Mission Impossible Or not??
 

Hello everyone,

I've been a Frequent Flyer for many years and thought I was quite knowledgeable of the various FFP systems until this new task presented itself... and mostly, until I found this forum through KVS Tool (just downloaded). I just realized I am quite the novice!

So here is what I am trying to accomplish and I hope you can point me in the right direction.

I'm planning our honeymoon for September 2016. Before the flight schedule posts to the various airlines (I believe 355 days is the furthest one can book) I wanted to research on how to best make use of the miles and Amex points I have saved over the past few years for this special occasion.

Right now I have 100,000 miles on American Airlines and I have 360,000 points on Amex Rewards points.

Here's the flight plan so far after these past weeks of research:

SFO-FCO: First stop for the wedding
FCO-DXB-MLE: We would like to spend a couple of nights in Dubai so this would be a long transit, ticket would be FCO to MLE via DXB.

MLE-SIN-SFO: We would like to spend a couple of nights in Singapore, so again a long transit in Singapore. Ticket would be MLE to SFO via SIN.

Goal: Travel Business Class all the way.
All tickets need to be Award Savers or the miles I have are not enough...

Looking at the AA award site it seems I can fly us Business Class for 50,000 miles each from SFO to Chicago (ORD) on AA then to Germany on Air Berlin, then final destination to Rome (FCO) IF I can catch the award saver fare.

Amex points can be transferred only to certain airlines. Looking at the list here's how I thought of using them:

I would transfer 180,000 points from Amex to Emirates Skyward and book with Emirates an award flight (their equivalent of Saver) to Male (Maldives) with stopover in Dubai from Rome (FCO). I called and they said it can be done once the fares are available (not before 12 months from departure date of course).

I would then transfer the last 180,000 points from Amex to Singapore Airlines and book with Singapore another award flight (their equivalent of Saver) to San Franscisco via Singapore, with a long transit in Singapore. I called and they also said this is possible once the fares are available.

So three separate bookings, three airlines, all Business Class.

Do you think this is doable? If so when exactly should I be contacting the airlines given that the dates we are planning our trip are:

Sept 12 SFO-FCO

Sept 20 SFO-DXB then Sept 22 DXB-MLE

Sept 29 MLE-SIN then Oct 1 SIN-SFO

OR

Should I just use and Award Booking Service for this?

Thank you all in advance for any input you can give me to make this plan come alive!

Sincerely
Leonardo

Seems doable if there is space. Even if there isn't any when the schedule opens, there may be some later on. Different airlines release space at different times though - not all are 355.

If there ends up being nothing between say, Frankfurt and Rome, you could always buy a cash ticket for that short hop.

Thank you so much for that link! Very helpful!

Sounds like you have fairly fixed dates, but maybe flexible on the pieces after the wedding (FCO onwards)?

90K Amex per person for Emirates FCO-MLE, even with a stopover in DXB, is very pricey. For example, AA won't allow a stopover, but FCO-AUH-DXB on Etihad would be 30K per person in business and DXB-AUH-MLE would be 25K per person in business. So you get a functional stopover, albeit with a connection each time. Or you could do your "stopover" in Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai. This would require another 10K AA miles, but you have time.

Another option for the US-Europe flight (I think this one will be the toughest, especially if you are counting on AA miles, so it's good to have backups) is Aeroplan, which charges 45K for SFO-FCO in J. As long as you fly on UA, TK, SK, SN, or SR, there are no fuel surcharges. Delta could also be an option with their Alitalia partnership. Also, keep in mind that Iberia availability doesn't show up on aa.com. They serve LAX, ORD, MIA, and JFK to/from MAD, so that could be a 2-stop itinerary to Rome if necessary. If availability is tough, yet another option is using DL miles to get to London on Virgin Atlantic, then BA Avios for LON-FCO. I single out Virgin Atlantic here because I generally find their availability much better than DL's own metal.

Congratulations!

I haven't done the math, but if you have enough miles/points to fly first class instead of business for any of your legs along the way, that would be even greater. Perhaps the best option: Singapore business class is fantastic, but if you could nab the first class suites on its SIN-NRT-LAX A380 route (and then tag on a final short hop on a separate paid ticket on some other airline to get to SFO), it would be a fantastic way to end your honeymoon. (For that matter, SQ also flies SIN-HKG-SFO but not on the A380, so F on that route would be great but not as special as the suites.)

