Hi All.

I've been absorbing a lot of information over the last few weeks and have learned a huge amount - almost too much to the point it's becoming a little overwhelming.

I'll try and describe my situation and goals and then ask a few questions to see if you guys can help me with some clarity.

Family: 2 Adults, 1 child (3) and one infant (6 months)
Home Airport: San Diego, CA
Target destinations in next 18 months: Mexico, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Bahamas, San Fransisco, Denver, Tokyo (Family), Sydney, UK (Family)
Reasons for trips: Family vacations of 5+ days leisure only

Current cards: US Airways Barclaycard - 55,000 miles + $99 companion passes
Future Airline cards: SW Personal & Business (targeting the companion pass in Jan 2016 for 3yr old) Citi AAdvantage, Chase Sapphire+Freedom, Amex Premier Rewards maybe Avois??
Future Hotel Cards: Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, Club Carlson

Based on our location and most of our proposed target destinations it seems that SW Airlines would be our best focus for travel which is why we want to try for a companion pass for our eldest child (infant will be good for another 18 months in lap). Is this a wise decision?

I hear a lot of talk about utilizing Avios for short haul flights on BA. Is this only a good deal when spending AVIOS on BA or does the case still hold up when using AA points to book BA short haul flights? Can I pay for BA with AA or AA with Avios??

For our Tokyo goal I'm looking at AA off season flights, but I'd like to spend some time in Hawaii on the outbound leg and Sydney on the return leg from Tokyo. As AA have killed the stopover, am I better going for another Group/Airline/Points to create this route?

Thanks for any help with these basic first quesions.

Yes.

This is a good deal when spending Avios for flights on BA or any of its partners. The mileage price is set by the mileage program. AA has its own set of prices. The good deal is using BA Avios. And the good deal is for short-medium direct flights. That generally means flying to or from a oneworld hub. SAN is not one. But SAN is a focus city for AS (Alaska), so Avios could come in handy for your Hawaii and Mexico (if Cabo or Puerto Vallarta) travel goals. And SF if you're willing to fly into Santa Rosa.

LOL. Sydney isn't really on the way back from Tokyo. UA miles may let you route HNL-NRT-(stop)-SYD-(destination)-SAN but it would cost 75K miles (use Avios for SAN-Hawaii for 12.5K). If not I think UA would charge 87.5K for 3 one ways (HNL-NRT, NRT-SYD, SYD-SAN) and AA would charge 92.5K assuming off-peak HNL-NRT.

griffindodd Welcome to the forum

Airlines in the large alliances all have many frequent flyer partner airlines that you can earn and burn (use) ff miles on.
SW has a limited range of freq flyer partners: not a lot of use for international travel.
USA based airline freq flyer programmes tend to be far more generous than non USA ffp's:- earn to burn is what matters

BA operated short haul flights are only UK to Europe. You may be getting confused about using BA avois to book award flights on AA domestic flights (short haul) with BA avios:- these can be good value. The AA ffp charges high cash surcharges on BA operated long haul flights booked with AA miles.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

Thanks for the feedback guys.

OK say Avios points are useful for short haul domestic US if I am using them to book AA flights for example? Also Avios for Alaska to get me off to Mexico and Hawaii sounds like the right direction.

Glad I picked the right option in SW for the companion pass with the kids for our general 'local travel' option. With their new routes in Costa Rica, Mexico and the Bahamas opening this year they should give the family some nice vacation destinations that aren't too far in flight times or too high in price especially when combined with the Companion pass.

As for the international flights to Aus, Tokyo and London/Manchester it looks like just focusing on Chase and Amex points will leave my options open the widest and I can always use AA off-peak to try and cover the larger portion of the miles for a low price.

Aspirational travel is very tempting and exciting, but with two young children the likelihood of myself and my wife jet setting first class to exotic destinations isn't in our future any time soon. So for now we are better focusing on high value, short distance hops to family friendly destinations.

Discovered a great little haul of treasure yesterday in my wife's old United account - 93,000 miles !!!! So that really helped us get off to a good start with planning some of our future trips. I think we'll hold on to them for a trip to Europe and the UK - for 180k RT I can take my wife, myself, daughter and infant in lap so we are already half way there on that trip.

I'll soon have about 55k US/AA miles and the 2x $99 companion tickets from the US Airways Barclaycard offer which recently died. As the companion tickets have quite a lot of restrictions and are US Domestic only I was wondering if I could use them for a trip for us all to go to Alaska from San Diego (home). Same passenger build of me paying full fare (maybe in points maybe not) my wife and daughter using the $99 passes and then infant in lap for my youngest.

[Edit]Those weak ... coupons are no good for Alaska - ggrrrrrrr[Edit]

Later in the year we will be going for Avois points to get the 25k Hawaii RT seats and also Marriott points (2x cards for total 100k and 2 free nights) to stay at the Ritz Carlton in Kapalua. I noticed that if you redeem points for 4 nights you get a 5th free at this location, I was wondering if the 2 free nights counted toward the 4 so we could combine 2 free nights+80k points (2 nights at 40k) to get our 5th night free? If so that would be a pretty damn sweet 5 night stay at a top notch hotel for our trip.