Hey guys,

I've joined FT a couple of months and with you guys help, I think I'm off to a good start. I chose AA as my main FFP and just completed the AA Platinum challenge and made platinum. Now I'm second guessing myself and wish I'd done the US Preferred Trial instead and made EXP upon merge to AA. But it's ok, that would have required me to fly 30k miles... much harder than getting 10k EQPs on AA with just two flights in first class. Still a little sad because this may be the last year where EXP really means something... who knows what AA will do next year.

Anyways... I'm doing RTW trip, segment by segment ticket purchases, not 1 ticket. And I want to hear your opinions on whether my strategy for this makes sense based on my goals.

Goals (all travel is for leisure):

• Low Stress
• Comfort
• At least Business class on international travel.

Strategy:

• Award Travel only on Business (or First)
• Earn miles via revenue economy tix (Premium economy or Business when it's cheap.. usually on shorter flights).
• Main FFP: AA
• Diversify against eventual AA devaluation: Alaska Airlines FFP and Amex/Citi/Chase/SPG programs. Both Alaska and the credit card programs give me access to *A and ST alliance carriers.
• Domestic: Always revenue AA tix when available at affordable price. If not, buy DL and credit to Alaska.
• International: Award availability or revenue ticket pricing for business seats playing the main role here.

My June trip plan (stopover at every stop of few days):

• JFK-HKG-CMB: CX premium economy paid ticket ($2000)
• CMB-BKK: UL business paid ticket ($400)
• BKK-SIN: SQ business paid ticket ($600)
• SIN-FRA: SQ first class award ticket from Amex points (90k + $250)
• FRA-JFK: Undecided, probably SQ economy paid but prefer SQ Business/First award ticket (availability a problem)

Questions:

• My AA Platinum status gets me nothing on this other than double miles right?
• Would I be able JFK-HKG(stopover)-CMB segment in business for $1000 more? Even if only JFK-HKG part?
• Paid SQ tickets, what's a good FFP to credit them to? I'm guessing keep on SQ as I will probably fly them again. UA award chart is not that good after the devaluation for partner travel from what I understand.
• FRA-JFK segment... would SQ Business/First availability open up closer to travel? I see SQ availability for couple of weeks out but not too far out.
• FRA-JFK, if not SQ, then are any other options for not that expensive business class ticket?
• Does my choices make sense and align with my goals and FFPs I've chosen without being too crazy?

I just want some feedback from people who have been doing this a little longer than me. Even if it's to know that I'm paying too much or bad choice in FFPs for my travel selection, or wasting my time trying to go after a certain award because there's never any availability, etc..

Thanks guys.

BKK-SIN, if flying direct, is probably <2 hours. not sure I'd pay a lot more to be in business vs coach.

AA Plat will get you business class lounge access on OneWorld flights.

Yes, it's 2hrs 25min according to SQ, but actual flying time is probably less. It's a difference between $313 and $579. On air service vice, it's not worth it, but my thinking of may $250 more was for ground service (+ extra luggage) and avoiding the hassle. Maybe it's not worth it.

Depending on how much extra luggage you're talking, may be better to just pay a fee. Regional SQ biz is not all that hot, especially on this route, ime. If you still prefer biz, might want to take a look at CX, too � they often have exceptional fares between BKK and SIN.

I see. Thanks.

Does anyone have any suggestions for FRA-JFK route or JFK-HKG route in business that is not too expensive?

If you are looking for a paid cash ticket in business on those routes, no one can give you any secrets other than Kayak.com and keeping your eyes open for sales.
But one way paid business class on these routes are never going to be cheap. The cheapest on FRA-JFK will likely be on Icelandair via KEF or Aer Lingus via DUB. Singapore is often competitive on the nonstop FRA-JFK. But these will all show up on kayak or Expedia...

Well, I'm going to back you up for a minute, just to illustrate a big (quite big) alternative, an actual RTW ticket.

As you may know, RTW tickets are priced differently depending on the country of origin and purchase. In the case of Oneworld, the Oneworld Explorer RTW ticket (and note AA hugely confused things briefly when it gave its now-defunct Oneworld award the same name) is good for up to 16 segments, valid for a year, has no mileage limit, and the price is based on the number of continents touched.

