I feel completely defeated
 

So my fiance and I have been trying to book our honeymoon for the past week, trying to take advantage before the American devaluation. We have from November 13th-December 1st for availability and have been trying to find a balance that gives us business class flights on the long hauls, maximizing our miles and getting us to a location that is relaxing and has a beach.

We decided to shoot for bora bora or the maldives and wanted to combine either with a trip to Australia.

Coming out of MIA I figured we'd be able to get something coming out of there to a major gateway (LAX or JFK) but I cannot get a single routing tha tmakes sense.

We have 330K AA miles between us along with 215 UR points for United. Booking 8 months out I was fairly confident we would be able to at least get premium cabins and make some sort of routing work...boy was I wrong.

Right now these are our two options:
JFK to Maldives
JFK>DOH>CMB>MLE on Qatar November 14th business class. This is fantastic, exactly what we need. However the problem is getting to Sydney then getting home.

Option two
LAX to Bora Bora
LAX>PPT Economy
PPT>AKL>SYD Business - my issues here is that we're paying for a business class redemption and I'm reading that the products aren't worth it. We're both small people so is the 30K premium really worth it?

The issue with both of these options is there is virtually no premium cabin space on the way back, i've checked on united and AA and have been trying every possible routing combination I can think of (between november 26th-Dec 1st) and I just can't find any using either.

Now I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and that the thought of being able to redeem for a dream honeymoon was a bit too ambitious. I dont understand how anyone else is able to book these awards, I've been trying for the past 5 days.

I have the bora bora option on hold at the old redemption value, think my best bet is to just buy that hopefully accrue more aa miles and bite the bullet on an aanytime saver award on American. which I'll need an additional 155K between now and november to get. I'm not sure that's possible sicne it took us almost 2 years to get what we have now. united doesn't seem to offer anything viable either.

Considering that you're talking about returning home after the Thanksgiving holiday, it doesn't surprise me you're having difficulty.

At this point, you might want to consider an award booking service. I believe there is a list in the Travel Tools area.

If you didn't book an award already, it's too late (and already was too late at the time of your post). The AA devaluation went into effect today (March 22).

https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...-chart2016.jsp

Given that, you now have some time to figure this out (given that there's no urgency any more to figure it out by any date that's coming up soon).

(Though of course you have to decide soon whether to lock in the Bora Bora you have on hold.)

That's going the wrong way. AA's USA<->South Pacific awards are trans-Pacific only. If you book trans-Atlantic, that requires two awards (in one direction), which significantly increases the award cost.

Assuming you have good credit, it's not necessarily unachievable. Visit this thread:
and this thread:
to figure out how to do a sizeable chunk of it with credit card signups (depending on what AA and/or SPG credit cards you've gotten before and when).

Meanwhile, I'd consider changing destinations before restorting to using AAnytime. Using AAnytime is way more of an increase in miles requirements than the devaluation.

A couple of things are working against you.

First, you're talking about high demand season for travel originating in Australia/NZ; getting premium seats to/from SYD at that time of year is very difficult, regardless of your origin point.

Second, some carriers, in particular Qantas, open redemption booking windows earlier than US carriers, so QFF members have a built-in advantage over AAdvantage members in that they can book the few award seats sooner. That doesn't mean that additional seats won't open as time passes; they can and do, but it's a complete crap shoot and not something you can build definitive plans around.

Not trying to hijack your honeymoon plans (congratulations, by the way) but what if you considered alternative locations than the South Pacific or Indian Ocean? (The Maldives are, by the way, under a great deal of scrutiny with respect to jihadist activities there.) What about South America or SE Asia?

Or - to ask an obvious question - what about a combination of award tickets to some "staging" point, then revenue (paid) tickets after that, or vice-versa? For example, fly to Europe on paid tickets and redeem miles for business class awards to South Africa or Mauritius? Or look for business class awards using AA miles to Europe and use United miles to get from there to Africa or maybe the Seychelles. Sometimes using different mileage programs for different destinations is more successful than going with one.

Keep working at it and good luck!

First destination is MLE, so OP's routing via Middle East is proper and only requires 1 award.

To me, the QR one way award space looks like a very good start. I'd try to build something from that, but you need to be flexible. I like the idea of southeast Asia; there are beach and city choices in that region, and in many places hotels aren't so expensive.

While I sympathize with your problem, and have struggled for award seats in the past, you do need to keep telling yourself this is a 1st world problem.

Maybe something more positive for your title like "Please help me get lucky" or "Any chance of achieving this dream" or ....

