I am looking into possibly taking a trip to Thailand in January for a friend's wedding and was hoping to get advice on the best options for mile redemption. I'd be going with my girlfriend and would love to be able to get a couple business class or better tickets round trip from SFO or LAX (or possibly SAN). I could probably come up with enough MR points to transfer but ideally would sign up for a card to get some extra points with a specific carrier and combine them with MR points.

I noticed I missed the boat on the 100k British Airways offer; would an Aeroplan card be worth it? Or perhaps something linked with one of the Asian airlines (Krisflyer, ANA)? I have never been to Thailand before and thus don't know what airlines have good service there and a decent redemption plan.

The flexibility to stop over a few days somewhere else, e.g. Hong Kong or Tokyo, would be a nice addition but not necessary.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I am not sure how MR works, but the Asian programs can be pretty stingy when it comes to giving mileage bonuses. They also charge more in mileage for award tix (or at least they used to until the US programs upped their requirements).

Well with Membership Rewards I can transfer points to several plans including Delta, Aeroplan, ANA, British Airways, Krisflyer, and Continental. It seemed like Aeroplan was usually the best way to go for ultimately flying on a StarAlliance flight although their recent plan changes somewhat devalued their miles.

To be honest I have only begun researching the taxes and surcharges, let alone figuring out how to check reward flight availability without actually having points in my account. ANA seemed to have some flights and Aeroplan seemed to offer a good number of options.

Don't know about MR. But if you look for the AA 75,000 points thread here in the Miles Buzz forum, and more importantly if that offer is still going, you and your girlfriend could potentially each get two cards (AA Citi Amex and AA Citi Visa) which would net you each 150,000 AA miles. That in turn should be enough to each get RT Cathay Pacific flights in F, connecting in HKG and then on to Bangkok. CX F is fantastic and itself would make a great experience for the two of you.

Having said that, you'd have to jump through multiple hoops to make it work this way: 1) First, of course, you'd actually have to be approved for the cards. 2) Then, I believe you'd need to spend $1500 on each card. 3) Then you'd have to wait until the next billing cycle for the miles to post. 4) Then find out if the awards are available, either by calling AA or perhaps more efficiently going to (and perhaps having to pay for) the search site AwardNexus, which is discussed here in FT. Despite how great it is, CX F availability does come and go, so don't be discouraged if at first there's nothing available--CX could open up seats a week or month down the line.

Even if #4 doesn't work out, steps #1-3 would get you the miles that would make this Thailand or other trips work out very nicely.

My Wife and I did our honeymoon to Thailand all on points last November. ANA and Aeroplan have the most generous redemptions. Business Class on ANA in November was 110k a ticket. Aeroplan which is AirCanada's rewards program I believe, is either 80 or 90k for BizClass. Book far in advance as the rewards seats fill up. Other carriers are well over 150k or 200k a ticket. Singapore I think is 600k for their comparable ticket. Time of year plays a roll with the ticket amount it could +/- 10k in points. MR transfer at 1:1 on both plans.

if you're planning on going in january you have plenty of time to go through the process of getting cards, charging the required amount, getting the miles posted and then booking an award flight.

sorry, i'm also not familiar with MR. with award flights, for example AA with their 75k signup bonus, if you're going to se asia an economy class ticket is easy to book through them via phone rep for 70k miles roundtrip with about a $100 total out-of-pocket total fee. if you want to fly business class that same trip would be 110k miles. on continental or united the same trip is 65k miles but their card signup bonus is only 50k. it's generally more difficult to book 2 award tickets on the same flight...depends on the phone rep and availability as always.

as was mentioned in the second post, if you want signup bonus mileage the american carriers with their credit card bank affiliates are the easiest way to get miles fast. your flight to asia will likely be on one of their affiliate airlines within the alliance and most of the big asian carriers are very nice.

just a note, if you might be flying out of SAN they're most likely going to just fly you up to LAX before you go to asia for a short stopover. on most airlines they are going to charge an additional fee or won't allow stopovers without charging for an additional leg, although BA does allow you to do this if you know what you're doing when you talk to an agent to book the award flight. i know that the BA promo is over but they were the first to come to mind for free layovers.

Aeroplan is a great option. Transfer is instantaneous. 100K miles for business class to BKK from North America, but you need to book before July 15th, because it goes up to 125K. First is increasing from 120K to 175K!

Thanks for the good info. I have noted that the American airlines offer better signup bonuses (here in the US, at least). I guess of the places I can easily transfer MR points (Aeroplan, ANA) I'll have to go through with just MR points and possibly get an advance on points, otherwise it's looking like AA is my best bet by doing both credit card signup offers. BA looks to be the only real option for combining the two but unless I'm doing something wrong it looks like it costs 240k points for business class.

Yeah, that was my first thought. I have about 140k points right now and could get an advance on the extra 60k to get to 200k and enough for business round trip for 2. Or with 40k more we could go in business/first. Very tempting...

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If you can get yourself to and from LAX on your own, BA will be a good value, as long as you use only CX for the trip. BA has four different award charts, depending on whether you're flying BA only; one partner only; BA plus one partner; or two or more partners. Be sure to check BA's one-partner-only award chart.
If there should be another 40% bonus promotion for MR transfers to BA, so much the better.

There are some fuel charges when redeeming BA miles for travel on CX, but I believe that they're not as high as the surcharges when redeeming on JL.

And since both AA and BA offer one-way awards, you could use some miles from each program to make a roundtrip. Note, however, that although BA's awards will permit an en-route stopover in Asia, AA redemptions only permit an en-route stopover at the North American gateway. So perhaps use BA miles for the trip to BKK, with a free stopover in HKG, and use AA miles for the return, making LAX your "stopover." Then, depending on routing rules, you might be able to continue on -- weeks or months later -- from LAX to Florida, or the Caribbean, or maybe even Hawaii!

i would dump them into BA...redeem the miles on CX and JL.....u could fly out of SFO-HKG-BKK and then come back the same, or BKK-NRT-SFO on JL.....

all for 100K miles in business (J)

I would put them into Continental. AA or BA might provide decent prices but they don't provide the same availability. Star just has way more flights and options. When it comes time to booking it will be all about availability as award seats to Asia are always very tough to come by. Star blows oneworld out of the water when it comes to availability.

I would choose CO over ANA due to the lack of fuel surcharges. I might choose AC over CO if booking before June 15 but not if I was going to book after since AC will be more expensive and offers no real advantage. CO will also begin offering one way awards.

Though honestly if your credit can handle it, do both AA and CO cards. Then you can transfer amex points as needed and you can probably even wait to transfer the points until you see what award availability looks like for the days you need.

You could even do CO one way and AA the other.

I agree with that. Aeroplan has been an amazing deal for a long time. If you can book before they raise their mileage requirements that would be a good choice. Otherwise I would look and see who is charging the least miles in either OW or *A for NA-SE Asia.

TG typically has good C seat availability on the direct LAX-BKK flight (older generation angled lie-flats though). Of course you are planning to go during high season so you may already be too late for those award seats.

Where are you getting these flights for that amount? I tried to check award availability and I am only getting options to go through London and cost 180k miles.

Edit: I just figured out to click a different button and now am getting some other options. Still 200k RT with stopover in Tokyo via AA and JL, though. Maybe it's just high season and no availability on CX.

if you are going to use BA miles you would want to book on CX, not BA. If flying on one partner NA to "Far East" is 50k Y/100K J/150K F. I guess that is round trip but it's not clear from their chart. For a lot more miles you can use two partners or BA plus a partner