can be a lot more helpful. Along with desired and/or required class of travel.

Eruma

Thanks, appreciate the polite move. I had in mind that Etihad people would have the most advice on Etihad but perhaps that forum has another focus..

JFK, EWR, or LGA > BKK, economy class.

Economy. NYC > BKK Thailand.

Thanks for your thoughts on sensible conversions.

After checking AA's site it's reporting "There are currently no awards available on AA.com for your requested Origin and Destination."

KrisFlyer is quoting 150,000 roundtrip, and Aeroplan more reasonably is quoting 75k + 400 roundtrip.. I get the sense I am doing this wrong, though. I planned award flights thru their member programs.

Interesting, maybe this was why I couldn't do a lookup.

I'm doing NYC > BKK and shooting for economy around June 4-14th. I have also read that it's very easy to get cheap upgrades with Etihad using Starwoods points so I was also aiming for that (but only after booking economy).

I avoided being too specific because I didn't want to ask anyone to do legwork for me, just general guidance or ideas.

Thanks again to everyone for their input, this forum is really an invaluable resource.

guv1976

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

To get to BKK from NYC on a single AAdvantage award, you must route via the Pacific, which will mean that one or more of your flights will be on CX, JL, or MH. The aa.com website does not support award redemptions on any of those carriers, so call AA and ask if they have availability on any of those carriers.

You can use AA miles in one direction, and some other program's miles in the other direction.

dukerau

As Kenny mentioned, you won't be able to fly to BKK with AA miles on Etihad because AA does not allow routing through Middle East to go to Asia. Instead, your best bet would be Cathay Pacific (CX). AA's search engine will not find CX availability, so that's why you got no results. You can either call AA to ask about CX availability, or you can search on Qantas or BA (have to open a free account with either and IMO Qantas' search is superior).

KrisFlyer won't be a good option for a coach award ticket. Aeroplan will charge 90K round trip or 45K each way. As you mentioned, the taxes/fees can be quite high but they do depend on which airline you are flying on. United and Singapore will be the lowest taxes/fees for transpac I believe.

I'm not familiar with using SPG points to upgrade on Etihad, but I would make sure to read more about that. I've never seen a reasonable way to upgrade an economy award ticket to business/first; it's generally much cheaper to use miles for premium class rather than booking an economy award and then spending more miles to upgrade (if it's even possible at all).

SanDiego1K

You can check for Star availability on united.com. Please know that the number of points will differ depending on the program that you redeem miles from, but the availability will be indicative of what you can find on other programs. You can move your AMEX points to Air Canada or ANA, both Star partners. Here is the Air Canada chart. You have enough AMEX points for RT in coach but not business.

General information:
For the purpose of your planning, ignore Southwest points for international travel.
UR points are valuable and can be moved to several programs such as UA.
SPG points are valuable, but do not move to United as it is a very poor transfer ratio. However, you can move 20K SPG points to AA and get 25K AA points.
Both UA and AA allow one way awards.

alecbarron

Calling AA to check availability on CX, JL, or MH will be a long painful process!

Instead, search Qantas' or British Airways' website.

OP, I think your best option would be flying CX with your AA miles. Route JFK-HKG-BKK, and back.

You'll need 70k AA miles for this award in Economy so transfer some of your SPG to AA.

aafreq

Hope this is the correct forum for this question...
I have 100 K UR points, I participate in AA as well as US mileage programs.
Is it possible to transfer the UR points 1:1 to US ?
Prior to the March 30, merge date with AA thereby possibly being
Transferred 1:1 to AA ?

guv1976

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

US is not a UR transfer partner.

aafreq

Yes, thank you for the clarification.
However BA is and while US is still in the fold as a partner until
March 30, I presume, can a UR transfer to BA be done, then transfer
from BA to US prior to March 31, 2014
Thx

SanDiego1K

Yes

No. I'm unaware of an airline that allows a direct points transfer to another airline program except at the time that two airlines merge.

guv1976

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

You cannot transfer from BA to US. And prior to the time that US joins oneworld (on March 31), you cannot even redeem BA Avios for travel on US. (BA is a oneworld member; US is currently a Star Alliance member.)