Advice on when to book multi city flights
 

Husband and I have booked a 15 day transatlantic cruise on 23/4/2020 from New York to Rome. We are planning then on flying straight to Phuket for 5 days and then Bangkok for 3 days, and then home to Brisbane. I can book the New York flight in 2 weeks with Qantas. We have around 170,000 frequent flyer points to use as well (which isn't much but would like to use them).

Questions are - should we book the first flight asap, or wait until we can book the whole itinerary in mid May? Is it cheaper to book all together or it doesn't matter? My thoughts would be to use points as much as possible for one person and the other pay full fares so at least one of us can get to silver status. Also the hotels will be booked with Qantas.

Looking at economy fares for the whole trip, but as it is a holiday for his 60th birthday, I would like to include 2 business class flights - LAX to New York, and Bangkok to BNE as a surprise and treat.

Just not sure what is best way to book this holiday and any advice is appreciated thanks.

Julie

Sounds like a nice trip!

You might want to clarify what program your 170,000 miles are with. From the info in your profile, I assume that it's Delta. But make this clear in order to get better help here.

In fact, if your miles are all with Delta, you might want to delete your post here and re-post it in the Delta forum (since Flyertalk rules prohibit posting the same question in two forums).

In any event, in terms of using your miles, you should book the first flight as soon as possible. And then, if you still have sufficient miles left over, book other award flights as the dates open up. Some airlines let you book awards a full year in advance, but more typically it's about 330 days. I believe it's about 330 for Delta, but I'm not certain.

If you have enough miles, I'd aim for the two of you flying business class from Brisbane (or somewhere else in Australia) to LA, since that will be you longest flight. Plus the service and seats on international business class are generally better than on a US carrier from LA to NYC (which is only about a five hour flight, so not the best investment for splurging on business class anyway).

You're smart to look into availability a year in advance, since it's by no means guaranteed and generally the further in advance you book award flights the better.

From BNE in profile, flights to BNE and using Qantas to book hotels 100% sure OP has QF ff points.

For award flights look/book as soon as you can. Business class awards will be hard to get. The price of one way cash business class, or even economy, fare on the same flight as award may astonish you.

For Rome to Phuket you may have to go via another airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuket...tional_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonar...micino_Airport

For hotels look direct at the hotel & other web sites. QF is not good for hotels in my experience

Great Circle Mapper

Thanks. We have Qantas Frequent Flyer points so will look at doing business class BNE to LAX as suggested.