First time Redeemer HELP!!!!!
 

Hey everyone,

I've been reading the board for 3 months and have managed to get the Citi AA 75,000 deal (currently have 80,000 or so miles) and the CO 50,000 deal. So, first off, I thank all of you for helping me out!!!!!!

This will be my first time booking as a "travel hacker". I fly from PHL and need to go to LAX (taking my girlfriend with me) in October. If I book now, I can take advantage of the AA 30th anniversary deal for lower mileage spent for booking. I am also planning on taking her to Spain for her 40th b-day some time in 2012. Should I save the miles for the trans-atlantic trip, or should I take advantage now, knowing that there will be mileage deals/CC sign-up miles in the future? If I use miles to book the trip, will I accrue FF miles with AA. Will she? If so, can she transfer her miles to my acct?

I'm new, and I don't want to screw this up. I have tried to read everything before asking these questions, but I have not seen anyone in my predicament.

Thanks for the help!!

Typically Reward Ticket value is much better international vs domestic. But with the promotion it might be too good to pass up. I don't see how you'd fly 2 people for 80k internationally but I also don't fly AA.
If you're flying on a reward ticket you don't earn miles. So no need to worry about getting her miles.

Thanks, as I said, I am new and open to suggestion.

I was just going to consider taking the plunge with the mileage deal (although we'd have to redeem 25k per person going to LAX due to our time restrictions) but I figure you can't beat flying cross country round-trip for 20 bucks in taxes for a first time hack.

I hope as time goes on, I can become more adept at taking advantage of all the tips and tricks.

[QUOTE=kingofalljanitors; Should I save the miles for the trans-atlantic trip, or should I take advantage now, knowing that there will be mileage deals/CC sign-up miles in the future? If I use miles to book the trip, will I accrue FF miles with AA. Will she? If so, can she transfer her miles to my acct?

Thanks for the help!![/QUOTE]

Be careful about too many credit card deals. There is no free lunch. You'll be paying annual fees and if you close the accounts down right after opening them your credit score will crash.

why doesn't she sign up for her own 75K AA card(s)? Then she could use her own miles. :-)

You should compare the cost of a ticket to LA with the one to Europe you are considering and see which is a better deal. If you paid for the LA tickets you would collect miles for that trip which would help bump up you balance. Also, make sure you are maximizing your earning. If you spend a lot online shopping, for example, make sure you are using their shopping portal. AA seems to have fairly high miles per dollar in their program. If you dine out a lot make sure you are also using their dining program.

Very good advise from armattheus and glenaa11. Just one thing to think about, you could get 2 coach tickets to Lax on CO and work on getting more on AA miles seeing that's your largest account.

If you can go before May 15th, or on/after October 15th, you can get 2 r/t to Europe for your 80k AA so I would recommend saving them and use CO for your LAX. Most transatlantic are pricing out over $1k last I looked, so that's a good deal. Of course, if you're willing to go way off peak, you will find more reasonable fares, but still likely north of $700.

No miles earned on FF tickets, and you can't transfer miles between accounts without paying (generally, not much cheaper than just buying the miles outright).

My suggestion would be to never put all your eggs into one basket. Try to accumulate miles for 2 alliances like Continental and AA. That way if you have no luck with AA, you have CO to go to.

I would also get your gf into this game. That way you guys both accumulate miles. Double the fun.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Here's something else for the OP to consider: AA permits free stopovers at the North American "gateway" on international awards. So for 20,000 miles per person, one could get LAX-JFK (stopover) - Europe, as long as the LAX-JFK leg were flown after October 14. This would even permit the JFK-Europe portion of the trip to be flown during peak season at no extra charge (assuming that MileSAAver seats could be found). Of course, this approach would require getting from and to JFK, but that might be worth it for the miles saved. (And with advance booking, Megabus/Bolt Bus can be pretty cheap between NYC and PHL.)

If the JFK stopover strategy appeals to the OP, then perhaps it would be best to use the CO miles for a one-way award from PHL to LAX, and then use the AA miles for LAX-JFK-Europe-PHL. (CO will begin offering one-way awards later this month, I believe; until then, CO miles can be transferred to UA, and then redeemed for one-way awards.)

And if the OP's girlfriend decides to sign up for credit cards, remember that people have reported successfully obtaining both the Citi/AA Visa and Amex (for a total of 150,000 bonus miles) if both applications are submitted on the same day, one right after the other.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Here's something else for the OP to consider: AA permits free stopovers at the North American "gateway" on international awards. So for 20,000 miles per person, one could get LAX-JFK (stopover) - Europe, as long as the LAX-JFK leg were flown after October 14. This would even permit the JFK-Europe portion of the trip to be flown during peak season at no extra charge (assuming that MileSAAver seats could be found). Of course, this approach would require getting from and to JFK, but that might be worth it for the miles saved. (And with advance booking, Megabus/Bolt Bus can be pretty cheap between NYC and PHL.)

If the JFK stopover strategy appeals to the OP, then perhaps it would be best to use the CO miles for a one-way award from PHL to LAX, and then use the AA miles for LAX-JFK-Europe-PHL. (CO will begin offering one-way awards later this month, I believe; until then, CO miles can be transferred to UA, and then redeemed for one-way awards.)

And if the OP's girlfriend decides to sign up for credit cards, remember that people have reported successfully obtaining both the Citi/AA Visa and Amex (for a total of 150,000 bonus miles) if both applications are submitted on the same day, one right after the other.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I just booked it. Because our schedules are tight, and required leaving and coming back on specific days, I spent 67,500 total AA miles roundtrip for both of us. I figured that this is my first go at this, so I didn't want to be greedy (things like this have a habit of blowing up in my face). We'll be flying business class on the way there though (never done that before), so I figure it was not TOO bad for my first "free" trip.

THANK YOU AGAIN!!!! Without you, the FT posters, none of this would have been possible. I look forward to learning more from you and getting to the point where I will be able to help others also.

Welcome to FT! Stick around, spend more time researching before booking, and next time you won't spend miles on a domestic flight that could get you 84% of the way to Europe ;-).

Well, if this suits you, so be it.

Unfortunately, you just blew a good chunk of miles for a ho-hum domestic trip...
Not to mention PHL to LAX often have fare sale sub $300 all-in...

Moot point now since you may have ticketed it. If you just put the award on hold, you have 5 days to think it over... then may get some suggestions here to help you reach a better decision.

Read the post from gv1176 to see how your 80K miles can do for you - you can take your girlfriend to Spain r/t during the off-peak season AND pack in 1/2 of a free Hawaii trip...

But it is water over the bridge now.

Next time, spend some time to read the STICKIES in the Airline forum before pulling the trigger...

Plus 1/2 trip to Hawaii / Alaska / Vancouver... :p

OP is too impatient too quick to pull his trigger before spending some more time to explore the options... Hope other rookies would learn from this.

You're quite welcome, and thank you for being so gracious. Please don't be discouraged by the "you could have done better," just take them as tips for next time. Please enjoy the free trip, and have your girlfriend get the AA miles for Spain. The tips on combining a stopover are great, haven't done it myself yet.

One word of warning....once you go business, it's hard to go to the back of the plane for long trips. You'll have to really up your game :p