puls

I didn't mean to suggest that there were more options that you hadn't already considered; rather, by "there are a limited number of ways" I meant "the list is pretty small, and you've already looked at everything". You should probably book that routing through PEK and consider changing it later on if something better comes up.

United does fly SFO-FLL, for what it's worth.

farbster

You might also consider looking at Expert Flyer to set some alerts. Not sure what airlines work with EF, but you should check it out. I booked my inlaws to Australia and I set up an alert on Expert Flyer for the Syd-LAX flight in biz/first. Wouldn't you know, the award came up while they were in Australia! Luckily, I had booked their return as a one-way using Korean points and I had not yet transferred the points to Korean from Chase UR, so all was good

Also, the suggestion of using an award booker is a good one I think.

dukerau

A refundable ticket SYD-MIA?! Better off booking the UA award on CA metal and pay to cancel/change if something better opens up.

manneca

I've seen lots of UA saver awards open up from 2 days to a week ahead. It's certainly a risk. Depending on whether you're subject to close in booking fees and change fees, you could book a standard award and then rebook. Of course, then you'd be stuck with the miles in UA's program.

Aero137

Have you looked at transferring to Korean Air? Seems like they have a good product, and they have very good availability around your dates. It would be 97.5k each way in Biz (or 120k in First).

A few challenges though:
1) Since it is one-way, your booking will have to be all on KE, thus you will need to have a second ticket from a KE US destination (probably ATL or JFK). This is easily done with UR, MR, or BA points/miles.
2) You will have to have an overnight in Seoul or at your US gateway.
3) If you aren't yet married or don't live together, you will have a challenge booking your partner's award.

Kiwi Flyer

Don't forget there are routing options via South America.

Qantas and LAN both fly SYD-SCL, and LAN flies SCL-MIA.
Air NZ flies AKL-EZE and UA flies EZE-IAH-MIA.

Duke787

MEL - PEK on the A330 is a perfectly fine flight. I flew home from SYD in 2014 on SYD - PEK - NRT (both CA A330s) - IAD (NH). While it's certainly no SQ or NH it's perfectly acceptable for what amounts to a long redeye flight. They (CA) use the same J seats as TK does on the A330 which are perfect for sleeping.

When it comes to award tickets, A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush unless you are someone who is okay with gambling and making a last minute booking (the best availability for OZ/US flights is either at T-331 or at T-14 and less and T-331 has passed). Plus you can change the routing (for a relatively small fee) when you get closer to departure if/when better options open up.

Also on a UA award ticket you can have a layover of 23:59 (hours:minutes) so you could try and do something like:

MEL - PEK (overnight layover so you can poke around PEK a bit) - XYZ - USA.

mheals16

Hey all,
Thanks to everyone for all the help and suggestions, this is my first major award booking (involving multiple flights and airlines) so everyone's help was extremely appreciated.

Going off the advice from many of you, since there was availability on the dates we needed, in business class, I decided to book the following:

MEL>PEK on CA in I on their 330
@Duke787, thanks for the info on CA A330s. I am sure we will enjoy our flight.

PEK>EWR on UA in I on the 777.
We decided to try United so we can get a taste of Air China and United (I haven't flown UA in over 10 years). I've heard mixed things about their service but their new business first 2-2-2 config looks pretty nice. Either way, I've heard they have a better IFE system, it gets us to the east coast, and the direct flights are great.

I'm pretty happy with what we have. Over $14K in flights for 160K UR points I think is a great redemption value, better than what we got with AA on the outbound flights.

I might monitor EF for flights on airlines with better reviews, but I'm pretty excited that we have Business class all the way home, and get a nice 9-hour stopover in PEK to hopefully see a bit of the city.

Thanks again for all the help, this is going to be a once in a lifetime honeymoon!

Mwenenzi

A good out come ^
You will need to carefuly check visa requirements
If MEL-PEK and PEK-EWR are seperate tickets/PNR's the transfer between is at your own risk.

Duke787

I think that's a smart call on your part. Use EF and keep checking from time to time. You might get lucky and get NH J or OZ J which would be a routing I would recommend (something like MEL - BKK - NRT/ICN - ORD/IAH/LAX/JFK - MIA

Of course I would 100% set an EF alert for the MEL - LAX flight on UA. Unless you really want to have a brief time in Beijing it might be worth making the switch if that other opens up.

erik123

FJ has a good fare SYD-LAX and you can stop over in Fiji. That's what I would've done with a separate ticket from LAX.

JDiver

FJ is also an AA partner, and can offer AAdvantage award seats via Nadi.

Ncabanil

If you have time still, i would look out for award availability on Air New Zealand for PPT-AKL-SYD. The cost would be 35K Singapore Krisflyer Miles for TWO business class tickets (not each). You mentioned you used 70K AA miles for two tickets (i believe its 60K?) so you'd be getting business class flights for much fewer miles (all things being equal). Since there is no lie-flat business class on any airline flying AKL-PPT or the reverse, you aren't really losing much moving from Air Tahiti Nui (which is the airline i'm assuming you are flying PPT-AKL) to Air New Zealand for that flight, and Air New Zealand also has a lie flat product on AKL-SYD depending on the airline and flight you choose, so it should be competitive with the Qantas flight AKL-PPT (which again i'm assuming you are flying). There's also the added plus of the food/drink on Air New Zealand which is hear is terrific.

mikelat

I'd also take a look at pricing for MEL-LAX on UA. I was surprised to find it at $604 one-way for a V fare and it had immediate ability to then use a GPU to upgrade.

s0ssos

Only $2500 on UA.
Actually calling and trying to get a refund is another thing altogether