First Award Ticket Tips
 

Hey Y'all,

So I'm going to be booking a one-way flight to Aus/NZ in October. I'm not an experienced international flyer or frequent flyer user, but I'm trying to get the best award deal for this flight and I had a few questions.

Right now I have about 80k AMEX Membership Rewards points and 30 AA points. By the time I fly I'll have lots of Chase UR points (60-80k estimated) and more AMEX and AA points as well.

Basically, I'm wondering what the best use of these points would be. I would love to fly business-class on the way there because I will mostly be using overland travel for the rest of my journey.

I'm also wondering when the best time to book is (if it matters using reward travel), best airline for usage of points, etc. Any info would really be a great help!

Thanks so much!

The best thing I can seem to find is a one-way, business class flight from Boston to Sydney, AUS for 140,000 points.

There's a link in this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...les-award.html by sbm12 to calculate different FF "costs" in miles. Check it out! Looks like 60K > 180K for your route in Business.

re
 

The best use is a flight that you have enough points for when you want to go.
You do know the seasons are opposite down there?, so research your destination to find the best time to visit. I prefer shoulder seasons when there are less people and lower prices.
Booking availability starts 331 days with most airlines and AUS/NZ is one of the most popular awards so search as early as you can on whatever airline you go with.
You can get more bang for the buck by waiting for a bonus promotion to trade your amex points for airmiles, they often run promotions to get an extra 20-50% on airlines such as BA, AA, DL.... wait for the best one of those you can get, transfer your amexand add points to that program until you have enough for your award tickets, get a credit card or two to help the points add up....don't worry if it's not AA you can use their points for hotel and rental car instead (at least in Hawaii, I don't know about down under.)
Use the SEARCH function to find info that helps you, read, learn, plan and enjoy.

140k points? How are you calculating this? :confused:

You missed out on the recent Aeroplan "promotion" (business for the price of coach redemptions, first for the price of business class), although that might have only been applicable to roundtrips.

Depending on how many UR points you have (and UA miles), I'd look at booking a one-way award with UA (use continental.com to find award availability). Absent picking up a substantial amount of AA miles in the next few months, I'm not sure how useful they will be to you.

Seats in J/F to Australia and New Zealand can be tough to find. If you look at the calendar and don't see availability, be patient check back later.

ok, i'll keep check in on it.

As far as the 140k, I went to the BA website, which I forgot to mention previously and looked at the award travel and thats what they told me, unless I misunderstood. This whole thing is kind of a minefield.

Hmmm, BA does not have "chart" so to speak - because effective Nov 16, BA award is both Distance-based and Segment-based - with that it means, the award is based on how far you travel, AND also how many segments you fly in order to get to your destination.

Simply because it is distance-based, no one in his right mind would even consider using BA Avios for a long distance trip such as BOS-SYD - not to mention that you would have to connect at least once, may be two or three times (each would add one segment thus add cost) to get there - instead of being the "best" as you proclaim, it is probably the Worst among all other options.

What you really should do as a starting point, is to read each program's award chart so you know how many miles are needed for a one-way business class award to Australia. AA is one option - you can redeem it on QF flight as a partner award, so check the All Airlines chart on AA website. With AMEX points, your option is limited because their transfer partners that would be of interest for this trip would be Aeroplan, BA or DL - both AC and BA would charge huge fuel surcharge for your trip, and BA costs an arm and a leg even on the miles portion as explained above. Good luck in finding anything on DL... UR points would be a more feasible option when you can transfer it to CO, which allows some liberal routing to redeem award. Again, you would check CO's award chart, and if you have a CO account with some miles, just try for a dummy award search and see for yourself.

AMEX points do not transfer to AA.

I think your best bet is AA - 62.5K miles for one-way Biz, North America -> Australia. You could do something like BOS-LAX on AA, then LAX-SYD on Qantas. However, you would have to look early. Since you have 30K miles, a 50K credit card offer would do the trick.

UA costs 67.5K miles, and you may be able to route via Asia. Air New Zealand can also work.

*Edited no-coffee typos.

I recall Delta allowing to use skymiles to book Virgin Australia flights for 150k business roundtrip, although I'm not sure if they allow one-ways.

No. DL is a r/t system. While the chart shows you 'can book" this with X amount of miles - finding the award seat at THAT level is always a huge challenge.

DL forum has a STICKY in how to find low-tier partner awards that anyone wants to use DL miles should spend time read thru the thread on the mechanism.

AA miles can be used on qantas. one way 62.5K AA miles for business and 72.5K miles for first. It is very difficult to get first class on Qantas especially on the A380.

United one way is 67.5K miles for business and 80K for first.

All these are saver awards.

United usually only open up several weeks before the flights or even closer to the flight.

If you have AA miles and there is availability on Qantas, go with Qantas. Their service and planes are much more comfortable than United. If you are flying direct to Melbourne form LAX, go with Qantas on the new A380 direct LAX - MEL. Just check that they fly this plane on the day you want to travel.

Other option is using star alliance (united) miles on Air New Zealand. Very comfortable business and first. However it is very difficult getting availability form New Zealand to Melbourne. Other cities like Sydney are easier for availability.

Delta is a huge rip off to Australia charging a rediculous amount of miles.

They do "one way" but usually charge for a one way the same as a round trip, so you gain absolutely nothing by purchasing a one way

one way saver awards
UA - economy=40,000 business=67,500 first=80000

AA - economy=37,500 business=62,500 first=72,500

Sorry, I meant 62.5 for one-way business. Was originally typing the First price, then saw OP wanted Business (the thread title confused me!)

Then confused Oceania for Australia/NZ price. Oy, must have skipped the coffee.