What award flight to use for India & Dubai?
 

Planning a trip from North America to Mumbai for few days and then to Dubai or Dubai and then to mumbai , staying few days at each places and then return to ORD. We are three people.

I know 3 J seats is very tough and planned travel date is from 3rd week of Dec.

I have UA and AA miles. Both don't permit free stop awards right? Pls advice which FF program is better?

What have you found when looking?
Finding 3 long haul business class award seats at a very busy time to a popular destination will be very hard (impossible?)

Great Circle Mapper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatr...tional_Airport

https://www.awardhacker.com/#f=ORD&t...=0&c=j&s=2&p=1

Consider these Award booking services - a list and some reviews

I checked on UA, ORD, JFK, EWR YYZ to mumbai or DXB. Plenty of coach with 1 stop or non stop and couple of J seats but they were the standard award. I checked on AA.com, I checked ORD- AUH, i find coach only on Etihad. I find many with stops ORD-MUMBAI on coach and some J seats but they all include BA which means rip off fees. Looks like it is impossible. Any other sites to check?

AAdvantage awards from North America to India now let you route via the Pacific on CX. But aa.com cannot display CX award availability, so try calling AA.

With AA & UA ff miles all you can do is keep checking.
Some other people would have started looking/booking from 330 days out
AUH is a good alternative to DXB as it close by road.
As above, not all AA award partners show on line.

Good luck. For 3 x J awards close to Christmas/New Year holiday time I would nor be hopeful.
Maybe time to start looking at cash fares. The price may start to climb as time goes on

You mean North America to HKG & then HKG to Mumbai, both on CX flight with AA miles? It has to be one itinerary because no stop over allowed in HKG right? Book separate flight between Mumbai and DXB?

Yes, you would connect -- not stop over -- in HKG, and it would price as a single award. You would have to get a separate award -- or cash ticket -- between BOM and DXB.

BA website should display CX award if there is availability right? I just checked BA.com for avios award and not only I find any of the flight and any seats, I was looking for, I find no domestic award on any month in December. It is just empty for whole month of DEC not even coach between chicago and new york. lol.


I once booked 3 J seats for 3 of us in 2016, ORD-HKGon CX. I then booked KTM- ORD, on qatar airways J seats. brand new plane. No more anything on BA.com

Might be a glitch on ba.com. The aa.com website is showing MileSAAver availability for three in both Coach and First Class for ORD-NYC on various dates in December.

But Gary from the "viewfromthewings" says this when he discuss AA miles on Etihad flight. His post about this is here https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...s-for-up-to-9/.

"Using American miles you can connect onward to India, the Maldives, or elsewhere in the “Middle East and Indian Subcontinent” for no additional points".

Pls explain what this is, I can stop over in India ? US to DXB, free stop over in India or US to India and free stop over in AUH?

AA awards do not allow stop overs: only transits up to 23:59hr
Stop overs on AA awards was eliminated years ago

Wonder who Gary said and posted what he said and posted 2 days ago.

Because what Gary said was correct: you can connect on a single AAdvantage award. A connection is not a stopover.

What's the big deal , advantage of " connecting" if it doesn't mean free stop over? Why would you connect? If I am in US want to go to mumbai, dubai for few days each and come back, how will this " connecting without additional miles" help me? Not trying to be rude, I am just confused cos Gary made it seem like a big deal or something to take advantage of.
Thanks

Because some FFPs -- like BA's -- charge for each flight flown; connections are not free in such programs.

AA awards are zone-based, so connections are free, as long as you fly an approved routing.

The other significant point Gary was making is that AAdvantage permits a third-zone transit when flying EY from North America to India. AA split the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent into two different zones a while back, and the general rule on AA awards is no third-zone transit on an award. But AA has carved out certain exceptions to this rule, and Gary was pointing one of them out.

AA also generally does not permit routing via the Pacific on a North America to India award, but they've made an exception to that rule (and to the no-third-zone-transit rule) by permitting CX to be used for North America to India awards via HKG, as I pointed out in one of my earlier posts.

If you are uncertain of the meaning of terms of art like "connection" or "stop over" you encounter here on FT, I encourage you to consult the FT Glossary, which you can access by clicking on "Help."

A connection is <24 hours. A stopover is >24 hours. AA award redemptions do not allow the latter, but obviously will often involve the former to get you from A to B.

How does this free connection benefit me? Can I take advantage of it and why? Thanks. I know connection is less then 24 hours and stop over is 24 or more.

The free connection benefits you by saving you miles. If AA did not permit third-zone connections on award travel between North America and India, you would have to spend more miles to redeem for two separate awards (i.e., North America to Middle East, Middle East to India; North America to Europe, Europe to India; or North America to Asia, Asia to India) to get from North America to India, since no current AAdvantage partner offers nonstop or direct service between North America and India. (Jet Airways used to be an AAdvantage partner, but at some point stopped being one -- and subsequently went out of business.)

Of course, the benefit to paying more miles to get two separate awards is that on separate awards, you can effectively have a stop over at your intermediate point, since each award can have its own travel date.

Edited to add: For comparison purposes, look at the AA partner award chart, and you'll see that award travel between Asia and Central or South America always requires two separate awards:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp

US to mumbai, dxb has to be all separate awards so what's the saving in miles? Is is better to do US-DXB, DXB- India? All separate awards?

Look at the award chart guv1976 linked. You will be charged 70,000 miles if you connect in the Middle East on the way to India. You will be charged 100,000 miles if you want a stopover.

On an AA award, you can connect in AUH or DOH between the US and India. You cannot connect in DXB.

I don't know exactly how to ask you this. BTW thank you & guv1976 for all that but still one thing I didn't understand is, the "connecting".

What''s the benefit or advantage of it since you still have to spend separate miles, separate award to India? It benefits those who wants to spend less then 23hours & 59 mins in Middle East before their next flight to India? If someone use AA miles for flight like this ORD-AUH-INDIA? He or She wants to see middle east for less then 23 hrs & 59 mins and then take the flight to India ? Is that what you guys mean by " not having to spend extra miles or by saving miles'?

In my case, it doesn't benefit me cos I want to see middle east for days before my next flight to India.

Correct. For my example, my usual route is IAD-DOH-BLR or IAD-AUH-BLR. That's 70,000 miles if I spend less than 24 hours in transit, which is a very reasonable price. I try to get from my home to my destination as quickly as possible.

In your case, this does not benefit you. Most passengers do not take a stopover (greater than 24 hours) in the middle east in both directions of their journey. I would not focus on this aspect of the American Airlines program for your trip.

Presumably, you only want to stop over once in India, and once in the Middle East. If the AAdvantage program did not permit connecting travel between North America and India on a single award, you would have to redeem miles for four separate AAdvantage awards for your contemplated itinerary: one award from North America to the Middle East; one award from the Middle East to India; one award from India back to the Middle East; and one award from the Middle East back to North America. However, since the AAdvantage program permits connecting award travel between North America and India, you only have to redeem miles for three separate AAdvantage awards: North America to India, connecting via the Middle East (or HKG); India to the Middle East; and the Middle East to North America.

The bottom line is: If you want stopovers (i.e., more than 24 hours) in both India and Dubai, you will have to redeem for three awards if using AAdvantage miles. It might be different with some other FFPs, but my expertise only extends to the AAdvantage program.