Honeymoon Help!
Apr 16, 2017 | 9:47 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 1
Honeymoon Help!
Good Afternoon and Happy Easter FlyerTalk!
I need some help. I am extremely overwhelmed trying to learn all about maximizing points for travel. My fiancee and I are getting married September 2nd this year and I want to plan her the most amazing honeymoon.
We know that we want to go to Indonesia and travel around Bali, as well as, a few of the other outer islands. I need some help here with the flights and how to maximize the best use of our miles so we can hopefully fly first/business class to and hopefully from our honeymoon.
Right now I have 130,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards, 93,000 Amax Points, another 80,000 or so RBC points, about 18,000 Capital one points, and a good 75,000 or so Aeroplan points.
We are flying our of either Miami (MIA) or Fort Lauderdale(FLL), There is a perfect flight that leaves Monday Sep 4 on emirates airlines that stops over in Dubi then heads directly to Bali which would be perfect for getting to our location, and the we just need a flight home.
I am totally lost on using all of our miles to maximize their values!
Please Help, and thank you in advance!
I need some help. I am extremely overwhelmed trying to learn all about maximizing points for travel. My fiancee and I are getting married September 2nd this year and I want to plan her the most amazing honeymoon.
We know that we want to go to Indonesia and travel around Bali, as well as, a few of the other outer islands. I need some help here with the flights and how to maximize the best use of our miles so we can hopefully fly first/business class to and hopefully from our honeymoon.
Right now I have 130,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards, 93,000 Amax Points, another 80,000 or so RBC points, about 18,000 Capital one points, and a good 75,000 or so Aeroplan points.
We are flying our of either Miami (MIA) or Fort Lauderdale(FLL), There is a perfect flight that leaves Monday Sep 4 on emirates airlines that stops over in Dubi then heads directly to Bali which would be perfect for getting to our location, and the we just need a flight home.
I am totally lost on using all of our miles to maximize their values!
Please Help, and thank you in advance!
Apr 16, 2017 | 10:55 am
#2
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: New York, NY
Programs: DL Gold. UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt (Lifetime Diamond downgraded to Explorist)
Posts: 6,777
Planning a honeymoon ~4.5 months ahead with points can add a lot of stress to your life. You may do best using an award booking service for this. The cost is relatively small and they figure out how to use your available points in ways you may not even think of.
A short 1-3 days stopover in Dubai might be good too. Break up the long flights & do some high tea and other relaxation before you get to Bali. Another suggestion would be to fly Guardia Indonesia DPS-NRT in F as it's supposed to be quite the experience and then a few days in Tokyo before heading home.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html
A short 1-3 days stopover in Dubai might be good too. Break up the long flights & do some high tea and other relaxation before you get to Bali. Another suggestion would be to fly Guardia Indonesia DPS-NRT in F as it's supposed to be quite the experience and then a few days in Tokyo before heading home.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html
Apr 16, 2017 | 2:32 pm
#3
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: LON, PDX
Programs: DL PM, AS MVP 75K, HH/SPG/MR Gold, Amex Plat, PRG, CSR
Posts: 2,064
Your balances are not conducive to flying Emirates.
Unfortunately you lack critical mass of points concentrated in one program to easily book J or F round trips for two.
While Amex transfers to Aeroplan, Chase does not, preventing you from pooling all your CC points with your existing Aeroplan balance. Regardless, many good Aeroplan redemptions, especially in F, open up close to departure, like a week out. This is impractical for a honeymoon.
Only Singapore, AF/KLM FlyingBlue, and Virgin Atlantic both partner with Chase and Amex. Singapore does not have award flights on that route (you could position to fly IAH-MAN-SIN-CGK on SQ and then fly to Bali on another ticket, but this is impractical and you don't have enough miles anyway.) Virgin Atlantic doesn't work for Bali.
AF/KLM FlyBlue could fly you on your route, but economy awards start at 80,000 miles per person round trip and business starts at 200,000 miles per person round trip. Finding saver level awards 4.5 months out will be very hard anyway.
This is all a very long way of saying that you won't be able to travel in business or first on your miles and points, not even close. I'm sorry.
If it is very important to you, you may wish to budget it in to your wedding/honeymoon. Tickets will probably be around $7,000 per person in business class or $15,000+ per person in First Class. I see some interesting routings that include both ANA and Garuda Indonesia, which would be fun for any premium cabin enthusiast.
Happy planning and congratulations on your engagement.