If after your other award bookings you won't have enough Amex points to get you two SQ F tix (assuming they become available for awards), you could try to bag additional Chase Sapphire Ultimate Reward, Citi ThankYou or Starwood Amex credit card bonuses for initial spending, since like the Amex points all of them can be converted into Krisflyer miles. (The conversions can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days, though perhaps a bit longer if you try to do them over weekends.)

Finally, one thing you should be aware of is that if you book SQ award flights online there is a 15 percent discount in miles necessary for the booking.

Hope it all works out!

Also note there are low cost carrier flying Mle-Sin (Tiger maybe?) which would save some miles.

Yes after FCO they are slighly flexible, but we have to fit everything (wedding and honeymoon) in a 3 week span unfortunately and need to have a 7 night in Rome + 7 night in Maldives + 2 night in Dubai + 2 night in Singapore, this is definitely Mission Impossible!

Very good idea, I'll keep this open for sure in case Emirates falls through. We also have to consider the experience factor, flying Emirates Business would be quite a treat for a honeymoon trip I believe. Trying to make the lady happy :)

Aeroplan could definitely be an option as i can tranfer from Amex to Aeroplan too. Thanks for the idea. I could switch AA miles for the FCO-MLE route and use Amex to get to Europe. Yes its definitely good to have backups.

The problem I see here is that I don't have DL miles but i guess i could xfer Amex points to Alitalia and book through them I suppose.

Amex transfer to DL

That would be amazing if i can get the Suites from NRT to LAX, totally worth it! I'm afraid i don't have enough miles though :(

Thank you all for the great advice!

Oh yes! Missed that, thanks!

With AA, you can book awards 330 days out. Many awards don't show on aa.com (but signing up for a free BAEC account with BA will give you more airlines to search). Once you find availability, call AA (no phone fees if you can't book it on aa.com).

Look at other airlines, not just those you've mentioned, for SFO-FCO, etc. For using AA miles see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

and

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...es-2014-a.html

Be sure to read the thread wikis; they contain a lot of useful information.

Your itinerary almost suggests a round the world ticket, but I don't think you have enough miles on one carrier for two of them in business class.

I would also look into LX (Swiss) from SFO-FCO. Some say the A343 J product is outdated but I still rather like it. Great for individuals and couples. Doing SFO-FCO on LX, MLE-SIN-NRT-LAX might qualify for RTW ticketing. Not sure if you have enough miles for this but if so would be worth looking into and then focusing on EY for the FCO-MLE with Dubai layover.

Look at aeroplan as they allow 2 stopovers on a r/t and you can also do one stopover and open-jaw. Not all routings are allowed though.

Thank you all again for the amazing input.
I have another question...
I understand that Airlines open up their award space at different times. One of the links suggested here say the following:

Air Canada Aeroplan..............................356 days
Air France Flying Blue............................305 days
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan....................331 days
All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club.....356 days
American AAdvantage............................331 days
Avianca LifeMiles..................................360 days
British Airways Executive Club................355 days
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles........................360 days
Delta SkyMiles......................................331 days
Emirates Skywards...............................340 days
Lufthansa Miles & More.........................359 days
Qantas Frequent Flyer..........................353 days
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer...................355 days
United MileagePlus...............................338 days

But I also read that some airlines open their award space to partners before they do to their own frequent flyers.

Since so far I'm looking at the following airlines: BA, AA, EK and SQ
Do you know if these airlines do open to their partners the award seats in Business before their own members? If so where do I find this information?

Thanks!

Leonardo

In my experience, if anything, it's the other way round. Qantas lets its own frequent flyers grab awards at 353 days out, but someone who wants to use AA miles has to wait another three weeks. By then a lot has been taken. It's not as bad as it might be, since demand by AA members (mostly from North America) tends to be mostly in seasons when QF members (mostly from Australia) wouldn't want to travel, but it's still a concern.

This specific situation has been discussed a great deal, both in the AA forum and in the various threads about the annual May FlyerTalk get-together in Australia* (OzFest), which many Yanks attend. I can't be as specific about other partnerships, but I suspect it's similar: either awards open up to everyone at the same time, or the airline's own program members get first dibs.

______________________________
*And once in New Zealand, earlier this year. Back to Oz in 2016.

Afraid I can't answer your question. But one tool you might want to check for award availability is awardnexus.com I believe that it offers some initial, free use for FlyerTalk members. I don't think it covers SQ, but might be useful for getting a sense of whether and how far in advance the three airlines you have in mind open up awards, and whether there might be other options out there.

Having said that, even if you find something on awardnexus.com, best to check the airline's site or call the airline yourself to confirm. And conversely, though awardnexus is usually very good, there can be times when it misses availability. So I'm not suggesting it as a substitute for the other research you're doing. But it can supplement those efforts.

