LAX - NRT award help
Apr 18, 2018 | 4:57 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 54
LAX - NRT award help
Planning a trip for two almost exactly a year from now LAX - NRT and curious on best strategy to get two saver seats in J. What I have to work with as of today is about 300K chase UR points and my wife and I each have around 115K miles in each of our AA accounts. Due to some scheduling issues our ideal travel days are April 6 2019 out and April 20 returning. I know that makes things more difficult being Saturday both ways.
I pose the question now because I just started looking today and see that Singapore's schedule extends to two days past our ideal departure date with no waitlist available so I may have just missed it...unless it's never available on a saturday. ANA booked via Virgin Atlantic would be wonderful and I know they sometimes have Saturday via the United site but not sure I'd ever find the RT availability required for that award. Other options? Or do I not stress about it this early and work it out later?
No elite status. Used to be AA PLT but no longer travel for work so that was lost.
I pose the question now because I just started looking today and see that Singapore's schedule extends to two days past our ideal departure date with no waitlist available so I may have just missed it...unless it's never available on a saturday. ANA booked via Virgin Atlantic would be wonderful and I know they sometimes have Saturday via the United site but not sure I'd ever find the RT availability required for that award. Other options? Or do I not stress about it this early and work it out later?
No elite status. Used to be AA PLT but no longer travel for work so that was lost.
Last edited by dancefreak; Apr 18, 2018 at 4:59 pm Reason: more details
Apr 19, 2018 | 8:10 am
#2
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: CLE
Programs: UA 1K MM, DL Plat
Posts: 982
Just keep looking... You're too far out for many airlines. Broader award availability will start opening up at about ~330 days on most airlines, so you're not quite a month too soon in most cases, here. Some will be open now, including ANA, but if you're not seeing capacity on the dates you want, you'll just have to wait.
NRT is, in general, a fairly easy market to find awards for. You may have to connect through SFO or somewhere else with higher frequency, rather than taking a nonstop, but I would say that being inflexible with your dates is the bigger concern. But even at that, if you have sufficient points on two different alliances (seems like you have everything except Delta/SkyTeam covered), you should have no problem finding something that works, even if it's a less-than-ideal routing.
NRT is, in general, a fairly easy market to find awards for. You may have to connect through SFO or somewhere else with higher frequency, rather than taking a nonstop, but I would say that being inflexible with your dates is the bigger concern. But even at that, if you have sufficient points on two different alliances (seems like you have everything except Delta/SkyTeam covered), you should have no problem finding something that works, even if it's a less-than-ideal routing.
Apr 20, 2018 | 11:24 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 54
Just keep looking... You're too far out for many airlines. Broader award availability will start opening up at about ~330 days on most airlines, so you're not quite a month too soon in most cases, here. Some will be open now, including ANA, but if you're not seeing capacity on the dates you want, you'll just have to wait.
NRT is, in general, a fairly easy market to find awards for. You may have to connect through SFO or somewhere else with higher frequency, rather than taking a nonstop, but I would say that being inflexible with your dates is the bigger concern. But even at that, if you have sufficient points on two different alliances (seems like you have everything except Delta/SkyTeam covered), you should have no problem finding something that works, even if it's a less-than-ideal routing.
NRT is, in general, a fairly easy market to find awards for. You may have to connect through SFO or somewhere else with higher frequency, rather than taking a nonstop, but I would say that being inflexible with your dates is the bigger concern. But even at that, if you have sufficient points on two different alliances (seems like you have everything except Delta/SkyTeam covered), you should have no problem finding something that works, even if it's a less-than-ideal routing.
Besides the ANA via Virgin Atlantic award, are there any other redemption options outside of SkyTeam I should stay on top of for this route?