What flights provide the best value for miles?
 

I've been accruing miles for a couple years now and would like to take my wife on a premium cabin trip sometime in about a year. The destination doesn't matter so much as the chance to fly in a premium cabin for the first time in both of our lives. So far my account balances are as follows: 150k Membership Rewards, 110k Ultimate Rewards, 160k AAdvantage, 60k Skypesos, 35k SPG.

What routes, offer some of the best values in terms of the premium experience to cost in miles? I ask this now so that I can have time to acquire more miles based on what we decide to do. Right now one option I'm looking at is using the AAdvantage miles to fly to Europe in business class for 50k/per person and then returning via Lufthansa First Class using Aeroplan miles transferred from my Membership Rewards. Are there any better options?

Singapore suites, JFK-FRA. Amex, Chase, and SPG points all transfer to KrisFlyer miles.

Big4Flyer, are you going to be awake for the experience?

Since you're based on the west coast (like I am), I would think that eastbound you'd want a flight from the west coast, to get the best sleep up front (it'll be about a 10ish hour flight). Then try a different airline westbound (where you presumably don't need to sleep much).

There's no need to fly the same airline in both directions, and you'll sample two (or more) experiences if you fly a different airline in each direction. And if you choose the Singapore Suites on the return, FRA-JFK, you'll be trying three, because you'll have connect to something else domestically.

In fact, you don't have enough miles (or stuff transferable to miles) to necessarily fly both people up front on the same airline in both directions. So look at the possibilities separately for what you fly eastbound and what you fly westbound.

Having said all the above: Finding availability with miles (without high fees) on a nonstop from the west coast can sometimes be tricky; the more flexibility (of dates and/or program) the easier it may be. I have miles in all three alliances, and very often when planning a particular trip to Europe only one of the three can get me there on my preferred dates with a nonstop from the west coast.

So it's fine to plan what airline you'd like to fly, but if it doesn't have availability when you actually want to fly, you have to have lots of backup plans.

What flight provides the best value in theory and what flight provides the best value at the moment you want to book can be very different!

That's similar to many of my plans. Which often go up in smoke once I check availability. Very often there's no AA "saver" availability, just lots of BA with super-high "YQ" fees. (There may or may not be availability with other AA partners that don't show up on aa.com and don't have such high fees.) Very often Lufthansa doesn't make business class available until a few days before departure, and you have to book something else and hope that you can change to Lufthansa at the very last minute.

Great that you're planning ahead this way.

Purely in terms of the experience itself, I'd highly recommend Singapore Airlines. Really, the best airline in the world of the combination of seats, service, reliability, etc.

Here's SQ's award chart:

https://www.singaporeair.com/pdf/pps...wardCharts.pdf

Be aware that if you book online, or have a routing that combines F and J so that you can't book online and must do it by phone, you get a 15 percent discount off of the chart figures.

You can convert MR, UR and SPG points to SQ Krisflyer miles. Between the MR, UR and SPG programs, you have enough points to equal about 300K SQ miles. (The SPG point convert at the rate of 1 SPG = 1.25 SQ, if you convert 20K miles at a time. The other two programs convert at a rate of 1 = 1.)

If you can get your total SQ miles up to about 320K miles, that gets you either: 1) Out to SE Asia (including Singapore) in J and back in F; or 2) Out to Hong Kong in F (since it requires fewer miles than SE Asia) and back from SE Asia in F. For option 2, you could hop to get you from HKG to SE Asia if necessary. Or simply accrue more miles before you book.

SQ J is fantastic, but the real prize you should aim for to make the experience especially special is the SQ F A380 suites that in effect let you and your wife have something like a double bed in a somewhat enclosed mini-cabin. It's only available on certain routes - from the West Coast, it's on LAX-NRT-SIN. There are no guarantees, but booking about 330 days in advance (or whenever exactly SQ opens up its award seats) should give you a shot at snagging two center suites in the A380 F cabin.

As I noted, SQ J is great and "regular" SQ F on 777s is even better. But the top of the line experience with the points you have is SQ F on the A380.

