Miami to Riyadh - Dec 2014
 

Hi all,

Planning a trip to from Miami to Riyadh this December. Hoping to get business class with the following points and minimal $$. I'm not sure where to start, can you guys assist?

Amex MR - 90,000 pts
Chase Sapphire - 55,000 pts

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Matthew

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Just one way?

Miami to Riyadh - Dec 2014
 

unfortunately you do not have enough miles for roundtrip business class. You could do one way using your Amex rewards. There are over a dozen partners.

@guv roundtrip, thanks for your help

@adam how many miles am I short? I will focus my spending accordingly if I'm not far off

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If you can find award-seat availability, 150,000 BA Avios would get you close, with no carrier surcharges: MIA-TXL-AUH-TXL-MIA on Air Berlin in Business Class. You would still have to get yourself between AUH and RUH.

Amex occasionally offers transfer bonuses from MR to BAEC Avios, so your 90,000 MR points might yield more than 90,000 BAEC Avios. But don't transfer/convert any of your points until you are sure that the award-seat availability you need exists.

Another option would be to try to amass 60,000 AA miles (perhaps by means of a credit-card sign-up bonus and some spend), and then redeem 100,000 BA Avios for MIA-TXL/DUS-MIA roundtrip in Business on Air Berlin, and then redeem 60,000 AA miles for Europe-RUH-Europe roundtrip in Business. AA's partners that serve RUH include EY, GF, QR, RJ, and 9W; there are no surcharges when redeeming AA miles on any of these partners.

thank you
 

@guv That was a very thoughtful response that you clearly put some time into. Thank you, I'll look into it.

Thinking about this a different way, do you know of an option where I could purchase the coach fare and use points to upgrade?

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I'm not much of an expert on upgrading with points/miles. But there are at least two pitfalls to watch out for:

1. Some programs only let you upgrade from the more expensive Economy fares, not the deep-discount ones.

2. Some carriers have a class of service between Economy and Business (Economy Plus). On those carriers, upgrading from an Economy fare would only get you into Economy Plus; to upgrade to Business Class, you would need to purchase a qualifying Economy Plus ticket to begin with.