Using Amex MR Points for NY to Sydney
 

I have nearly 900,000 Amex MR points and need 2 round trip premium economy or biz class tickets from New York to Sydney in January 2011. I'm wondering what my options and how to accomplish this the most inexpensive way and utilizing the least amount of points. Any advice is appreciated.

In my experience the toughest frequent flyer award is North America - Australia in premium cabins (second toughest probably North America - French Polynesia).

And January is definitely high season, amking it even more difficult.

I'd be surprised if you find available seats on Qantas.

Air New Zealand (LAX/SFO/YVR-AKL and then onto SYD) seems to release business class seats 60 days in advance of travel exactly.

Air Canada is tough (YVR-SYD). United (LAX/SFO-SYD) is tough, though they release seats without discernable pattern that I can tell (though there are often a few seats when schedule laods).

There are a couple of approaches.

Delta is almost impossible for business class seats on their own flights and especially during high season.

But Delta does partner with V Australia. Sign up for a V Australia frequent flyer account and search for award tickets, if awards are available at the lowest price you should be able to get the tickets via Delta. I haven't looked at V Australia availability in January, in shoulder and off season their business class availability is quite good.

The other option is to route via Asia or via Europe and Asia. Not all programs permit it, and some are tighter in what they allow than others. E.g. United (not an Amex partner) will not permit you to route via Asia to Australia, that would require two awards.

* Air Canada Aeroplan will allow you to travel on a 'published routing' which will often allow US to Asia via the Pacific and on to Australia.

* Continental seems to permit via Asia or even via Europe and Asia, from New York JFK/Newark-Frankfurt is usually pretty aasy to get, and sometimes FRA (but almost always some European city) - Bangkok is doable, and Bangkok - Sydney availability on Thai Airways is outstanding. It's the long way around for sure...

Of course you could break the bank points-wise and pay exorbitant mileage on Delta or use Amex points to straight up buy the tickets. But that wouldn't be a great use of the miles.

My best advice is, on the whole, to consider your points for another destination.

And welcome to Flyertalk! :)

Best,
Gary

Take a look here https://axptravel.americanexpress.co...age=pwplanding.

Then follow these steps to pay with point https://secure.cmax.americanexpress....rn%20More.html.

FYI, all I did to find this was google american express membership rewards flight...

Pay with points is presumably what the member is trying to avoid. The better values, which are EASY for destinations like Europe or Asia and hard for Australia, come from transferring points to airline miles (some programs better than others!) and redeeming those miles.

sign up fro expertflyer.com to see who has award seats available

I was able to get a flight to New Zealand on Quantas but I booked almost 350 days in advance. I know at that far in advance, I got the last 2 seats from a NYC->LAX flight home. The NYC->LAX flight was already sold out of awards seats, and again, this was like 350 days in advance.

Good luck .....

This costs a whole lot more points than transferring points to airline programs and redeem mileage awards, presumably this is the OP's intention to redeem mileage awards instead of "purchasing" a revenue ticket using MR points. (very poor value comparing to mileage award)

There isn't a great way to go from AMEX points --> international QF bookings.

If you plan to travel around Oz once you get there, its absolutely worth checking the links in my signature regarding the use of BA miles for domestic QF bookings. You can transfer AMEX --> BA.

I don't know much about redeeming with Iberia, but I haven't heard it come up frequently as a "great" option.

Transferring to BA, which is the only other AMEX --> OneWorld option, means you have to find availability on the QF flight that starts in NYC, stops in LAX and continues onward. You can't mix AA to the west coast and then pick up QF on one BA partner award. You could go via LHR on BA, but you will likely pay enormous fuel surcharges and higher mileage. You could also do two BA awards -- CX, AA or JL to Asia, and then another award CX, JL, or QF to Sydney. Though more expensive, this type of award could actually get you 3 stopovers in Asia on your way to Sydney, if that's of any interest.

Aside from QF bookings:

If you want to break the bank :) -- 900K AMEX points is a lot -- you could always transfer to SQ and find availability at an award level above saver. That's not the most inexpensive or direct option, but its certainly a nice option :).

• Note: SQ and BA both allow one-way bookings, so you could mix and match the above options

Otherwise, your best bets are CO and AC, as gleff pointed out. They will be the most cost effective per AMEX point, allow the most flexible routing, and have many partner options. AC will be cheaper, but CO allows you to hold awards for a few days, which is worth something IMO.

Once again, if you're planning to travel around Oz once you get there, check out my signature links about BA miles on domestic QF bookings.

Good luck!

Edit to add: CO also allows redemption on VS upper class at the business class award level, adding another option for flying via Europe. I do not believe AC allows this.

If you have Amex, you are also good with ANA.
Least amount of points is 120k each in Biz class on AC. 135 on CO
120k is rarely possible on DL as well.

First get an ANA account. You then transfer 1000 Amex to it.
Then log into their site and see what you can do with awards on *A partners.
read the thread on it in the ANA forum.

I would also spend 9$ /month on an expertflyer premium subscription, to look up United and Air Canada.
Also search segment by segment to look up awards.

You can also sign up for a service say, from mileage manager like award planner plus that may help you, if you get stuck going alone.

Having done 10 res to ANZ before FT and 10 after, the latter 10 were childs play in comparison 'to before I knew the resources of FT.

you don't need to put points into an ANA account to search awards. Just make up an ANA reward search. After results, select at the bottom, "search partner awards."

True, and there is another workaround posted here on FT for Chrome as well.
After a few tries on various computers at work and on the road, I have decided to donate 1000 Amex MR to the good folks at ANA who made this possible for us. Costs 3 less mouse clicks and several seconds extra in my life to post on FT.