peachman

I read that KE has great availability for award flights in Bus and FC. This is true
because when I searched I found Bus seats on almost any dates I checked.

If I want to get to Asia which airlines have good availability for award flights for
the least amount of miles like KE ?

From past experiencesI know I should not ask 2 questions in 1 thread,LOL,
but here goes. No matter how much i read on this site and the many blogs
I do not understand how to find and get International award flights for the least number of miles using the Alliances. For ex my KE Bus flight from ATL to
BKK cost only 150,000 miles thru their website. Searching on Delta IF I look
10-11 months ahead I might find 1 option and the lowest cost I saw was
95,000 one way in Bus. Needless to write I booked my flight direct thru KE.

I have been lucky enough to book over 15 in Bus or FC using miles but only
thru the US big 3-DE,AA,and UA. IF there is no easy way to explain this I
would be more than happy to Pay for a phone consult if someone could explain
to me how to use and find the lowest award flights for International travel.

Thanks to all and of course I would gladly take PMs if anyone is so inclined !!

dukerau

There are several websites/tools that give you the price for a selection of many frequent flyer programs based on your given route/class combination. This FM post reviews some of the major ones:
http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.co...-study-part-1/

These tools aren't always 100% accurate, but they're a good place to start!

As for Asia, Alaska miles are some of the cheapest and their partner Cathay Pacific has relatively good award availability in J/F if you're booking far out (11 months) or close in (within 2 weeks). ANA is also good and has same availability as United, but ANA does collect fuel surcharges if the airline you're flying on charges them. AA's prices aren't bad either, and they partner with Cathay and JAL.

peachman

First of all Thank You for your help.

I was told that Alaska has low award cost and good availability,BUT to my knowledge their
CC only offers 30,000 bonus miles and they only belong to SPG group which only offers
25,000 on their CC. It would take me forever to accrue enough miles even if it only cost
100,000 to Asia in Bus. I am retired and thankfully my overhead is low.

Now are you suggesting that CP is also a candidate if I book direct thru their website
because I am pretty sure they are a partner with Ultimate rewards and it would be easire
for me to accrue UR points ??

I agree about AA. Luckily the trip I took last year I booked with AA before their big increase in award costs. I was lucky enough to get a JapanA FC flight. Great first time
experience in a non US airline FC product. But currently I have been reading their availability for award flights to Asia are hard to find ? Plus I can not understand why they
make you call for flights to Asia when awards to Europe are on their website ?

dukerau

I was saying that you can use Alaska miles to fly on Cathay. CX's prices aren't terrible themselves for many routes, so that's worth considering as well. However, Chase doesn't transfer to CX (Asia Miles). Amex and Citi do, though.

AA's availability is very bad, but you can still book on their partners, like CX and JL for Asia. The problem is finding domestic connections to get to an international gateway since AA releases so little. But with you flying out of ATL, I often see good availability for ATL-ORD, so that might do the trick.

I've mentioned many times in posts on here when people complain about how many AA partners require calling in....be careful what you wish for. If all AA partners were bookable online, their award availability would be markedly worse.

evor1

ANA is really cheap to asia. I just booked a business class ticket for 93k miles from lax to japan.

you can open many amex cards to get points and transfer to ana or chase cards and transfer to virgin to book ana.

but a lot of times i'll book korean air because they allow stopover in seoul. so typically ill stay in seoul for a week then fly somewhere like hong kong and its all the same price as if you just flew to korea.

Productivity

This to me is the dishonesty of the bloggers. Sign up for this card, get business class flights just isn't true unless you have a large burn rate to acquire through spend as well as bonus. But they keep pushing them because they get paid per sign up.

peachman

ANA is really cheap to asia. I just booked a business class ticket for 93k miles from lax to japan.

Evor1-Is the above flight roundtrip or 1 way ?

evor1

roundtrip

84fiero

The Alaska card is generally churnable, though recently not to the extremes that it once was. There is also a business version if you have something that qualifies. I'd recommend digesting the latest in this thread on the AS cards before applying and especially before planning to churn it:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...ow-30k-38.html

Thread on booking CX awards with AS miles...

Cathay Pacific (CX) Award Redemption, Booking and Availability – 2017 and Later