Help Booking an Award flight for the first time: How did I do?
 

I am trying to take my girlfriend to hawaii in march. I have a bunch of miles/points spread across different airlines and this is what I came up with.
( we wanted to be in cali for a day or 2 also, preferably san but could not find good availability between san and fll or mia so i settled with sfo)

All miles listed are for one passenger so x 2

United Airlines/Continental (3/10/12) 40k x 2
mia-den (Aircraft: Airbus A320 Fare Class: First (O)
den-lih Aircraft: Boeing 757-200 Fare Class: First (O)

Hawaiin Airlines - (3/16/12) 20k x 2 coach
lih - sfo

American Airlines- (3/18/12) 25k milesaver x 2
sfo-mia Cabin Class: First Booking Code: Z Plane Type: 757


All in all 170k miles 3 legs in first class 1 on coach

Is this a good value for miles?
Are the first class seats in these particular planes that much better than coach?
Any other routing ideas?
This is my first time booking an award ticket and it took me some time to figure this all out so any insight at all would be appreciated. Thanks

Congratulations.

I think you may be paying a bit too much for your return with stopover in SFO.

But if it works for you and it's important to spend a couple nights in SFO, go for it.

FWIW:

I booked dtw-lax-ogg-lax-ogg for 40k each in Y on DL but hope to get at least one UG for dtw-lax and lax-dtw for being PM and GM.

So 80K skypesos and could have done a stopover in LAX for free.

As an aside... isn't MIA beautiful in March? Why go out for filet when you have ribeye at home? (i prefer ribeye to filet)

You could theoretically book all of this on UA/CO for 80k x2 in first, since the stopover would be allowed (at either SFO or SAN).

Given the availability out there right now, I'd say you did pretty well...

If you think it is, then it is. :D

Yes; although on the UA flights you could probably buy up to Economy Plus (if the 757 is a UA plane, not CO)... but either way, these are long flights. You'll be glad for first class.

Trying to determine the logic.. Did you book the itinerary to have stopovers.. and are all of these flights on seperate reservations..

I would have first try to book everything under one reservation, so that if there is a missed connection becuase of a delay, you wouldn't have to pay a change fee for it.. You didn't list the time or date on the connections, so I assume that you're stopping over at the various points.

It could be that everything on one itinerary would have been less points for you overall, but you won't have the stopovers at those points IIRC. If redeeming AE, I could have booked with stopovers for no extra points on natural connection points, in which you have listed..

I tried to initially book it all under one reservation with either AA or CO/UA but there was no availability for 40k coach or 80k first round trip. AA did not have good availability either. Then I tried looking one way with each to see where there "natural" stopovers were. The flights they listed to get there had a minimum of 3 stopovers and were not discounted rates (45k anytime). Additionally continental didn't have any direct or stopover flights back at a discounted mileage rate. So i figured best thing to do is book it straight from mia to lih on continental and figure the way back segment by segment. (with AA for the return route the best I could find was 45k anytime coach from lih so using the same 45 I got 20k hawain to get from lih to sfo in coach and using 25k AA to get to miami in first seemed to be the best value.

How do you book with AE? Don't they show up on AA search or you can search separately? (i have all the reservation son hold so if there are other options to explore please advise:

Also: Generally speaking do more discounted award flights open up closer to date of departure or are you better of snagging what you can when its available?

I prefer ribeye as well. She has a break from medical school and want to go somewhere warm so no Europe and we are going to south america in 2 weeks. Hawaii is the only state I haven't been to yet...so all in all it made sense

I don't think Delta offers those rates from MIA or FLL at least not that I can see.

Did you book on the internet or by phoning in? I find that if internet availability isn't there, phoning in will help.. even if a cost is associated, at least miles are being burned needlessly.

With FFPs its important to remain flexible over dates to book an efficient trip. Having booked FFPs for 15 years now, its important to go in with different dates and flexibility to when you take the trip. Alot of research goes into getting a reasonable booking. Not always perfect, but the thresholds are there for an efficient booking..:)

Availability changes constantly. There are some cheaper routings near your dates.

For example, I just found this routing. It's a total of 80k per person, first class on every segment that has a first class cabin, all on one ticket: (Note, CO only allows a stopover on round trip tickets.)

Friday Mar 9:
FLL-IAH 737-800
IAH-LAX 737-800
LAX-LIH 757-200

Friday Mar 16:
LIH-LAX 757-200
LAX-SAN CRJ 200 (coach)

Sun Mar 18:
SAN-ORD 757-200
ORD-FLL 737-800

So it IS possible. You gain first on the LIH-LAX segment and the stopover in SAN but also an extra connection on the outbound.

I'd say go with whatever seems the best fit for what you want and book as soon as you find something reasonable. 5k miles is a negligible difference.

I appreciate the assistance and advice. And if they are still available I'll take the marriot signup bonus referral.

Check your private messages. Thanks

You certainly chose a beautiful place to visit for your first award booking.
In my opinion the greatest value of an award booking comes from my own appreciation that someone is flying me somewhere I want to go virtually for free.
Enjoy Kauai!

If you have the miles to burn, I think 85k for 3/4 in F is OK.
If you can, it is better to get all in F for 80k on UA, but what to do if it is not there?
I think you have done quite a bit of work and it is an acceptable route for the miles.

At least on the AA portion, that is a poor use of miles.
The OP can spend 30,000 miles on a route in F class like HNL-DFW-MIA (stopover)-SJO/Central America if he can skip the stopover in CA.
In addition, HNL-DFW is on 767 with much better almost lie-flat seats in F.

I don't see where you find the availability on AA with a stopover in SJO.

I would happily stop in SJO instead of CA. Can you explain in a little bit more detail on how to accomplish/find the route you listed?