CX885 (LAX-HKG) is available in biz on July 5.

13:05 5 Jul
18:45 6 Jul
Los Angeles
Hong Kong
CX0885
Cathay Pacific Airways
Business
Only 4 reward flight seat(s) left in this class

And, there is tons of availability between HKG and TPE, though nothing in the evening for some reason (my theory is that search engine can only display 9 or 10 options and flights are sorted by departure time so it doesn't show anything after 4p or so).

If I were you I'd lock that in in a heartbeat; maybe you can score DCA-LAX on AS for 12.5k miles as well.

ETA: Total price would be 62.5k (assuming separate redemption for DCA-LAX).

I don't know how you're getting 100K - are you using 3 different carriers?

AA + CX
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z.../AACXTPE-1.jpg

AA + JL
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z...AJLTPE-1-1.jpg

BA + CX + KA
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z.../BACXTPE-1.jpg

Apparently, the last is the same as the cost of using BA + CX alone (so no extra cost for using KA)

Per seatcounter, there are also award seats available on the 8p, 9p, and 10:15p flights.

Try Iberia or Finnair routings - but I doubt either one of those does you any good out of ATL or DC.

The BA surcharges have been discussed at least 20 times... that is why this thread started!

Some consider this simply an "upgrade" to pay because for the price of a coach ticket, they travel in C.

Some consider this is hefty and try use other partners even it means they have to pay for their own ways to the gateway cities.

Anyway, your only options would be to take IB from JFK to MAD then onto FCO, or AY from JFK to HEL then onto FCO (not sure AY serves between HEL and FCO but I assume it does.)

In other words you have to make your own way to gateway cities of partner airlines - none flies from ATL or IAD.

Either way you will pay - the difference would be, the positioning ticket would earn you miles on your chosen airline while the BA surcharges would earn you nothing. OTOH, you need to make enough allowance between the positioning trip and the actual trip because these would be 2 separate tickets on 2 separate airlines - you are NOT protected for any misconnect.

As i mentioned earlier..don't forget to check aer lingus.. they have connections from dublin.

Thanks for this, via LAX I was able to find LAX-HKG-TPE roundtrip for 100k miles. Now, getting to LAX is proving to be a challenge, were you actually able to find an available flight on the same day from WASH?

Mr. Bean, I will try and replicate my 100k itinerary, I don't have any file hosting accounts but I'll try to take a screenshot and post it on my picassa page.

I dont like Aer Lingus - they are not OneWorld partner and their relationship with BA is kind of shaky. They also have worse service than either IB and AY, not to mention their C product is sub-par. If you have the misfortune of missing / damaged luggage, the claim is thru a 3rd party.

Do you really want to chance same day connection IAD-LAX-HKG? In case your IAD-LAX flight has mechanical or whatever, you may have some anxious moment, not to mention this would be a loooong trip - Transcon + Transpac all done in one sweep.

June thru Sept are Typhoon season in that region.

If I want to fly from NY to Europe in J for 100k BA miles, do I have to fly BA and therefore pay the high fees?

On the other hand, I can fly NY to NRT or some other locations in Asia on JL or AA and avoid the high fees.

Is that a correct reading of the rules and a bunch of posts in this thread?

Unless you fancy Helsinki, you will find that there is no way to avoid a high YQ to fly to Europe.

Helsinki is in Finland and therefore BA's Europe 3 which is 130k miles in J.

Yes, I found the AS nonstop, which arrives at around 1145a (i.e. enough time to connect to CX885) for 12.5k AS miles. Typically, if AS is willing to sell a seat for 12.5k miles to its own members, they make it available to their partners at the low level also.

If you have both BA and AA miles it may make sense to split your trip, as you can book one way award tickets with both carriers for half the miles of a roundtrip flight. BA's taxes and fuel surcharges total $113.50 for a one way trip from the US-London, and $353.10 for a roundtrip. If you book the return ticket on American, the taxes on the return trip are only $127.90 (total of $241, a savings of about $112). I just booked a "combo" trip like this using both BA and AA miles. BA also allows a free stopover in London on award tickets.

Yes more miles, but little out of pocket. All other partners will have a high YQ. I have researched this fairly thoroughly.