hindukid

There are actually plenty of flights at the low 30K mileage level for miami to Buenos Aires. I think Buenos Aires would be perfect. Its cheap, nice, different and weather should be great. A trip to argentina will probably end up costing much less than Hawaii.

Problem is getting to miami. Unless you can move dates back to the 18th or so or come back on the 5th, there is nothing between Chicago and Miami. It has been pretty well documented that AA has never opened up seats between Dec 19 and Jan 3 for any domestic travel.

Most sensible option I see on getting to miami seems to be IND-MIA nonstop for $410. Or you could just drive to miami but that is pretty far.

AA has 6 seats MIA-EZE on 12/23,24,25,26 and return on 12/31. If interested put those on hold and then figure out how to get to miami.

sdsearch

That takes care of interntaional in general, but for some countries you also need to get "reciprocity" visas in advance and/or immunizations in advance. Brazil is one of those. Argentina, the "reciprocity" visa is taken care of upon arrival to EZE, so nothing is needed in advance. (And in case you go to Iguazu Falls, on the border or Argentina & Brazil, as long as you fly into and out of Argentina and only cross into Brazil for a day trip to see the Brazilian side of the falls, from all I read apparently they look the other way at people not having a Brazilian visa if that's all they're doing in Brazil.)

FYI: "Recirprocity" visas are those countries who, due to the US charging their citizens for visas now, have instituted visas for US citizens of exactly the same cost. Many countries in South America do this, but I don't know specifics beyond Argentina & Brazil. Again, it's not really a problem, except that if it's a country that requires it be done in advance, that could be a surprise spoiler.

sdsearch

If the last date available is the 26th, I'd be concerned about the availability of either connections or a drivable route. All it takes is one blizzard (of the type that blanketed much of the country around Christmas 2009), and you may not be able to drive to MIA in time, even if you don't think it's far the straight route, if you're leaving Chicago on the 25th. And you may not be able to get a flight for days.

If it's a through flight, all booked as one ticket, you have recourses when things get cancelled. But if you book a separate trip from Chicago to Miami and a separate trip from Miami onward, it's 100% your own responsibility to get to Miami in time. If you book the reward flight only from MIA onward and it's ORD (and other midwest airports) that are shut down, will AA give

The very reason that the seats are available on the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th, but not later, is because everyone wants to stay in town for Christmas and only travel later. Seats are not avialable when everyone wants to fly, only when "no one" wants to fly. To find high availability of award seats during the holiday period, you have to think the opposite of everyone else.

The problem is that the OP wants to have a conventional Christmas at home and reveal the trip as presents then, but that's incompatible with leaving a couple days before Christmas and spending Christmas itself in South America.

momof4kids1dog1guineapig

Driving isn't an option. Chicago to Miami is at least 20 hours by car. I think if we have to book separate flights to get to Miami, then we have spent a lot more miles, too, and that wouldn't be worth it.

We could leave on the 25th for wherever we go, but I'm having trouble finding flights for us even on the 25th that are low miles. I'll keep looking.

I was just wondering if there is a way to search everything that American has available for specific dates and for low mileage, rather than searching each destination separately.

tpeflyer

Another vote for Japan here (along with Hong Kong and Taipei, Taiwan). I am drooling over the new Cathay ORD-HKG flight, can't wait to take it myself next Feb.

I am not aware of an AAdvantage search engine for regions. The British Airways search engine sort of mirrors AA but is clunky and favors BA flights. Essentially it probably depends on how adventurous you want to be for this trip. You could pick your top 3 destinations and check availability. You may need to call the airline for best results. Above all, have fun and don't be afraid to venture internationally!

susiesan

Trust me, you do NOT want to be in Tokyo around Christmas time. the whole country shuts down for the holiday. And it's very very cold. If you go to Asia, go south, like to Thailand or Singapore or Malaysia or Hong Kong. These are all countries you do not need a visa for.

snaporaz

Although Japan is my absolute favorite destination, I must agree that the combination of time of year, very high cost of lodging (though great food can be had for relatively cheap), ridiculously unfavorable exchange rate, lack of recent international travel etc. would make it less than ideal in this context.
It also seems to me that miles-wise you're far better set up to burn those BA miles going to South America - as long as you can get yourself to MIA from ORD in late December.

