Award redemption help! BKK-NYC
 

Hi!

I am trying to plan my honeymoon and looking to book business class award tickets, but am running into an issue that I'd like your assistance with as a noobie. I have enough Chase points to cover 2x business class saver awards on the way there (90k/person), however, on the way home I am ~15k points short but have AMEX points. Do you have any suggestions on how I can pool AMEX + Chase? Is the only option to buy 15k miles? Points balances below that can be put toward return flights. I've looked at Singapore which is a shared travel transfer partner but its 140k/person.

Chase: 165k
Amex: 80k

Thanks!

The only way to combine AmEx and Chase points is to transfer to a shared airline partner (such as Singapore, or British Airways to redeem on Cathay Pacific). The bigger issue, though, is that you are in no way guaranteed to find saver space, especially if you can't be super flexible on your travel dates/airports. I'd focus on locating the saver space first. If getting two saver awards requires buying an additional 15k miles, that's still a very reasonable redemption.

If you and your intended are both credit-worthy and have never had a Barclays/AA credit card, there's an incredible offer advertised in this month's American Airlines in-flight magazine: 60,000 AA miles after first purchase of any amount, with a first-year annual fee waiver. When I go to the indicated website, MyAviatorCard.com, the fee waiver does not show up for the AA "Aviator Red" card, so you might have to call Barclays at 866-951-7197 to confirm the offer.

If you each got the card and the miles, that would be enough for a Business Class award for each of you from Japan to the U.S.; you could use BA Avios to fly BKK to TYO if the carrier charges on that route are reasonable.

Edited to add: Apparently, the offer does show up at the MyAviatorCard.com website when accessed from a desktop or laptop, but not from my Android smartphone. The landing page does, however, require the promo code from the applications handed out on board on AA flights.

- You can indirectly move Amex MR into United miles (I assume that's the airline program you're referring to) through Marriott. Amex MR points normally convert 1:1 to Marriott*...then Marriott points convert 3:1 into United miles (a 5K mileage bonus when transferred in 60K chunks). *Right now there is a 30% bonus on Amex to Marriott transfers. If you join RewardsPlus (joint UA-Marriott reciprocal partnership) first you get a 10% bonus on Marriott-to-UA transfers. While transfers from Amex to MR aren't generally a great value...if it's a higher priority for you to cover the 15K shortfall via points rather than buying miles (probably have plenty of expenses as it is right now!), it is an option. (Of course if you already have a stash of Marriott points, even better.)

- The other mutual partners are BA, VS, and AF.

VS would need to be a partner redemption on DL flights from that region. DL doesn't service BKK...however you could potentially get a separate regional flight to another city where you can catch a DL flight home. I'm not familiar with how much fuel surcharges, if any, would be on that routing on a VS award.

AF would open up various Skyteam partner potential options from BKK, albeit at a few thousand more miles and with some amount of fuel surcharges passed on.

BA award amounts are high for long-haul itineraries, especially in J/F, along with hefty fuel surcharges in most cases (JL usually isn't bad for TPAC). But BA can be a good value for shorter flights within the region if you need to position for a separate long-haul award and cash prices are high but you can find award seats at reasonable mileage amounts.

- Of course any of the above are assuming you can find availability. I'd redeem for what you've found now on the outbound if it suits you, as the space could vanish at any time. Then figure out the return. You may check to see if award mileage costs are slightly lower from elsewhere in the region and use a separate positioning flight from BKK. But at the end of the day if it came down to buying the 15K, and I had the budget, I wouldn't feel bad about doing that for a special occasion..