Are you a fan of United/Continental? What is the best way to rapidly collect these points?

UA/CO seem to have the best flights from Beijing to San Francisco, meaning non-stop and leaving in the afternoon both ways. December of this year, wife son and I are planning 3 round-trips PEK-SFO, SFO-HNL, SFO-MCI, for Hawaii vacation and Christmas with parents. Best total price is about $6,500. 330,000 points, would reduce that by about $3,400.

I think American Express Membership Rewards points can transfer 1:1 to Continental, so I'm thinking getting the following cards:

AmEx Platinum 50k (try to bump to 100k)
AmEx Business 50k (try to bump to 75k)
AmEx Express Gold 75k (Can't find links or codes for this)

Mileage plus Explorer 25k (forget $25k for 10k pts, maybe 5k for add'l card)
Onepass Plus 25k (forget about $25k for 10kpts, maybe 5k for add'l card)

This is between 225,000 & 310,000 points.

FICO is 770+ so approval for the cards should be little problem assuming apply for all on the same day.

Thanks for helping line this all up.

Do you have the most recent link/codes for these offers or others?

your ? is how to get 330k rdm?, or do you have some to start with?....good luck...

edit to add....any cost to get the rdm must be below 1 cpm, because that's what you plan to redeem them for?....or did i miss something?

pps.....most ffers would say that there are better uses for miles....i assume you know that....i don't want your thread to go off topic w/posts about this....

How you are planning to use the miles to bring down the cost? Asking because if you are thinking of getting saver award tickets for 1 our 2 of the trips there is a high likelihood of no inventory being available by the time you have the miles.
It might be too late to apply fire the amex cards. As you probably know, sept 30th is the last date to redeem MR points for OP miles and that it takes 6-8 weeks to get the bonus miles, you'll be at the mercy of some good MR rep to post you miles a lot sooner.

Sorry to discourage you about your plans but it is more likely that you'll end up wasting your time and effort.

Your post is very confusing. Can you list out exactly which trips you plan to take, with dates? Maybe someone can help you.

You can almost certainly accomplish this for less miles and cash.

Keep in mind Air China is also an option non-stop in the afternoons, using UA/CO miles. At least theoretically.

Thanks for the great responses.

clacko, the goal is least money and effort for greatest reward.

unicon, I was also thinking the timeline was tight. I did not know about Sept 30th deadline.

MDtR-Chicago, OK, here is the detailed travel plan:

2 adults, 1 two year old boy

November 30th - December 31

Start and end in Beijing, China PEK

Dec 21st - 29th will be spent in Kansas City, with family. The rest of the time can be spent anywhere outside of China. I am from San Francisco, and also figured why not spend the rest of the time in a warm place, so Hawaii seemed like a good idea. If someone wants to suggest something else, go ahead.

For all 3 passengers:

Nov 30 - Dec 31 PEK <> SFO Air China - $2,505.50
Dec 5 - Dec 19 SFO <> HNL Continental - $1,788.03
Dec 21 - Dec 29 SFO <> MCI Continental - $1,552.20

Wish list: No flights leave before noon or arrive after 10pm. Fewest layovers possible. I know I might save money by taking 9am flights or red-eye flights, though the savings would probably have to be 25% or more to convince us it is worth the hassle, especially traveling with our son.

I am an SPG platinum member and have some points, so the hotel situation is planned as follows:

Nov 30 - Dec 31 - Westin SF Market 40,000 SPG points (5th night free)
Dec 5 - Dec 19 - Sheraton Waikiki - 35% off + 5th night free $2013.45
Dec 19 - Dec 21 - Westin SF Airport 5,600 pts + $102.85
Dec 29 - Dec 31 - Westin SF Airport 5,600 pts + $102.85

So the total spend is:

$8064.88 + 51,200 SPG points

Sure would be nice to reduce that first number.

You are going to be pushing it trying to get the points into onepass before the 30th of Sept. Do they absolutely need to go into UA/CO?

One observation I have is that you could include one free stopover in the ticket. So, in theory, you should be able to book PEK->SFO (stopover)->MCI (destination)->SFO (maybe an overnight connection)->PEK as a single award ticket for 65k plus taxes.

I ran some quick searches and could find availability around your dates for 97,500 miles + $41.50 taxes each. (Shockingly, the SFO->MCI segment is the problematic one. You might just want to book the PEK->SFO->PEK at 65k.)

Do you have any miles in any programs right now?

Instead of HNL, what about San Diego (SAN) ? Much quicker trip. You could purchase tickets outright for under $200/each right now - might get even cheaper.

You could try using the pay with points instead of trying to do an award ticket. If you got all of those AMEX cards AND got the maximum bonus points AND they posted in time, you would have 250k points to spend. If it wasn't already set up properly, you can call and have the accounts all combined into one MR account (use the platinum as the main) so it's one pool of points instead of 3 separate smaller pools of points.

If you then book using the platinum card and pay with points, there is a 20% rebate on the points. 250k points would cover $2,500 in air fare and then you would get 50k points back several weeks later.

