LAX to Baghdad (Iraq)
 

Please feel free to move this to the appropriate thread.

I have about 130,000 American Airline miles & 130,000 United miles.

Can you please suggest a flight from LAX to Baghdad. My airport in Iraq is flexible so I can fly anywhere close to Baghdad or Najaf.

Also my dates are flexible. I'm looking to fly anytime from the next 1 month to 4 months. Duration will be 8-10 days.

Thanks a lot!

Try Turkish through Istanbul if you have lounge access. You can sleep in one of the beds in the lounge during theong layover.

Don't forget the trip insurance.

As this thread is not announcing a specific mileage run fare, I am moving this thread to the Information Desk for further response.

Pat89339
Moderator, Mileage Run Forum

If you would like to use your UA miles for this flight, you will most likely be flying on *A partner Turkish Airlines(TK) for a portion of the trip, however you may also fly on Lufthansa (LH) and EgyptAir (MS). Most, but not all routings go through Istanbul (IST) on TK. There are some sample routings below.

Outbound
LAX-LHR(UA) LHR-IST(TK) IST-BGW(TK)
LAX-LGW(UA) LGW-IST(TK) IST-BGW(TK)
LAX-IAH(UA) IAH-IST(TK) IST-BGW(TK)
LAX-MUC(LH) MUC-IST(TK) IST-BGW(TK)

Return
BGW-IST(TK) IST-LHR(TK) LHR-LAX(UA)
BGW-IST(TK) IST-IAH(TK) IAH-LAX(UA)
BGW-CAI(MS) CAI-LHR(MS) LHR-LAX(UA)

I was able to find Saver Awards in Economy for my sample search. With a Saver Award, it will cost you 42500 miles each way, or 85000 miles total. Have a look on the UA website and search for award travel. I strongly encourage you to plan your travel around the saver awards if possible, as a Standard Award ticket will cost you 85000 miles one way or 170000 miles total.

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You can also use your AA miles on this trip. I had trouble finding availability on the AA website, so it may take a bit more searching to plan your trip. To use AA miles, you may fly on AA, British Airways (BA) or Royal Jordanian (RJ). Some routings that I found:

Outbound
LAX-LHR(AA) LHR-AMM(BA) AMM-BGW(RJ)
LAX-MCO(AA) MCO-JFK(AA) JFK-AMM(RJ) AMM-BGW(RJ)

Return
BGW-AMM(RJ) AMM-LHR(BA) LHR-LAX(AA)
BGW-AMM(RJ) AMM-ORD(RJ) ORD-LAX(AA)

For the Saver Awards that I found, it will cost 45000 miles each way or 90000 round trip. I had difficulty pricing the ticket for a Standard Award.

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AA does not offer "Standard" awards, only "SAAver" and "AAnytime." AAnytime awards are not valid on partner carriers, so one will never find AAnytime award space to Iraq, as AA does not fly there.

In addition, BGW is served by several AA partners besides RJ, including EY, GF, and QR, none of which will show up on an award search at aa.com; a call to AA is required to book any of those carriers.

It is best to avoid BA long-haul flights when redeeming AA miles: there are hefty cash surcharges assessed for those flights.

I was able to find a flight:

LAX to Abu-Dhabi to Bahrain to Baghdad

Same route on the way back.

It is costing me 135,000 points. I have two questions:

1) Is this a good route? There is a 5-6 hours layover on each of the airports in Abu-Dhabi & Bahrain.

2) It is costing me 135,000 points. My question is, why so many points? Am I missing something?

135,000 miles is the cost of a roundtrip award in Business Class:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...iondefinitions

On AA the lowest award cost is 90,000 roundtrip for economy class.

On UA the lowest award cost is 85,000 round trip for economy class:
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...ardTravel.aspx

Personally, unless there is something one wishes to do in AUH/BAH, I'd look for another routing. With a total of 10-12 hours connections, one might as well find a routing that will allow one to have that entire time as one block so that one can actually sleep or explore the connecting city.