If you do go with SQ, I'd suggest flying F on the way back from SIN because that will give you access to its very nice lounge, The Private Room, reserved only for SQ F passengers. In addition, the SIN itself is an experience worth exploring for a few hours, including its unique Butterfly Garden.

There's lots more I can add, but to flesh out this option you might want to explore the SQ forum.

Having said all this, you do have enough AA miles to snag CX F or J to HKG and beyond, and CX is another fantastic airline. It's just that its award availability has been more restricted lately. But you might have a shot if you aim to grab the seats at its 330-day (or whenever) window when award seats open up. Be aware that AA's awards undergo a significant devaluation around March 22, so you'd want to book before then.

As for where to go:

HKG is a fantastic, fascinating city, and very scenic. English widely spoken.
SIN is not as scenic or interesting, but could well be worth a few days to explore. And extremely easy to manage if you have never had any Asian travel experience before. Again, English widely spoken.
Thailand is our single favorite destination in the world, for the beaches, the culture, the food, etc. Also, quite inexpensive for that great food plus wonderful hotels. (Well, really there are wonderful hotels in all of SE Asia and Hong Kong.)
Luang Prabang and other parts of Laos are even more exotic, with LP being a UNESCO Heritage Site. But they can be a bit more challenging (though by no means impossible) if no prior experience in that part of the world.

If you're absolutely committed to Europe, then I agree that the SQ A380 suites JFK-FRA would be great (though only about seven hours to enjoy then, as opposed to more than twice that for LAX-NRT-SIN).

Hope this helps!

I would argue that the short overnight hop from JFK to FRA is not a very good way to 'experience' SQ Suites. It's great to maximise sleep but it sounds like you want to be pampered. Also, expecting LH F to open up for AC points is wishful thinking. These tend to get released to partners at T-2 weeks (if at all), which may be too close in for your liking.

What flights provide the best value for miles?
 

The "best value" is completely subjective. For some, it is tied to the price of a cash ticket. For others, it's only a good value if you'd be buying that ticket anyway and actually thus saves you tax. Dates matter. A roundtrip ticket to Orlando with 4 seats in coach on a school vacation is probably a better "value" for 50000 miles each is probably a better value than a Lufthansa First flight from the US light in the dead of winter at 160000 miles. but in summer it might be the opposite

For me, the best value is the best flight that gets you where you want to go when you want to go. Sometimes that leads to me choosing a super lux flight, sometimes it doesnt.

+1

Even though I'd mentioned the SQ trans-Atlantic option in my own reply, upon reflection I agree that it really is not great for really enjoying the experience.

Also agree re the LH F comment.

I know you seem to care the most about the flight, but I would suggest finding a destination that you're excited about and then find the best flights to get there. Do you really want to take your time to go somewhere mediocre just so you can say you flew in a certain kind of cabin? What happens when there is an equipment change? Or you miss the flight due to connection and have to fly on an alternate airplane?

What do you and your wife like to do? I'd find a vacation spot based on that and not the kind of airplane you'll fly.

I have had a few premium cabin experiences on points, but what we really loved the most about our trip to Bali/Singapore/HK and Belgium/Vienna/Marbella is the touring and hotels...not the premium class flights we took (and they were very nice!).

Just my 2 cents.

While I agree with that in general, taking a *A flight to FRA lets you add a connection to lots of places in Europe for no extra miles. So as long you can find a place you'd like to go in western Europe, you can base that around a longhaul flight to FRA. And I find it hard to believe that they couldn't find someplace in Europe they'd like to go.

It's a little more complicated in some other parts of the world, where many airlines split a continent into multiple pieces, with redemption rates being different, but the details vary depending on whose miles you're using. So it's a little harder to explain how far you can go with the same number of miles by adding a connecting flight from NRT or HKG or LIM as it is explain how far you can go with the same number of miles by adding a connecting flight from FRA.

Obviously, such connecting flights won't be at the same level of comfort, but perhaps that would even more accentuate what a good experience the longhaul flight was.