So I have 70k in points on amex MR and 60k points on Chase UR.

I am having a hard time working out the best way to use them for flying to Manchester, UK December 26th - January 1st. My dates are a little flexible.

The best I seem to have found is leaving the 25th and returning January 2nd with Virgin Atlantic.

IAD - MAN 35k points +$500.

I am in Roanoke and can drive about 4 hours for a cheaper flight (IAD is right about 4 hours away).

I'm not expecting someone to look up flights for me and do all the work. I'm just having trouble finding any flights on other airlines that are less than 120k redemption.


I've also never flown on points before so it's all kind of new to me!

Welcome to FT!

As you know, you wish to travel during the holiday season; it will be difficult to find seats for award travel, especially at saver level. Many people seeking transatlantic award seats make reservations 10-11 months ahead.

If you are able to find seats, you may not find it necessary to drive 4 hours. Award travel from the US to Europe costs the same in miles from anywhere in the US (48 states) to anywhere in Europe; it's not at all like buying a ticket with cash. Your difficulty will probably be with the transatlantic portion of the trip, not with the departure from Roanoke.

If you can transfer your points to United, I have found two possibilities for December 26th, though one would get you to London rather than Manchester. 1) You can leave Roanoke at 6:15 AM, connect through Chicago and Ottawa, and arrive at London Heathrow at 9:35 AM the next day. These flights are on United and Air Canada. 2) You can fly from Roanoke with changes in Chicago, Vienna and Frankfurt, arriving in Manchester late Saturday evening. These flights are on United, Austrian Airlines, and Lufthansa. I did not check for possible return flights.

I am unfamiliar with transferring points from Amex MR or Chase UR, so I can't offer any help on that score. One possibly helpful piece of information. Both United and American offer one-way flight for half the mileage, so you may be able to use each program for half your trip. Delta and USAirways charge the same in miles one-way and roundtrip, so they are less likely to be useful for your purposes. (Delta is changing this policy in 2015, but that's too late for you.

Hope this helps.

The 35k each way on VS seems a good deal. The $500 surcharge should get you back home too.
So 35K + $250 each way (70K +500$ return)?

As someone who lives near a fairly lightly served but popular outstation for the usual domestic carriers, I can say that this is very often not the case- Did a sample search for VPS-LHR on Delta for next March and came back with 125K miles for economy round trip. ATL-LHR for exact same dates is 92.5K miles. United same days is 130K miles out of VPS and 95K flying IAH-LHR. (Yes, trying to get out of Florida for spring break on miles is no fun because you're competing with the people trying to get into the state that same time frame.)

A lack of saver availability on the domestic leg of the trip can easily push the whole ticket into a standard redemption bucket.

Thanks for checking into that, but I would be cutting out a 4 hour drive on the US side and having to make a 4 hour drive in the UK. With gas over there costing around $9 a gallon that probably wouldn't be a great idea!

Plus with all the extra lay overs I would be turning a 7 hour direct flight (IAD-MAN) or a 12 hour with 1 lay over (ROA-ATL-MAN) into a 22 hour flight.


Outbound:
miles 17,500
+ USD 174.80
Inbound:
miles 17,500
+ USD 334.70
Total price:
1 adult
miles 35,000
+ USD 509.50
Including taxes, fees, charges and carrier imposed surcharges

So it would be 35k total plus $500. It doesn't seem like a bad price, I just have to make sure that my wife isn't working on Christmas or the day after.

Some thoughts, some of which may or may not meet your desires but just brainstorming a bit...

Have you checked British Airways*? They're a transfer partner from both UR and MR.

As far as driving from LHR to Manchester, you may want to research going by train instead. I have no idea offhand about costs or travel times by rail on that route, but you can research here:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Speaking of trains, you could take Amtrak to a hub departure and at least save yourself the drive and traffic if you wanted. Amtrak is a UR transfer partner, though coach seats on the Northeast Regional should be pretty reasonable to pay cash for as well.

For example, UA from EWR (Newark airport) is an easy trip from the Lynchburg, VA Amtrak station, depending on the timing of arrival and departures. Philadelphia (downtown) is also on a couple of Amtrak routes from Lynchburg - not sure about cabs to the airport in Philadelphia but I'm guessing it's not too bad.

*One thing that you'll experience with Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, and many other non-U.S. airlines is the levying of fuel surcharges on award redemptions. You may notice that your cash outlay with UA, for example, is much less. Compared to a cash ticket during the holidays the higher surcharge may still be a better option, particularly if the flight times and lengths are what you prefer. So it depends on what is a higher priority to save - cash, time, or miles.

For future planning, the fuel surcharges on such redemptions can often be half or more of a comparable cash ticket (in Economy, that is - Business of First can be a better deal) when you can plan ahead and buy in advance at more flexible times. Again, though, with flying at the height of the holidays you'll be hard pressed to find very cheap cash ticket prices so paying the surcharges may be preferable in this instance.

Just one minor point of clarification... There are some programs, BA Avios being one, where redemptions are tied to distance (in the case of BA there are mileage "bands").

Living in a spoke city, I quite frequently can find award availability on the main international leg but not on flights from my area to the hub (AA is particularly notorious for this). It's worse if it's mostly regional jets servicing my city with that airline. Searching for availability on the international leg first and then looking for the spoke can help narrow it down, IME anyway.

I might end up better off just paying the $1200 for a ticket and saving the miles for a different time of year or maybe for domestic flights.

Thanks everyone for all the help.

Agree - spend the money on the ticket - then plan to use the MR + UR points at another time (look at both programs and see which airline partners they have in common).

United fly direct IAD-MAN - it's a 757, a bit cramped in economy, but it is a direct flight which is a big plus. Dec 26 - Jan 2 is $1102 including tax.

Also if you fly into London and were planning on taking the train (say 1hr 15m by underground from airport to EUSTON station, then normally 2 hours by train) the main line between London and Manchester will be having engineering works during the Christmas/New Year week - and trains will be running "considerably slower" - so you really are better off flying direct into Manchester.

Thanks for the heads up about the trains.

I've taken that united flight 3 times in the past year or so. It's much easier driving to DC than flying out of roa and having long lay overs! Also normally about $100 cheaper, which covers most of the gas/parking.

So I ended up changing my dates and not doing a terrible job.

I bought 2 one way tickets.
December 28th IAD-MAN for 30k+$5 with united.
January 5th MAN-IAD 17.5k+$300 with Virgin.

I'm pretty happy with that, I think it puts my points at about 1.6c each. Plus I already had 12k sitting in my united account anyway

If I were you, I'd be quite satisfied with these results. I've redeemed miles for award travel WAS-Europe several times in the past few years, and I've paid somewhat less in $ ($161.30 for two one-way tickets on a trip scheduled for later this month/early October) but more in miles (30k each way) using UA and AA miles IAD-MUC and NUE-DCA. Congratulations!