Beyond all your other blessings, you are fortunate to be receiving some good advice and ideas on this site. With a little help from your friends here, you might even be able to make it work. Or make something close and also really nice work.

The toughest award ticket I booked was MSP-VIE. Knowing award seats show up ~330 days out, I got up early every morning and checked out that far for 6 weeks. Finally one showed up and I immediately booked it.

Romelle

You're trying to book some of the most desirable tickets in a very desirable cabin during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. I know that bloggers push the "Fly to the Maldives in lie-flat F for free!!!1!!!" idea but it just ain't realistic all of the time.

OP, did you look for plain MIA-MLE (rather than assuming you'd need to get to a gateway like JFK/LAX)? I know you already have something you like for that leg on hold, but there are (IMO) better options than what you have. Like:

11/15: MIA-ZRH-IST-MLE on Swiss/Turkish, business, 80k UA
12/7: MIA-IST-MLE on Turkish, business, 80k UA
11/16: MIA-IST-MLE on Turkish, business/economy, 80k UA (hope business opens up for IST-MLE later)

If you're interested in a day in Abu Dhabi, there's pretty solid availability on Etihad for MLE-AUH in Y connecting to AUH-MEL in F or AUH-SYD in J (on the A380). Unfortunately that's a route that just went up from 45k/60k to 80k/100k for J/F. EY only has 1 flight per day MLE-AUH and it arrives at 10:55pm, so you'd have to (/get to) overnight in Abu Dhabi. One of the AUH-SYD flights (the A380) leaves at 10:05pm, perfect if you want to spend a day in AUH.

As for getting home, that's going to be tough undoubtedly. High season premium class Australia-US. If you're comfortable with the risk, you may want to book the rest and cross your fingers. Air NZ has been releasing business class seats about 3 months out lately, so you could get lucky with that (they fly to LAX, SFO, and IAH from AKL).

+1. Skip australia and add either asia or europe as second destination
AA awards in business changed but not too dramatically overall.

I will assuredly get spanked but, when does the AAdvantage devaluation occur?

Humbly,

Dumbkopf

I actually tried one but I did not like the experience. They didn't really listen at all to what I asked for and in some cases ignored it completely.

You're 100% right. Perhaps that was a bit dramatic, I fully understand that honestly if this is the biggest problem I'm dealing with I'm in good shape (I still have a wedding to plan!). All kidding aside I fully agree, it's just frustrating as this is my first time trying to book an award like this.

I did look at those options although Business class to IST didn't look at nice at QR JFK>DOH, and I had BA miles that could get us MIA to JFK. However I think this might be a bit too much and if we want to do Sydney the BOB is our best bet.

Re: Air NZ, that's an interesting thought...would I be able to book them on united miles transferring UR points?


Appreciate it! I think the reason we zoned in on south pacific was because we've both always wanted to go to australia but with out work schedules it's difficult to get the time off. We figure our best chance is for our honeymoon where we can actually take 2+ weeks off. I've suggested South Africa (been to Cape Town for work and loved it!!) but the fiance is pretty set on tahiti and I have no stronger opinions either way. South America came up but because we live in Miami we figured it would be easier for us to get there another time in terms of days off for a week or so.

[QUOTE=sdsearch;26370365]If you didn't book an award already, it's too late (and already was too late at the time of your post). The AA devaluation went into effect today (March 22).

I have the awards on hold from 2 days ago and I have until tonight to book them at the old award value (according to booking agent), I really hope that's the case.

I REALLY appreciate all the help here, lots of great info from everyone.

This is what I'm thinking now. Downgrade my LAX>PPT>AKL>SYD booking to economy at the old away price (37,500) because we're small and the product on AT and QF in business on those routes aren't worth it.

Use United to book the following
SYD>BKK in business on Thai Airways. 13 hour layover in BKK to see the city
BKK>ICN>LAX in Thai air and asiana business with an 8 hour layover in ICN where I am hoping I can pop out and see a friend for a bit.
LAX>MIA

I just tried to price this out on United and didn't break the system. it came out to 120K each with $200 in taxes

It's a lot of flying but I think it's better than flying SYD>LAX>CLT>MIA in economy on an AA redemption (I have this on hold as well just in case).

Would love people's thoughts on this. Am I trying to do too much, would that be a good use of UR points or should I just roll the dice and hope for AN availability to open up?

Last night

Air Tahiti Nui is TN. Air New Zealand is NZ.


Yes, 80k United.


That should price at 80k. Is each segment available as saver?


Don't forget that United charges $75 to change date/routing on awards or $100 to change pretty much anything else. So you could book something satisfactory now and keep an eye out for something better like Air New Zealand. The fee isn't that terrible to change.