If you do travel through BAH, do not drink the tap water in the airport and be aware that taxis may employee creative fares.

To get to BGW you will have to fly one of the following routes:

CAI-BGW on MS (UA Star Alliance partner)
IST-BGW on TK (UA Star Alliance partner)
AMM-BGW on RJ (AA One World partner)
DOH-BGW on QR (AA One World partner)
BAH-BGW on GF (AA bilateral partner)

Do note that for security reasons, flights to/from BGW may often cancel at the last minute. The airline may provide hotels, but in case they don't do note that hotel costs at BAH & DOH will be higher than those in AMM, CAI, & IST. But do note in all cities prices may very significantly depending upon hotel class.

If you want to fly nonstop to your gateway city, TK provides LAX-IST nonstops and QR provides LAX-DOH nonstops.

Travel via CAI requires a connection at JFK, YYZ or in Europe.
Travel via AMM requires a connection at ORD, DTW, YYZ, JFK or in Europe.
Travel via BAH requires a connection at AUH, DOH, AMM, or in Europe.

What class do you want to travel? What dates are you looking at?

I'm looking to fly anytime from 1st June to 31st August. However, excluding June 20th to July 20th.

I'm only looking for business or first class.

Then your quote of 135k miles was spot on.

So I ended up booking outbound on Uniter and return on American.

However I have 2 questions:

1) Outbound flight is from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Chicago to Amman (Jordan) to Baghdad.

The layover in Phoenix is only 1 hour 10 minutes. So in case the flight gets delayed or anything I can miss my flight from Phoenix to Chicago, right? The layover in Chicago however is 4.5 hours so maybe I should be able to pick another flight from Phoenix? Are these type of short layovers before a long duration international flight preferrable/common?

2) My return flight is Baghdad to Istanbul to Chicago to Los Angeles. The layover in Istanbul is only 55 minutes so again I have the concern of short layover and missing the flight as mentioned above.

Looks like we don't have many options available for Award tickets. Am I worrying for no reason?

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"So I ended up booking outbound on Uniter and return on American."

You will certainly miss your flights if you show up at the United terminal at LAX. Your outbound is not on United.

If you mis-connect somewhere along the way, you do not get to "pick" other flights; the airline that delivered you late to the connecting point is responsible for re-routing you to your destination, which might involve going through completely different cities than what you have on your current itinerary. (You can suggest routings to the airline agent, but the airline ultimately decides how to re-route you.)

Oops sorry its the other way around. Outbound is on American and return is on United lol.

Re your point about the misconnection: Will the airline still allocate me in business/first class?

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Yes, but only if there are available seats. You might have to choose between departing in Coach in two hours, or waiting until the next day for a seat in Business/First.

For your outbound, I wouldn't worry about the connection, if you're remotely on time then you have plenty of time to connect. If you miss it there is another flight 2 hours later that still gives you plenty of time, now if that one has any seats in F on day of departure is another story but you'd get to ORD.

For the return, I've done a similarly tight connection in IST, fortunately my arrival was long haul and arrived early. I even had time for a shower in the lounge before my connecting flight. In your case it's going to be VERY tight since you're arrival is regional, so there is really no arriving early, if its late at all you'll miss it and TK is horrible about dealing with irregular operations. On a UA issued award they may insist that UA does the reroute even though they already have control of the ticket and its their responsibility. Probably if that happens it's going to end up with you spending an unexpected day in Istanbul since there is only 1 IST-ORD per day, frankly I'd be looking at other options since the flight from BGW arrives too late to connect to other US bound flights unless you wait around for the late flight to JFK, but even that forces an overnight in NY as the first PS flight isn't until 6am if you can get on it. Only other *A flight though I see is MS and that flight timing is no more convenient for connecting direct to the US, requiring a night in Cairo.

You could spend a hand full of Avios and take the RJ flight BGW back to AMM where you'd have a wee hours LH flight timed much more favorably. LH flights often open up at T-14 or so for C cabins, sometimes F too.