In your case, that would be three continents, North America, Asia and Europe, the minimum number for a Oneworld Explorer. The ticket comes with a lot of rules, including a maximum number of flights per continent - 6 for North America, 4 for all other continents (plus of course the intercontinental flights.)

Now you're looking at an out-of-pocket cost for your itinerary in the neighborhood of $4000 by the time all's said and done, for JFK-HKG-CMB-BKK-SIN-FRA-JFK, six segments and around 23,000 miles, of which about half would be elite qualifying or mileage earning on AA.

But here's the deal. How much traveling do you do, or would you like to do, in North America annually? As an FT member who went for the Plat challenge on AA, I'm guessing the answer that you DO travel a bit over the course of a year, maybe a lot.

So, thought experiment. What if you used enough miles (or even bought them - big bonuses on miles now available from AA/US through the end of January) to get yourself to Tokyo, and started a DONE3 RTW ticket there?

Right now, because of the strength of the US dollar vs. the Yen, a DONE3 bought and begun in Japan costs around $5500 plus taxes. Now, yes, that's more than your projected spend for your trip, but instead of this route in a combination of PE, business and economy, it could give you something like THIS instead. (And of course that route is totally imaginary - there are probably tens of thousands of permutations.) Basically, start in Japan, do your Asian and European flights, then fly home. Over the course of the remaining 12 months of the ticket's validity, travel around North America, Central America, or the Caribbean, all in J or F, before returning to Japan to finish the ticket.

Note the same scenario holds if you bought the ticket in a relatively low cost city in Europe/Middle East, such as Cairo (a couple hundred bucks more than Japan.) Fly into Cairo, don't even leave the airport if you want, then start the RTW there, maybe by flying to Amman or Doha then across the pond to NYC.

The Japan-origin trip, which is pretty conservative by Oneworld Explorer standards, would earn you more than enough elite qualifying points to retain Platinum, probably something approaching 100K redeemable AA miles, and, depending on your actual travels, a lot of butt-in-seat miles in business or first class (with DONEx tickets, flights on 2-class AA domestic flights book into first class, with the appropriate class of service bonuses.)

At, say, $6K all in (counting taxes and YQ) that would average out to $375 per business- or first class segment over the course of a year. By anybody's metric, that's a hell of a deal, but of course it presumes that you have the need, or the desire, to fly that much.

And if you have the time resources, you can even beat that deal by making your way to South Africa, where a DONE4 - four continents, business class, costs right around $5000 plus taxes/fees, for something like this.

A number of us use these products in a "strategic" fashion - a paid RTW every other year, burn the miles in the following year, repeat. The numbers can get very compelling.

If interested, consult the Oneworld board for more details - lots of useful information over there.

AA Platinum / oneworld Sapphire gets you checkin and boarding priority, lounge access on qualifying oneworld flights and some baggage rights as well as 100% status bonus miles, and better (e.g. free MCE on AA) seats.

So I can fly CX from BKK-SIN in PE instead of J and still get better ground service. Cool.

OW Sapphire seems to have prereserved seating... I wonder whether CX PE (or even discount Y) will allow that.

That is insane!!! and amazing!

I knew there was a OW Explorer award that AA scrapped last year but did not know there was a OW Explorer paid option... if this is available in business for $4-6k, then I'm so there. And RDM's too. I think this is the single best piece of information I encountered while learning.

Thank you Gardyloo for all that information (and the effort typing that up)!

I very much like Gardyloo's suggested strategy, but to answer the OP specifically about where to credit miles from SQ flights: I would probably avoid crediting to SQ because SQ miles necessarily expire after some time, IIRC three years, regardless of whether the account has been active. So even if you're continually crediting a few miles to the SQ FF program, your early miles start to vanish before you have enough to use.

It's better to avoid orphan miles and focus on a few FF programs so that you can know their rules well. You also want to have enough FF accounts to cover any flight that you're likely to ever take, so that rather than wasting miles, you always have some account where you can credit a given flight. This usually means one FF account for each alliance but AS fulfills this role well for many people and includes enough airlines to give nice redemption flexibility.

Understood. I can credit all OW flights to AA, most ST flights to AS, but I'm not sure about *A. I have heard people say bad things about United for awards on partners... not sure whether it's due to award chart deval or award availability in business on partners.