You don't get as good of a redemption value for your points as you would with miles, but it gives you a heck of a lot more flexibility. You can book on any airline and there will be plenty of seat availability so all 3 of you sit together. Another bonus is that all of you will earn miles on the trip. Make sure you make a FF account for your son too. If his ticket is paid for, he can earn the miles no matter how old he is. If you travel like this each year, you'll build up miles fast.

I believe you would need all the stars and the moon and the sun lining up in order to beat the Sept 30 deadline to have your MR pts available to transfer to CO by then.

AMEX dont issue points until the 2nd billing cycle, sometimes into the 3rd. Though occasionally they would agree to issue the bonus part after 1st billing cycle.

We already pass Mid August. Assuming you would get instant approval, it still takes a week to get you the physical card before you can do any spending to earn the bonus...

Good Luck for such a plan...

Sounds like a reasonable statement.

Isn't the maximum stopover time 24 hours? Longer than this, isn't it considered two one way tickets? This trip's stopover time is 30 days between first arrival and final departure from SFO.

Air China (PhoenixMiles) 26,584
China Southern (Sky Pearl) 18,706
Continental Airlines (OnePass) 15,076
Ctrip 8,610
Starwood Hotels, etc. (Preferred Guest) 5,426
Chase online 3,840

Other ideas are appreciated. San Diego and San Fran are both nice. If we had to spend 2 or 3 weeks in either location I would choose San Fran. Another reason to go to Hawaii is we have 4 free Starwood nights from their recent promotion and all hotels in Hawaii qualify and should be able to enjoy the beaches even in December. San Diego beaches in December are still quite cold.

Los Angeles has a resort that qualifies for the 4 free nights so could go down there for 4 free nights, though still leaves about 2.5 weeks in San Fran.

So far it looks like we may be spending the $8000 for this trip.

Under 24 hours, it's generally just a long connection. As I recall, UA/CO allow one stopover of up to one year on international tickets. The CO language is kind of vague:

I think the correct reading is that you are always allowed one stopover, but if the itinerary is US49/Canada only, there may be an extra charge. United is clearer:

But you're right; given the mileage you have, you probably can't put together miles fast enough to make this happen.

If you end up going to LA, you could consider taking Amtrak to MCI. It's a two day trip on the Southwest Chief - with a sleeper car it could be a nice adventure. Might be a bit cheaper.

Seems like a lot of back and forth flying with a 2 year old. If you had 210,000 AA miles you could fly the following route:
PEK-NRT-HNL (11 hours 35 minutes) stop for a week or two?, HNL-DFW-MCI (9 hours 50 minutes)
MCI-DFW-SFO (6 hours 25 minutes) stop for a few days?, SFO-HKG-PEK (19 hours 5 minutes)

If you want to stop at a second place in North America (in addition to HNL) before going to MCI, you would need to book a revenue ticket from that city to MCI. You could also replace the SFO stop on the return with LAX or half a dozen other major cities.

Whatever MR points you can pull together could be used for hotels.

Is that 210,000 per person or for 3 people?

No. Less than 24 hours is called Layover, or a connection. Above 24 hours is a Stopover. You should get the terminology correct - else when you call to book your award you would confuse the agent when you use the wrong terminology.

UA/CO programs allow one stopover if you book the award as a r/t. As OneWay award you do not get stopover - but then a OneWay award by default would allow you open jaw.

If these are all you have, you basically have nothing to work with. None would do you any good for your travel plan. Even the SPG pts are way too small a balance to be of much use even with the C+P option which is not always available. BTW, I am surprised that as a SPG Plat, you have only a few SPG pts in your account...

Even if you have the "currency", trying to line up 3 award seats for travel in a few months down the road is not an easy task. Booking award is not like booking revenue tickets... the seats are capacity-controlled - there are plenty of others compete with you for the limited availability.

I dont know if you have ever been in Hawaii in December, or have been in San Diego in December.

Hawaii in December is not necessarily warm - sometimes it can be quite rainy. Temp would be in the 70's to 80's if not raining. Many folks do not realize that Hawaii winter time is actually not warm enough to let one stay in water for long, plus the winter rain can be really annoying. Yet, you will pay a premium for Hawaii in December because it is the high season. And hope you do not need a rental car which would cost you an arm and a leg during your time frame, especially if you still have not booked now.

Finally, San Francisco can be REALLY COLD and again RAINY during that period you intend to visit. Sometimes it can have Winter Wind Storm that can really cause some havoc in the area. However since you are from PEK, a 40F temperature may not bother you.

On the other hand San Diego can be quite warm in December - it all depends on the year's weather.

Thanks. Didn't know that.

I have already used 50+K point to book 5 free nights in SF as well as 2 C+P nights in SF airport.

I have lived in San Diego and San Francisco, and also know we are gambling with the Hawaii weather. It is still one of the things to consider. Though, like you rightly pointed out, when going from below zero weather to Hawaii, it will feel like a heat wave to us.