SFO-FCO
 

I can only make suggestions for this leg as I just booked for next June but our of NY. It looks like on some days AA does open up business seats on the JFK-FCO flight, but not frequently. I booked JFK-DUS-FCO on AB at 330 days out. Since the flight is an overnight flight it really ended up being 229 days out. If you look at the AA calendar when you put in your date you will easily see when they should open up. I found that although it showed availability on the first day of opening I could not book it for one more day as the leg from DUS-FCO was the next day.

I would think that if you look at the various gateway cities that AA/IB flies to either FCO or to Germany you could snag the TATL portion and then easily piece in what you need from SFO.

Hi everyone,
Trying to understand how to use the tools at hand and needed an explanation on something...

I just ran a test search on KVS Tool for July 26th 2016 SFO-LHR then LHR-FCO.
KVS shows me (with 351 days to go) that BA has two seats from SFO to LHR in business.

I went on BA website and its confirmed those two seats are available. Avios points needed 125,000 + $959 in taxes and fuel surcharge!!.

Since I have miles on AA (50,000 per person is what AA charges instead), I then go to AA.com, but it won't let me search that far ahead, given the 331 days limit they have I assume.

Knowing that BA has availability, if i call AA, would they book me the award flight or also by phone I need to wait 331 days before i can contact AA for this award flight?

Thank you all as always!

Leonardo

Based on an article I read recently, you'd have to wait. Some people used to book using Avios, then when the 331 days time frame approached, they'd cancel and immediately book using AA miles. *But*, the main point of the article was that this "trick" was no longer working flawlessly. The canceled reservation seats would sometimes (most of the times?) not show up as available again.

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

It doesn't matter whether you call or use aa.com: AAdvantage awards cannot be booked more than 331 days before departure.

And even though AA charges fewer miles for SFO-LHR-FCO on BA, the taxes and surcharges will be comparable to what BA quoted you.

Perfect thanks for the input!
At this point I think we'll push for a AA flight so not to throw away $$ in taxes and fuel surcharges :)

Hello everyone,

A little update on this "master plan"... all possible thanks to all your great advice.

My mile bank has changed as I was able to earn another 110,000 Ultimate Chase Rewards in this past month and a half (Chase Sapphire for both myself and my fiance'..)
So now the intinerary has changed :)

SFO-JFK in American Airlines First. Trying to catch the 8.40am flight from SFO and fly a premium product of AA (First class 32,500 miles one way each). For this we are covered as we have enough miles (100,000 on AAdvantage)

JFK-FRA-SIN-MLE on Singapore with TWO stopovers, in FRA the first (for the wedding week in Italy) and the second one in SIN for two inghts. Goal is to fly Suites on the JFK-FRA-SIN route, then business to MLE from SIN as they don't offer First on that route. Cost should be 224,400 and $722 in YQ for two people. This is the hard one, but i've learned to get waitlisted first, then book business then call in often to checkin on the waitlisting to Suites... fingers crossed! This one seems hard to get but I will be persistent in checking daily with KVS tool the availability of the award on SQ.

MLE-DXB-SFO on Emirates with ONE stopover in Dubai for two nights. Cost 247,500 miles for two ppl in Business. I'll book this first then try and stockup more miles before our departure date so as to try an upgrade to First as well.

Funny how one starts planning in Business and ends up WANTING First... all the way :)

Another couple of weeks and the award seats should start showing on the websites, let's see if I can make this work....

Thanks again to all!
Leonardo

Congratulations on all the good planning!

If by some chance you don't land two F seats on an AA SFO-JFK flight and have to "settle" for J, don't worry about it. Certainly, F is a nicer and roomier seat and thus a bit more of a special experience But it has the disadvantage for a couple of your not sitting next to each other and sharing the ride. Plus J is lie-flat as well (if you'd even want that on a five-hour daytime flight) and perfectly comfortable, and you get to sit right next to each other.

My only other advice for that flight is if you end up in J, sit at least a row back (starting in row 7, that is), from where the galley and toilet are located. Similarly, sit at least a row forward from them if in F.

I know the feeling!

Thank you for the recommendation! I totally agree. Will focus on J for SFO-JFK. Makes totally sense to travel together on a transcontinental flight. And also great advice on the seat rows!

Today I checked again Emirates.com availability and something does not add up. I thought their availability was up to 340 days out. Today it show Aug 24th 2016 availability and not beyond. That is 328 days out... has something changed with Emirates? Maybe the website source I'm using is wrong.

Thanks!