Hi all,

Thank you in advance but after seeing the AA JAL promo and unable to capitalize on it, I would really like to visit my dad for his birthday in May in Taiwan.

AA has no availability even on Cathay until mid June. The only reasonable flight I found was on United for 65,000 miles R/T from SFO to TPE 5/18-5/27 economy. with connections to tokyo on each leg.

Does anyone have any recommendations for other flights? I'm flexible but would like to leave between Fri-Sunday and 32,500 miles OW with a layover seems kind of meh to me... the retail is about $1180 on ITA Matrix. I would not even mind spending 60k on business class if the times are decent...

My miles on United: 57k
UR: 62k
AA:109k
No status on any.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

(bolding mine)

Not sure about the award availability in May.

Just a point of reference so you may have a reasonable expectation:

An award tix of 60K miles for SFO-TPE in Y was quite standard and had been for years. I am talking about pre-2010 using AA, UA, NWA miles.

A C award normally cost 90K to 120K miles. Maybe someone in the know can chime in but personally I've never seen any C award with 60K miles for many many years. I recall a (big) limited time promo from UA back in 2004 or something that required only 50% of miles when flying to Asia (Japan, Taiwan..etc).

As for your options, currently without any transfer, you don't have enough UA miles for a tix in Y. One-way, yes; but not RT. The UA route with Japan connection is also quite normal. IIRC, there's no direct flight between SFO and TPE no more since SARS scares. If I am not mistaken, it'll cost more if using AA miles flying to TPE.

Also keep in mind May is just at the corner and the award availability only decreases as time goes by, even for Y awards. I think the high season starts late May and for the rest of summer. Meaning award tickets are harder to come by without advanced planning. If I were you and would like to make it to Dad's B-Day, I would grab whatever is available right now.

Good luck!

I'd do another check on aggregate travel sites or choose to fly out of LAX or Seattle instead.

Did you also check the CI website? CI has some decent fares on Y that will allow you to earn points on DL.

Have you looked at going via Japan?

You should be able to find availability by routing thru Japan. JL flies SFO-HND, also LAX-NRT. You can even go SFO-DFW-NRT on AA, then connect to either JL or CX via HKG, to TPE.

As long as your Origin / Destination remain the same - SFO/TPE, the routing (how you get there) can be changed for free if you use AA miles. So you can initially book it as going thru Japan and if you find availability on CX opens up for your date(s), you can change to that.

You have "almost" enough AA miles to do business cabin on both direction but AA is one-way system so you can do business/first on one direction and economy on another direction. They can even be booked on the same ticket same PNR as they are literally 2 one-ways put together so each direction is independent.

Check AA award chart on AA website.
Economy is 30K one way
Business is 55K one way
First is 67.5K one way

You actually would have much better luck in booking CX F as CX tends to open up F award seats 10 days to a week from departure especially on SFO-HKG route. I have seen 8 out of the 9 F seats were offered up as award availability in March.

You also can mix your trip as one way on AA miles and one way on UA miles. However AA miles would be better for you due to the flexibility of changes without fee when UA would ding you on several fronts if you want / need to change.

With May is just around the corner, you also need to factor the close in fee of $75 on either AA program or UA program when booking for less than 21 days to travel.

杨先生,

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.7/Diamond - Axess: Awards/JL-OneWorld]
It will kind of be an annoying routing, you will need to take a late flight to SEA, take the AS morning flight to YVR, and then take another flight to Taipei.....fun.

At least its on CX...I just love those back-breaking, shell seats.

Lol I remember the first time I flew in those....the next time I flew Aeroflot instead.

For the OP to consider: There is an F seat from LAX on a couple of dates

Taiwan belongs to Asia Zone 2 for AA, so a one-way Y will cost 35K, not 30K. Like I said earlier, AA costs more than UA for award tix.

sorry i meant 60k business OW, then coach the other.

+1
In the week prior to departure, First award seats should open on most SFO-HKG CX flights.

OK. That makes more sense.

However, can the non-status OP compete with one too many elites who fly SFO-HKG regularly? My understanding is there are many many top-tier elites (UA, AA...) based in SFO. And sometimes award inventory is different for elites.

Do you recommend that I wait and see if I can book a F seat OW a week before, then coach the other? Since I dont have enough miles for a roundtrip F?

Thanks for everyones input, I do appreciate it.

CX inventory is the same for AA elites and non-elites. Once CX releases seats, they are open on a first come first serve basis to anyone with AA, BA or OW miles.

I would advise against using AS - because once AS is in the itinerary, the poster would lose the free change on routing as it is only applicable when the carriers in the itinerary are One World MEMBERs. AS is not a One World member, therefore if later OP finds better routing going direct on CX, he would be stuck with a $150 fee.

You can book the lower service class and later if F is available, upfaring is free on AA. i.e. if you book a coach, but later F is available and you want to switch to F, AA would cancel your coach award, refund the taxes, redeposit the miles to your account but waive the redeposit fee of $150 because you are upfaring to the F award. AA then would book your F award, charge you taxes and take miles out from your account.

That is why if your itinerary tends to have changes, AA miles are a whole lot better than UA miles even though it would cost you an additional 5K in coach one way due to the change fee UA charges. (both change on class of service and carrier cost you a $75 fee if I remember it correctly. So it costs you $150 in total but AA is free if you end up change the award to a CX direct flight in F)

If this is my trip, I would book an itinerary for the date I want, NOW, even it may mean I would need to go thru Japan. If you are using AA for TPAC, you can actually fly out from any gateway AA flies to NRT, (or even to China such as PEK or PVR) then change to JL or CX for TPE. It would be the same mileage cost.

Then as you monitor the CX award availability, when you see your date(s), immediately call AA to change it for a more direct routing.

This way it would guarantee you the trip to TPE with a very high probability to change to a much better routing later. You may even get a lower taxes as a result because you would go thru less airports.