Hello FT Members.

I am planning a trip for April 5 to April 21...

There will be two adults, one 3 yr old child, and one 6 month infant (will be born in October

Date can be somewhat flexible for the best usage of miles/points.

I have 200k BA miles and 300 SPG ...

Would like to fly business class if possible...

Please help me route my trip, thank you FT members in advance

I'm seeing availability on CX outbound on the 4th, return on the 25th.

As @Gamecock writes, CX is direct and available (and a great airline). Your best bet is to transfer Starpoints to AA for the most efficient redemption, though you run a risk of getting left hanging since Starpoints do not transfer instantly (SPG-->AA will likely take a couple of days to a week, depending on what day of the week you initiate the transfer; I believe Starwood does a weekly "sweep").

Your best free resource is likely using the BA.com engine to see what availability is like (using partner availability) SFO-HKG on CX/JAL/AA. Best of luck.

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"Your best bet is to transfer Starpoints to AA for the most efficient redemption, though you run a risk of getting left hanging since Starpoints do not transfer instantly (SPGAA will likely take a couple of days to a week, depending on what day of the week you initiate the transfer; I believe Starwood does a weekly "sweep")."

AA permits award reservations to be held for up to five days at no charge. That might be long enough for the Starpoints to be converted to AAdvantage miles.

Avios

140000

Inclusive total

$ 371.77

looks like i need 420k Avios for this trip...

i m short 220k Avios...

is there a limit on the number of SPG points i can transfer to Avios?

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If you plan to redeem for CX flights, why on earth would you want to transfer SPG to BA? AA charges fewer miles than BA does, and assesses no fuel surcharges on CX redemptions.

Agreed. Just stick with AA for this one if you can

Yeah, there is no reason to deal with BA at this point since SPG transfers to AA. As everyone else said, AA charges less miles and you won't pay the fuel surcharge. Save the BA Avios points for short-haul domestic or trip down to South America.

Convert the SPG to AA as soon as possible.

110,000 a person in Business class for AA
70,000 in economy

If you are short some points, you can always fly economy one way and business the other.

The inclusive price of $371 on BA, does that include fuel surcharge?

I m a newbie to the miles/points game

Yes, if $371 is the inclusive price than that would include the fuel surcharge. You won't be able to price out a ticket on AA.com because their search engine doesn't allow you to book partner awards, but it should be CONSIDERABLY less than $371 since AA doesn't charge you a fuel surcharge if you use their miles, whereas BA does.

I'd expect to pay around $100 a ticket going SFO-HKG on AA, as opposed to the $371 on BA.

If you call up AA, they can tell you the exact price.

One of the issue here is that CX charges 25% for lap infant (sometime full fare of the travel class). I would look at Singapore (maybe F for a bit more) you transfer SPG to SQ, and fly SQ1/2 SFO-HKG, decent availability

Yes.
And don't transfer your SPG to avios. Transfer it to AA instead. It uses the same award availability (for CX) as avios.
Like mentioned above, it's only 110k miles and no fuel surcharge, so total i'm thinking $50 or less (per award ticket).

Why in the world you want to use Avios?! It is a whole lot more expensive than using AA miles both in terms of miles and in terms of cash.

Using AA miles for a sample itinerary SFO-HKG-SFO, it is 55K one way in J and 67.5K one way in F. The cash portion is either $2.50 or $5.00 outbound (I dont remember which one) and about $38 inbound.

The 3 years old would have the same cost as the adult. The infant would pay a % of a published fare of the cabin s/he travels in - so whatever the adult redeems, it would be X% of the fare for the infant - though it has not bee a clear cut matter whether it is the non-restricted fare or the discounted fare. You would need to call AA to find out. Or search the AA forum on the topic. It has been discussed many times in the past so you should be able to find multiple threads on it.

As several posts pointed out, SPG pts to AA miles would be the no brainer option.

It will cost much more miles to redeem the same award in Krisflyer.

Can I transfer all 300k SPG points to AA? How long would it take for the transfer?