MJLouise

You might try https://awardnexus.com

They give you a few starter points to start playing around with.

saatx

As far as Europe is concerned you got enough miles for a coach ticket. I just booked 40k/person roundtrip from DFW-CDG,So for 6 person you only need 240k miles which you already have in your AA Account.You can find availability to paris-frankfurt-brussels-zurich etc etc and then travel by train wherever you wanna go, as european rail travel is awesome and convenient.
As far as you original plan i.e., sun and beach and being from Chicago i can understand that in December you want some place warmer, i think Thailand would be my bet, get to Bangkok via Tokyo and then you can go to phuket, koh samui, krabi or any other beautiful island where you will find warm weather and beach and it will be way cheaper then hawaii.
Any case have a great trip with your family, you worked hard for it so enjoy it as much as you can

susiesan

Why don't you look into going to Peru? You don't need a visa, costs are reasonable, the weather that time of year will be fine. We spent 2 weeks there in Oct. 2010 and had a lovely time. AA flies there from MIA. Intra Peru flights are cheap-there are discount airlines flying. or you may be able to add a domestic flight on LAN to your award ticket.

living near shamu

I would also look at posting this in the AA forum as people there would give you plenty of ideas of where to go using AA/BA miles. Just a thought!

sdsearch

The OP already mentioned that she can't get from ORD to MIA (too far to drive, and no award flights available, and too costly and/or risky to book separately paid flights to MIA), so it's irrelevant to her that all sorts of MIA options may be open.

sdsearch

Well, the thing is, you have enough miles to get to ANYWHERE in the US (and maybe even Hawaii?) that AA flies itself, on any flight on any day of the week.

If you have enough to get on SAAver flight to Europe or South America or Asia, you have enough for AAnytime flights (which are available as long as seats are open fo sale) within the US and probably even Hawaii. (Hawaii AAnytime would be 70k miles per person, US lower 48 would be 50k miles per person.)

So you need to weigh the "poor" value of those miles relative to how they could be used at another time, vs the that or maybe nothing at all this Christmas if you try to wait for the lowest domestic miles.

And it could be worse: AAnytime at AA is only double of the lowest possible (in theory) miles; at Delta it's triple the normal miles!!!

If you give in to using double the miles, you could pick any warm (or not, as you wish) destination within the US (or even Carribbean I think), pick any travel dates and any time of day you want, probably get all 6 on the same flight, have your choice of seats I think (since any AAnytime award booking is equivalent to a "full fare" economy booking, I think you get acdess to priority seating, priority boarding, etc, even if you don't have status at AA), and have the flight worry completely out of the way, and spend all your time on figuing out which destination in North America you want, and where you want to stay when you get there, and what you want to when you get there.

And will your family hate you because you "only" surprised them with a trip to Hawaii or wherever closer rather than a trip to somewhere in another country, if they didn't know you were ocnsidering that option?

And, btw, you can make Hawaii more like exotic by not got going to (only) Honolulu, but perhaps to Kona i(nstead or in addition) and then view lava flowing cointnously from volcanoes and neat stuff like that. Wouldn't that be exotic enough?

But if 70k is still too much, consider the American Southwest. It'll be chilly (but you're used to that in Chicago) at the higher elevations like on the rims of the Grand Canyon, but drive a few hours south to Phoenix or Tuscon and you get far less chilly at those lower altitudes. Or fly into Las Vegas or Phoenix, do the Grand Canyon, then head to SoCal by one-way rental car and you can do theme parks if you must. Then fly back from Los Angeles or San Diego or San Francisco, depending on how much you want to cover. The Grand Canyon, a theme park or two, and the Golden Gate Bridge in the same tirp could be possible, depending on how long you have and on how much of that you want to spend on the road.

mikelat

All sound like great reasons to get trip insurance. I used to self-insure but have decided there are certain trips where the insurance is well worth the minimal cost (cruise, expensive non-refundable hotel stays, traveling at times where it's possible to be stuck for days, ...). Call me a sucker, but it works for me. And, the Cancel for Any reason rider is pretty reasonable with the company I use, so it makes it very flexible. And I've admittedly used it once when the fare dropped significantly for myself + gf. The trip insurance 'cost' was less than the airline change fee. Just cancelled under the "for any reason" coverage and re-booked at lower fare without a change fee. Instead of losing $250 x 2 for a change fee I lost the $80 insurance premium + ~$200 ($1000/ea fare was only covered at 90%, so lost $100 ea). Still $280 beats $500 in my book . Granted, in this case we only had coverage for flights because we knew the dates were subject to work or family things coming up and wanted to be covered just in case. Was nice to have the coverage when the price dropped too though.

momof4kids1dog1guineapig

Just an update for those interested in what we decided. It looks like we are going to Hawaii in January instead. We may do Costa Rica next year, and maybe Europe the next year. That will be better anyway when our kids are a bit older.

We are looking at staying at Moana Surfrider or Sheraton Waikiki with our SPG points. Anyone have a preference about those? We are also going to the big island for a few days. We want to stay on the Hilo side to be near the waterfalls and volcano. Anyone have a recommendation for a hotel on that side of the island? All the big ones are on the Kona side, and we aren't going to stay there.

Thanks for the guidance and well wishes!