flytoski

Hi all. A couple buddies and I (mid-20s single guys) are looking to do a "bros trip" off the beaten path somewhere with a lot of color. We've conditionally settled on Myanmar for about 7-10 days in late October/early November. I have 150k+ MR points and am hoping there's a good way to use these for this trip. Could anyone offer me some suggestions? I'm new to this and am finding it hard to find redemption options with MR partners.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

The first step is to find out which airlines serve the airport into which you plan to fly. Google "XXX airport wiki" (replacing "XXX" with the three-letter airport code for your desired airport), and then look at the Wikipedia article for that airport. The article will list all airlines that serve the airport, and the cities they fly to/from. You can then determine which MR transfer partners are redemption partners for the carriers that serve that airport.

It is unlikely that 150K MR points will be enough for three roundtrip award tickets to Asia.

flytoski

Awesome. That's really great advice. So it seems like the cheaper flights are to Yangon, although Mandalay is really the end destination. In terms of Mandalay, it seems like the only applicable MR partners are ANA and Singapore Krisflyer. I've just dug around on ANA and have absolutely no clue how to find the miles cost to do this trip. I then dug around on Singapore and was able to get a business class trip quote for 136k miles round-trip but with waitlisted Saver seats. I didn't book this because we haven't finalized our plans yet. Does anyone know the probability of this actually working? The cheapest I could get for standard seats (which were available) was 204k points, which sadly I don't have!

Lastly, the 150k is just for me. Does that sound doable?

So thanks very much for your initial advice. That definitely has pointed me in the right direction. I'm very much a novice here and would really love expert advice if anyone will provide it. Thank you!!

Of course, also open to someone telling me that Myanmar is stupid and we should go to Mongolia or something instead. (So long as that something is off the beaten path.)

erik123

Air Asia and others seem to fly into RGN - So you can use the miles to fly into another SE Asian airport and continue from there if needed.

brian1111

which miles do u have?
star alliances fly to myanmar.

exampl
jfk/ewr-fra (lufthansa)
fra-bkk (thai/lufthansa)
bkk-rgn/mdl (thai)

Rangon to Mandalay overnight bus is not that expensive.

have fun in Myanmar.

btw, you HAVE to visit Bagan if you go to Myanmar.

flytoski

Awesome .

I have 150k MR, 130k American Airlines, 50k Chase, 40k US Airways, and 30k Delta. What's the best to use for me?

TheEmirate

I would consider using the Star Alliance for this routing. They have very generous routing rules. For example on United 85,000 points (economy) or 160,000 points (business, usually lie-flat on many star alliance carriers) would get you a round trip flight. You could even route through Europe with a stopover there if you wanted and fly around the world.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

For 35K AA miles in Coach or 55K AA miles in Business, you can fly Cathay/Dragonair JFK/EWR-HKG-RGN. That's probably the best deal, as long as you are not looking to stopover somewhere en route. (AA awards no longer permit free stopovers anywhere.)

artemis

Don't forget, AmEx MR and Chase UR points both share Singapore Airlines as a transfer partner. So you actually have 200k potential Krisflyer points, which is only 4k off from what you say you need. If you can't find enough seats on the Oneworld award routing guv1976 mentions in his post (which you could book with your AA points), you could transfer the Amex and Chase points over to Singapore Airlines and then just buy the final 4k points you need to make the Singapore award work.

Good luck with your trip!

alaskantraveler

As mentioned before. Air asia flies BKK to RGN. You can use mileage to get to BKK then get on a short flight to Yangoon. I visited Myanmar in 2013. Great place to visit! 7-10 days including travel in my opinion isnt nearly long enough. You will have 3 to 4 days of that just in travel time. Also, there was cool stuff around Mandalay, but Bagan is an awesome place to check out.

RewardFlyer

There's currently availability for the above routing in early November albeit with long layovers. If you haven't seen HKG then this would give you the opportunity to do that too.

If you do decide to choose the Star Alliance path, beware of the fuel surcharges you may incur as all Amex MR partners do levy them.

flytoski

Thank you! The reason I started collecting miles was to hopefully take advantage of good deals like this! I would LOVE to book this for 55k miles. How do I actually do that though? I tried looking up award travel for this itinerary on aa.com and it came up empty.

artemis

The majority of Oneworld partners' award flights can't be found on aa.com, unfortunately. Search for each segment separately using the award booking engines at British Airways or Quantas (which do show most award availability), or using a tool such as Award Nexus. Write the flights down, than call American Airlines to book the award.

RewardFlyer

Go to our website and send us a message through the 'Contact Us' form with your dates, name as seen on passport and date of birth. We'll setup the award reservation for you and all you'll need to do is call AA and have them ticket it with your credit card.

There will be no charge for this award booking