Need help on optimizing miles usage on AAdvantage and MileagePlus
 

Hi all,

So after working the various credit card and collecting miles, I finally have enough miles to do some damage :-)

First of all, thanks to all of your help and this forum for all of the valuable information.

Given this is my first time using miles and there are so many ways I can do this, I am looking for advice on how to best do this.

Here's what I have available to me between my wife and I now. We could potentially add another 12K point / miles to either Chase or AAdvantage or MileagePlus between now and end of year. And then another 12K point / miles again by June of 2013.


AAdvantage 170K miles, expire Dec 2013
Chase UR, 120K points, need to transfer by Dec 2012
United, 36K + 95K, expire by Dec 2013


Here are the upcoming travel I am planning:

late Nov, early Dec, 10 days trip, 1 adult, prefer first class or biz class
LAX -> HKG
HKG -> BKK
BKK -> LAX

* I can go either HKG or BKK first, sequence not important. Need to be at HKG for about 3/4 days.



Mid May 2013, 10 days trip, 1 adult, prefer first class or biz class.
LAX -> HKG
HKG -> BKK
BKK -> LAX

* I can go either HKG or BKK first, sequence not important. Need to be at HKG for about 3/4 days.



late Jun or July or Aug or Christmas of 2013, 14 days trip, 2 adults, 1 child, economy.
LAX -> SIN
SIN -> HKG
HKG -> LAX

* stop over at HKG is optional on this trip, but would be a bonus. Can be as short as 1 day.



These are some considerations in order of importance to me:

- award seat availability for the last trip with 2 adult + 1 child.
- conserve points / miles / maximize value
- good first / biz class experience (say Cathay First class over Air China first class)


This is like putting a jig saw puzzle together and I am doing it first time and need some help on this.

I appreciate any input / advice you can share with me.

Thanks!

Off the bat, you would not have any Nonstop flight between LAX-HKG in Star Alliance program that can beat CX flights - because you wouldn't be able to get SQ business redemption I am afraid. This is just one piece of your big puzzle.

More important though, Have you checked each program's award charts? They are on airlines' website for you to see as to how many miles needed to fly your itinerary in business class / first class...

You can do the math to see how many trips you can do with your current balance and future earnings combined.

You need to determine if you even have enough miles to do what you want to do before you even think about "optimizing".

Dont worry about the "expiration in Dec 2013" - airline miles are extremely easy to extend the expiration - ANY activity that generate movement of the miles would extend it for 18 months from the activity date - Dining program, shop the airline shopping site, rent a car, stay in a hotel, donate some miles to worthy charity, redeem for a newspaper / magazine, there are gazillions of options to keep your miles live forever and ever!

Ah, yes. I actually have.

So to simply,

I have 170K AA miles.
I have 251K United miles (combining from UR).


United...
65K RT Saver Econ Award.
120 RT Biz Saver Award.
140 RT FC Saver Award.

AA
75K RT Econ Award / 37.5 1 way
125K RT Biz Award / 62.5 1 way
145K RT FC Award / 72.5 1 way


on AA, I have enough for 4 x 1 way on Econ
on United I have enough for 1 FC RT, 1 Biz RT or 3.5 Econ RT.


I should be able to get another 65K miles in next 12 months. Or worse case, I'll need to purchase 1 RT econ myself.


One of my main concern is how easily can I book 2 economy ticket with Cathy or SQ?


Thanks for the info on extending mileage expiration date. That helped!

Well, you said your goal is 2 business / first + 1 family econ - based on that you dont have enough miles to all in miles.

No idea about how easy to book 2 econ seats with CX or SQ.

Post your questions in AA forum for CX and UA forum on SQ - you may get some responses.

Most folks on FT tend to only redeem CX premium cabin seats as they are the big bargain using AA miles, especially the first class.

Strangely CX premium cabins are quite easy to book if you are flexible and can travel in short notice - premium cabin seats often come available 1 to 2 weeks before departure. The rest of the time, can range from 6 months to 2 months out, rather random. But the close-in departure is almost a given for the past couple years - I think we can count on it as long as the global economy continues in today's situation. You would need to pay close-in fee though given you have no status with airlines.

Also, search in AA and UA forum for threads that devote to extend miles expiration. Both forums have multiple threads on this subject. Signing up for dining program would be one of the easiest and quickest to generate mile activity.

That's a good way to go. Let me give individual forum a try.

Thanks for the advice!

I (not a guru by any stretch) have found JAL website to be most helpful for searching Cathay availability using AA miles

http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/0...em/#more-10306

No personal experience with it whatsoever, but the guy who writes the View from the Wing blog:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/

also runs a company that will help you book this sort of thing, managing the miles and trade-offs.

I looked at the link you provided but did not see offer of service to help with reward seat booking. Any pointer?