Award booking advice needed
 

Does anyone have suggestions on how to approach 2 biz tickets flying KC-Mad-Tlv-free stop over in Ist-KC for next summer? Will have 170+UR, 50k Skymiles, 40K UA. No United or AA cards. Is this doable?
Thanks in advance.
Joe

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Welcome to FT!

It's certainly not doable with AA miles: AA does not permit free stopovers anywhere on its awards anymore.

It's also not clear from your post where you want to stop over. MAD? TLV? IST? All three places?

Sorry whats UR..I guess its not Empire Airways?

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I assume that "UR" refers to Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which are transferable to a number of airline FFPs, including UA, BA, and KE.

Sorry for the miscommunication. UR are Ultimate Reward Points. To be frank Spain and Israel are the important destinations, we'd take a free stopover anywhere but were thinking maybe IST on Turkish. What other credit cards might be helpful?
Thanks again.

I'm actually planning a similar trip (MAD, IST, and TLV), and also working w/ mostly URs. I'd consider the fact that IST is in Europe, so a cheaper award than to TLV. My plan: UA to IST as my destination, with an open jaw return from MAD. Pay cash for the IST-TLV flight (often ~$100 flying out of SAW, the alternate Istanbul airport), and fly Iberia (BA miles) TLV-MAD. Taxes/fees may be lower to transfer the BA miles to IB and book through them, but I haven't that checked yet.

Sounds you want to spend time in MAD, TLV, and IST? You won't be able to do that on one United award. United allows 1 stopover. To spend time in 3 destinations you'd need 2 stopovers. Now, if you are happy spending < 24 hours in one of those places, you could do an extended layover - then you could visit all 3 on one award ticket.