Unfortunately you lack critical mass of points concentrated in one program to easily book J or F round trips for two.
While Amex transfers to Aeroplan, Chase does not, preventing you from pooling all your CC points with your existing Aeroplan balance. Regardless, many good Aeroplan redemptions, especially in F, open up close to departure, like a week out. This is impractical for a honeymoon.
Only Singapore, AF/KLM FlyingBlue, and Virgin Atlantic both partner with Chase and Amex. Singapore does not have award flights on that route (you could position to fly IAH-MAN-SIN-CGK on SQ and then fly to Bali on another ticket, but this is impractical and you don't have enough miles anyway.) Virgin Atlantic doesn't work for Bali.
AF/KLM FlyBlue could fly you on your route, but economy awards start at 80,000 miles per person round trip and business starts at 200,000 miles per person round trip. Finding saver level awards 4.5 months out will be very hard anyway.
This is all a very long way of saying that you won't be able to travel in business or first on your miles and points, not even close. I'm sorry.
If it is very important to you, you may wish to budget it in to your wedding/honeymoon. Tickets will probably be around $7,000 per person in business class or $15,000+ per person in First Class. I see some interesting routings that include both ANA and Garuda Indonesia, which would be fun for any premium cabin enthusiast.
Happy planning and congratulations on your engagement.
Last edited by C W; Apr 16, 2017 at 3:32 pm
Apr 16, 2017 | 6:45 pm
#4
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 83
Lemme see if I can help.
Buy a revenue ticket from Florida to the West Coast (LAX/SFO)
You already have 130k UR points. Transfer those Singapore Krisflyer along with 46k AmEX points to give you 176k Krisflyer miles. This is enough for two one way Biz tickets US- SE Asia (88k aach)
Routes to/from DPS are
LAX-ICN-SIN-DPS
LAX-NRT-SIN-DPS
SFO-HKG-SIN-DPS
SFO-SIN-DPS
(and obviously the reverse routes)
JFK-FRA-SIN-DPS in biz is available for 184k total (92k per)
You can pay $100 per person for a stop over in each of the stopover cities (FRA, ICN, NRT, HKG, SIN)
I would then transfer your RBC points to American and get two biz tickets for 80k miles to the Middle East (Qatar or Etihad, depending on what city you would rather visi). I would stop over for a couple of days
Buy a revenue ticket from either AUH or DOH to some city in Europe you wanna visit. istabul, Athens, Paris, London, whatever.
Then transfer enough Amex points to aeroplan to get you 110k-115k which will be enough for two tickets back to the US from anywhere in Europe.
Now again there is no guarantee award seats are available, but if they are you need to act fast.
Buy a revenue ticket from Florida to the West Coast (LAX/SFO)
You already have 130k UR points. Transfer those Singapore Krisflyer along with 46k AmEX points to give you 176k Krisflyer miles. This is enough for two one way Biz tickets US- SE Asia (88k aach)
Routes to/from DPS are
LAX-ICN-SIN-DPS
LAX-NRT-SIN-DPS
SFO-HKG-SIN-DPS
SFO-SIN-DPS
(and obviously the reverse routes)
JFK-FRA-SIN-DPS in biz is available for 184k total (92k per)
You can pay $100 per person for a stop over in each of the stopover cities (FRA, ICN, NRT, HKG, SIN)
I would then transfer your RBC points to American and get two biz tickets for 80k miles to the Middle East (Qatar or Etihad, depending on what city you would rather visi). I would stop over for a couple of days
Buy a revenue ticket from either AUH or DOH to some city in Europe you wanna visit. istabul, Athens, Paris, London, whatever.
Then transfer enough Amex points to aeroplan to get you 110k-115k which will be enough for two tickets back to the US from anywhere in Europe.
Now again there is no guarantee award seats are available, but if they are you need to act fast.
Apr 16, 2017 | 6:54 pm
#5
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: LON, PDX
Programs: DL PM, AS MVP 75K, HH/SPG/MR Gold, Amex Plat, PRG, CSR
Posts: 2,064
Very nicely planned out, Ncabanil.
OP, you really do have to act fast if there's any chance of finding space at these levels. Another monkey wrench is that even if you find SQ space the points transfers can take a day or more and the award tickets can vanish during that time.
OP, you really do have to act fast if there's any chance of finding space at these levels. Another monkey wrench is that even if you find SQ space the points transfers can take a day or more and the award tickets can vanish during that time.