ORD - Australia....what should I know?
 

I just got a project that will have me flying between Chicago and Perth, Australia twice per month. Could last a couple of years.

I'm new to this sort of thing, so what can you tell me regarding "must haves" regarding credit cards, or airlines to focus on in order to get maximum mileage out of this gig?

Gosh that is a though spot you are in - flying twice per month between antipodes (cities that are almost 11k miles apart). There are very few of those city pairs in the world. Its 2 x 12h flights every 2 weeks and 12hrs+ jetlag - sounds like perfect FT torture to me :)

However to give you relevant advice - give us some more details. Do buy your own tickets? If not what airlines will you be most likely on and what class?

Emirates is really popular in Perth and they plan an ORD flight in 2012. Plus they have great planes. But their Frequent Flyer program is somewhat limited.

Qantas is the obvious other choice but you need to connect twice (LAX /SYD) and awards are really expensive with them.

If you can fly business United (but please never fly Economy there) is a good choice I guess with two connections as well. You will be Premier 1k in no-time. Awards are really fairly priced.

Other options could be Virgin Australia... flat beds in business class, but again two connections. Also the same with delta, flat beds again, but connect in lax and sydney.

Otherwise, could use someone like Cathay... ord-hkg-per (just check to make sure its not a regional aircraft operating the HKG-PER sector, that only has recliners, but I think they have gone to all flat bed now), or even something like AA to NRT/HKG and then connecting with Qantas or Cathay from those ports to Perth.

If you provide some more details as mentioned above - class of service, any alliances etc, then this might help us to give more options. Getting one world top tier could be good if flying Cathay pacific. Very nice first class lounge in Hong Kong.

Redemption levels though AA are very good. Could get top tier (and access First lounges) and good redemptions.

Let us know :)

And welcome to FT.

Thanks for the replies.
Here's some more info on my situation....

It will actually be one trip per month....with a 20 day (or so) stay each time.

It looks like AA is what I prefer, cuz they have better partners with Cathay, and Qantas.

I book my own flights, and my own hotels....and my company pays for both.

I'm allowed to fly coach, or premier, but not business class. The fare hikes from $2.5K up to $12K+....so that's a no-no.

Amex Premier Rewards Gold will get you 3x points for airfare. I don't know SPG's reach in Australia, but that's most people's choice for hotel card/ chain. If you're a Hilton person, the Surpass card will get you (I think) something like 9 points per dollar spent at their hotels.

Wat?

You're going to be hating life while taking 4 12+ hour flights/month. Qantas Premium Economy is probably your best bet, and you'll have a lot of options with ORD and LAX also being AA hubs.

WE are going to Perth,etc. next September on AA/Qantas. 75,000 miles in coach. ORD/LAX, then either MEL/SYD/BNE to PER. We are going thru SYD but no stopover (allowed). Booked hotel nites in PER using Priority Club points for Holiday Inn. Hotel which is normally $320 was 25K points. There is also a Hyatt there which would be pointworthy were it not for the better usage of the Priority Points which you can get for .06 each. Chase has a no-fee first year card which gives you 60K points, 80K if you get a targeted invite, as well as a 10% rebate on point redemptions, so the 25K point room would only be 22.5K.

You can go one stop to PER using Cathay rhru Hong Kong but that costs more miles than the 2 stop AA. The Cathay flight prices out as 2 segments so if you want to stopover in Hong Kong, that's fine. AA/Qantas do not permit stopovers (except in the US gateway).

Look at joining both AA and QF programs. If you fly US-Australia often enough, you may be able to obtain top tier elite status on both programs. Try to catch the A380 flight rather than the 747 between Australia and the US. Premium economy on QF should be OK.

PE on Qantas is more than OK, but certainly not business class. I agree with joining both programs. With careful attention to allotting miles perhaps you can get the best of both programs. Also note the DEQM between ORD-LAX/SFO on AA through March I believe. Do a Plat challenge to quickly get access to all the lounges. Good luck and post your points strategy once you settle on it!

What about VX ORD-LAX, V Australia LAX-SYD and then on to PER using the SYD A330 flights. doing PE on the LH routing.

I'm confused why you're suggesting I joint both AA and Qantas frequent flyer programs.

Isn't it best to build all my miles with one airline if I can, like AA ? And since Qantas codeshares with AA, I simply feed my AA frequent flyer number to Qantas on each of those legs.

What am I missing? Are you folks saying that as soon as I reach Premier status on AA, that I should then try to build such status on Qantas?

With Chicago and Perth being anitpodes, is there someway to force Kayak to find me flights flying east, rather than west? I'm just thinking I'd like to mix it up sometimes and go either direction, but Kayak consistantly has me going thru LAX

I'd be looking at options like ORD-NRT-SIN/HKG-PER. At least you could fly Business on the trans-Pacific flights using your eVIPs although the 8 that you get for EXP qualification will only last you 4 return trips. But if you are starting as an EXP already after 4 return trips you'll almost requalify and will get your next year's 8 SA IAD-JNB-PER might be time effective too, or fly RTW ORD-NRT-BNE-PER-HKG-DEL-ORD,with ORD-NRT/DEL-ORD upgraded on AA

I wouldn't suggest that; the QF scheme is very ungenerous; I would suggest crediting to American; you will easily attain top tier status with AA with PE travel on a monthly basis. ORD-LAX-MEL-PER is over 11,000 miles so 22,000 miles per round trip. In PE your 1st trip will easily get you Gold status with AA, the next platinum and 2 more and will be Executive platinum ( assuming that the PE ticket provides K class or higher between MEL and PER )

You will have OW Emerald status and be earning a lot of value in spending miles. If you credit to Qantas you will earn no more miles than you would crediting to AA but suffer the much worse ( except in a few cases ) mileage redemption costs

When you have top tier status with AA, you may like to change 4 trips to be ORD-NRT-PER in economy and be able to use the 8 complimentary systemwide upgrades that AA awards to its top tier members to upgrade ORD-NRT-ORD to business class. Going via Tokyo is marginally shorter than via LAX/MEL

I don't see a lot of incremental benefit to QF status after obtaining AA Exec Platinum.