SFO/OAK to BKK Point redemption advice needed
 

Hey all,

I'm looking to book a flight late December (~12/21) through New Years to Thailand. I have the following points:

- AAAdvantage - 14,750
- Capital One Venture - 3,149
- SPG - 93,651

Any advice on how to best redeem these points on Cathay Pacific / Etihad / Qatar / Singapore to get over to Thailand? Is there a better airline than the ones I mentioned? I'm willing to pay a little more for service, but I'm curious if the aforementioned airlines are worth the premium.

Thanks,
Vernon

What class? Honestly for the dates you're looking at, it's going to be tough to be picky about dates. But you don't have enough miles for round trip on SQ. The other 3 airlines are bookable with AA miles, which will easily be the winner compared to other oneworld mileage programs. To fly SFO-BKK on Etihad or Qatar would require two awards since AA won't let you transit the Middle East to get to Asia. So that leaves Cathay (quite a choice to be "left" with!). Another option is JAL. I checked and on 12/21 there is SFO-HND-BKK available in Y on JAL.

Until Aug 7th, AA has a promo where you get an additional 5000 miles for 20k miles transferred from SPG, in addition to the 5000 miles you get from SPG. I'd say you should do this now because AA has really good redemption rates to SE asia. 67.5k miles should get you SFO to hong kong and then on to thialand in first class. If you transfer 80k spg points, you'll get 120k AA points, plus your current points which will get you pretty much a round trip ticket in first class on Cathay pacific. (you will have to transfer 60k and then 20k after 24 hours, SPG has a 79,999 limit every 24 hours I believe). The nice thing with AA award is that you can include a gateway flight from your city to the international departing city in the ticket (as long as there is saver availability for a direct flight to that city on AA.com). So you will have all the west coast cathay pacific flights at your disposal in terms of availability (SFO, LAX, and YVR). The other nice thing with cathay pacific is that they almost always release last minute award seats, so if there is nothing now, and you can be flexible with your dates, you can try waiting until 2-3 days before and searching award availability. Do you know how to search? Use british airways website for award flights (you need to be a member). Good luck.

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

AAdvantage partner JL also serves BKK via TYO. JL offers nonstops to TYO from SAN, LAX, SFO, and YVR.