Norcalmom3

Goal: to secure tickets for 2 adults and our 3 kids ages 14, 11 and 9 from SFO to BKK. Securing tickets for business class or first for the long haul flight and/or using our recent 100,000 points through Chase Sapphire

Options: open to Leaving out of LAX, SEA, PDX, etc and other airports within a 2-3 hour flight in order to take adv of any airline promo
And completely open to 24-48 stay in an Asian city as stopover

Dates: Dec 13/14/15, 2017 - January 3/4/5/6, 2018

Questions:
When to watch airline websites for promos for this time frame?
Which airlines won't allow kids up in business/first class?
Any suggestions, thoughts or advice?

trooper

Wow... that's going to be tough. Depending on the amount you actually expect to pay....

I think you can forget First for a start... that 100k miles will likely be enough for ONE rtn Biz ticket....and even with enough miles getting FIVE seats? Almost certainly have to split the group up.....

Otherwise its cash... and those dates cant be seen yet.... but the best prices I can see West Coast to BKK are $3500 per ticket in November....

Yoshi212

I've asked a MOD to merge your two identical threads.

Mwenenzi

The chances of getting 5 or 4 or even 3 premium cabin awards on the same flight is negligible to nil. 2 will be hard. Your dates are a peak travel time
As posts above, plan to pay cash for some in your party, even if flying on different dates/routes

- What research have you done yourself on airline ffp's that could get the trip you want?
- What ffp's are you a member of now? How many ff miles/points?
- What airline ffp’s are common transfer partners of your credit cards? (It does vary by the country of credit card issue)
- Some ffp's allow one way awards. So you could uses 2 or more different ffp's
- Does passport/visa needed effect choice or route?

Credit card transfer links
Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Programs forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l-program.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...mes-rules.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-...-partners.html

Note that FT is not a frequent flyer award search booking service. Nor do we have secret access to awards or cheap flights.
Consider these http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html

Awards assistance tools
Use at your own risk. These may not be up to date. (These are not recommendations)
Award flights are never guaranteed. You need to be flexible with date and route.
Frequent flyer miles/points are not equal to or burn. They are not 1 to 1
If a multi segment award check the rules/cost carefully. With some ffp’s it can be 2 or more awards or cost more ff miles/points than a direct flight.
If the award is on partner airline it may cost more miles/points than an award on the ffp airline.
Some awards/airlines/routes can have cash surcharges, in addition to real taxes.
-AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds --> http://www.awardace.com/
-Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> http://www.flyermiler.com/
-http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ast-miles.html --> http://www.awardhacker.com/