\]I want to go on an international family vacation using miles.
My dates are little flexible. Any time June 1st to Aug 10th.
Based in DFW.
2 adults and 2 kids (6 and 10 years)
Want first or business class.
No preference on destination, Europe, Australia or Asia. The more stopovers or destinations, the better it would be.
I do not have status on any airlines.
These are the miles I have. As far as possible, I want to use low tier redemption and not the peak or full price double miles.
AA 431K + 274K
BA 125K + 125K
Delta 320K + 278K + 36K + 37K
US 180K
United 97k + 68K + 20K
Amex MR 75K
SW 55K
Etihad 85K
Marriott 200K
I also have Marriott 7 day cat 5 certificate if we end up going to one place for a longer time.
Any suggestions? I read somewhere that there are some experts who find and book tickets for a fee. Any recommendations on such services?
Thanks all.

With the miles balance and schedule flexibility you present, I think the most difficulty you'll have is picking your destination. Involve your family in that. Have your kids do research/a report on destinations on an assigned continent. Get them excited for a trip.

Hello!

I agree you need to pick, at the very least, a region. Being too broad like this will yield you little help from people here I'm afraid.

Personally I would recommend Asia. It's my favorite place to go and offers a lot of variety. Beaches, food, culture, history, etc.

Have each person in the family, including you, pick a place they want to see. If they all end up in the same region then you are set. If not have everyone research that place and report on it to the others and then decide (as the other poster suggested).

Once you have a destination we can be of more help.

I do know of some of the award travel booking services and have done a few "paid help" bookings for others in the past too. Send me a private message if you want to discuss further.

Good luck!

Foo

You have enough miles to get your whole family to Europe in first class. If your want a lot of destinations, how about a car and rail trip in Europe? Miles can easily run out if you want to do a lot of stopovers. Use your hotel points at expensive cities like paris and london

Considering how late this is to be looking for front of plane travel to high demand locales, I would choose 2 or 3 destinations, then seek the help of one of the award booking consultants.

Others will know better than me but I think 4 x 150k OneWorld Explorer rewards are the way to go. That way you can choose a destination in all of the regions you list.

Although not ideal, what we have done if the past for family of four is to have one parent fly with each child on separate itineraries. 4 tickets can be difficult.

Agreed. The problem will be that many flights will have only 2 seats available. There might be 5 flights to London and 2 seats on every flight. You should consider whether you are willing to split 2+2 as you will have far more options.

I found 4 seats on VA from LAX-BNE-LAX - you would have to see if you could add in the DFW-LAX/LAX-DFW segments:

You would use the DL miles to book (it looks like you would possibly have to move some miles into one of the accounts and book 2 separate PNRs) - You would have to work on getting the feeder flights added in.

Outbound
Fri 15 Jun 2012 11:55pm LAX to 7:00am BNE | Nonstop | VA 8 Business

Return
Mon 02 Jul 2012 | 11:15am BNE to 7:30am LAX | Nonstop | VA 7 Business

Miles required per passenger: 150,000
Total Miles required: 600,000

Ticket price per passenger including Taxes/Carrier-imposed Fees (USD): $ 904.50
Total purchase price including Taxes/Carrier-imposed Fees (USD) : $ 3618.00

One extra complication is travelling in international premium cabins with a 6-year old. You'll really want to check out the various configurations. Most business class products will probably be ok, but certain pod style first class products might not be ideal, because you might be unable to reach the child during seat-belt times, and other times unless there is a second courtesty seat, the child will be essentially isolated. Just another complication to add to the mix.

Are you saying you want to go for that length of time, or is that your range? Where have you been? Where have your kids been? Are you stuck on using first class?

you sure you want to do that with a 6 and 10 yr old in tow? have they travelled that far for that long before?

We did france and germany with our kids who were 5 and 7 at the time. It was not easy on any of us and we only did a r/t into one and out of another city.

I survived flying flying with a 5 year old from NYC to SYD (21 hours in the air, with a 3 hour hour layover in LAX) flying in Y although Qantas was very pleasant. They provide "kiddy kits" that keep the little ones entertained. I would definitely aim for QF J or F awards to Australia using your AA miles as you can do a r/t in first for 135k although availability isn't very good for popular dates. If you would travel in July, I see plenty of availability in business class, although it is Australian winter; so I would expect 65 degrees on average.

i would do a table of the mi incl what can be done w/the non airline mi....and a list of destinations that can be done w/o using partners....

then, spend the time it takes on aa & ua checking availability for your date range & book when you see a good one....

if that doesn't work, use the tools to find partner flights or call the carriers....

See here if you are interested in going that route:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ices-list.html
(or click the link in my signature)