Help a Newbie Please!
 

Hi,

I'm planning a 1-2 week vacation to India in January, and either at the end or the beginning of my trip, I want to make a stop in Dubai for about 1-2 days just to check it out.

I'm very new to this whole points, rewards and frequent flyer thing, but my goal is to buy a plane ticket with the money I have saved up and to be able to get a 1 to 2 night stay at a really nice hotel in Dubai for free somehow. Is this possible?

How do I do this? I'm planning to buy my plane ticket within 2 weeks. Or is it better to use your points for cheaper tickets? Honestly not even sure how to acquire these points.

As you can tell, I have no clue how this all works. Help, advice, anything.

Thanks

Welcome to FT! If you are planning on obtaining your ticket in the next two weeks you will not be able to accumulate very many miles & points in that time period, unless you buy them and that isn't usually smart. Most people get their large cache of miles & points through credit card offers and/or lots of flying and paid hotel nights.

I would suggest you go ahead and buy your tickets & check with the airline you choose to see if you can do a free layover in Dubai. Check prices at kayak.com and cheaptickets.com

In the mean time start reading all the recent threads on this forum and the Credit Card Programs forum.

Where will you start your trip?

THANKS for the reply!

I will start my trip out of NYC, so likely flying out of JFK.

I've heard some really great things about the Starwood American Express card. Don't some cards offer you points when you automatically sign up whether through promo or the like? I was thinking if I got lucky I could use those promo points to cover my 1 or 2 night hotel stay.

With Starwood, you'd want to use cash+points rather than just points because you'd get a better value per point that way

thanks.
is that a different card? will look into it.

Yes, there are plenty of cards like that. There's a thread in this forum cataloging them: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...er-thread.html

You can see how many points are available with the signup bonuses, then go to each chain's website to see how much the hotels you actually want would "cost" in points.

But the issue you will have is - usually the points post when your first statement closes, so that would likely be at least a month away.

No, just the one, the a Starwood aka SPG Amex

Thank you, especially for the heads up about the points posting when one's statement closes. I'll give the special card offer link a browse!

As to the free layover in Dubai -- you will want/need to fly an airline that already forces you to have a layover in Dubai. So, for example, Air India flies to Dubai, but it's not going to be a layover on your trip, so it's not going to work out. I would check Emirates, which has a hub in Dubai.

Are you wedded to the idea of staying in Dubai, or do you just want a nice hotel? You should sign up for the Starwood American Express card, and if you do so immediately you might get the points by January (though of course there is no guarantee that award bookings will be available on short notice). If you are flexible, you might consider Etihad, which connects in Abu Dhabi, as well. And of course you have lots of options if you want to spend a few nights in Europe.