Exactly, for example:

Dad and I took a trip to Mendoza, AR back in March and he flew from BOI and me from PDX. We got 2 low season saver tix through AA but the only routing the reservationist could get at that price was from BOI-PDX-DFW-MDZ-MIA-LAX and PDX--DFW-MDZ-MIA-LAX leaving my dad and I to get from LAX to our final destinations.

Looking around there were no good award routes based on the flights we needed and one way was going to be like $250/ticket for my $75 T&F Aadvantage flight.

I had opened up the CO card and had 50k from the signup bonus, I was able to use 25k to fly my dad business LAX-BOI and then even though I was to take a connecting flight to LAX, since we were coming through MIA, I just went booked a flight from MIA to PDX via IAH all business class.

Cleaned out my CU/UA points, saved my dad and I $500 in one way fares, AND got 2 business class tix, 1 transcontinental MIA-PDX.

You can also use it to book great deals out of alternate airports, ie. for me, living on the west coast, I see these super special $2-300 RT fares from JFK-LHR and other euro ports, and from PDX it is still $1k. But if I have 40-50k random pts lying around, I can book that super cheap rate and I can use the random points to book a RT ticket to JFK.

To the OP and anyone who reads this:

Don't do this. This is a terrible example of what to do.

TravelPDX: did you really do this? You're kidding right?

I read that and actually facepalmed.

I don't know where to begin ...

I guess, then I should ONLY focus on AA and United (and redeem on them and their partners).
Question: If I get a cc bonus of 40k miles with United, could I pay the rest in cash for a business class international o/w or r/t flight? How much will this cost me, on average?

Neither AA nor UA allows cash + points. Only programs like Avianca/TACA and British Airways (for some redemptions) allow this.

One thing that UA has is that those miles can be transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards cards like the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold, as well as the Freedom if you have either of the first two. It enhances your UA earnings.

I'd continue reading here on FT as much as you can. Asking questions and absorbing. When I first started I was pretty sure I wouldn't use US or British Airways, now I've got plenty of great ideas for each!

Each program has +'s and -'s. For example British Airways Avios are often said to be useless by some--but they can represent some significant mileage savings if you're flying from a major hub.

Example: NYC-YYZ is $447 R/t or can be had for 25,000 AA or UA miles. Using British Airways Avios it will only cost you 9,000. That is 9,000 round trip. Sometimes American express gives a bonus between 40-50% on transferring to avios. This means you'd need 6500 Amex MR points for this flight.

Or LAX-KOA. A good rate would be $500ish. unfortunately there's a premium from US - Hawaii. 37,500 AA miles for coach. Or 25,000 British airways Avios for coach. Again both round trip. And if you figure in the Amex MR bonus it is even less.

Of course that doesn't help if you don't want to go on either of these very specific trips. That is why you'll want to study up and figure out when and where to use each program. You'll want to use the best miles to get you where you want to go--not just randomly waste any and all miles you have at will.

To me AA/UA miles should be a last resort for most trips--because they represent so much potential.

PM me if you have more questions.

Good suggestions and pretty much sums up what I was going to say.

I'll add that if you're collecting miles solely via credit card bonuses and your goal is international business class tickets, you'll need multiple cards depositing miles into a single account. This can happen several ways:

1. Use flexible points (AMEX MR, Chase UR, SPG) to add to bonus miles to your airline miles accounts.

2. Multiple cards may be available that can each earn a bonus for a particular airline. Examples are AA (Amex, Visa, MC each earn a bonus) and HA (BOA and BOH cards).

3. Business cards are often available that can add to the bonus miles obtained via personal cards.

4. Churning. (Doable for many cards depending on elapsed time between applications/cancellations and varies depending upon card issuer.)

Dont see what the big deal is, besides canceling the MIA-LAX flight. That was the only AA route they call center could book us with my dad and I, and then booking 2 1 way CO/UA business class tix from LAX-BOI and MIA-PDX.

I dont know what your thing is.

The big deal is that you needlessly wasted miles when you easily couldn't have. You spent 50K on domestic first class on top of the 40K AA miles you used to get from Argentina to Miami, when you could have used 60K UA miles for two one-ways all the way from Argentina to your eventual destinations and saved lots of AA miles. To put it into perspective, you spent enough miles for an international business class ticket on economy.

Did you ask the AA reservation office to search for space on Alaska Airlines to PDX, or LAN to a different North American gateway?

Also, MIA-PDX via IAH isn't "transcontinental business class," that nomenclature is usually reserved for premium direct routes like New York to LA/SF.

If it worked for you, fine. But there are many better ways to use points. First and foremost, it's somewhat hard to justify blowing points on domestic business class. I'll do an AA biz class MileSAAver with AA if I'm unable to get anything other than an AAnytime coach award since each runs 25K, but many times, it's better to pay for the flights, earn more miles, and save the miles through the bonus for another flight.

In addition, there are travel tools, featured here at FT, that might have given you a better idea of available AA awards than you might get through an AA agent who is just as motivated to chew up your bank of miles as to find you a route that would cost the least amount of miles. Check some of the threads at this subforum here at FT: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools-701/.

As they say, knowledge is power. And I suspect when you become a bit more familiar with the information here, you'll probably look back on this redemption and agree that it could have been done more efficiently.

Actually, it's quite easy but you missed the boat.
I doubt very much there will be another one coming anytime soon but you never know.
Back in the day, Citi offered 100K miles for your card; later they had an even better offer - 75K each for 3 cards (Visa, Amex & Bis Visa). - that is 225K miles ( potentially both for you and your partner for a grand total of 450K miles).
Chase had a couple of good offers - 100K BA miles (twice) and 100K UR points
That plus the required spend will earn you several J (or even F) rewards.
Good luck!

Fair enough points, but I would come back with: for me it would not be difficult, but we set it up so that our flights were PDX-DFW-SCL-MDZ-SCL-MIA-LAX add to and from BOI for my dad and flying out of BOI is difficult sometimes as my parents have found out.
the longest intracontintal flight is SEA-MIA which is 2724 miles, it is 2700 from MIA-PDX nonstop and 2789 MIA-IAH-PDX which is longer than LAX/SFO-JFK, both a little over 2500 as well as PDX-HNL which is only 2600 so 25k pts for almost 2800 miles of business class is a good deal for me.

I have also came to the conclusion that I want to use my miles and get more, rather than brag that I have 3-4million miles in my accounts, USE THEM MY FRIEND!!

Plus living on the far west coast lends itself well to long transcon flights, like to ORD which Im going business. ORD is about the shortest I would go business on, with LAS and LAX tix $100-200 for me.


Not sure what you mean here, I only got a 1 way from MIA-IAH-PDX and another 1 way for my dad for 50k. 2x40k AA 2X25k UA= 130 pts for 2 tickets

only had 50k that I was not looking to add to, it was just sitting there like the OPer as well as I was wanting to close the card as they were not going to waive the fee, did I overspend? Maybe a little but I didnt care, because I still have not accrued another UA point since, and have mainly been focusing on increasing my AA, DL and hotel points.


If you look at the math here I spent 40k RT for offseason saver and 25k for the intra-USA flight which was about 7-8 hours, (3.5 to IAH and 4hrs to PDX) ok not a "transcontinental" per se(it is however farther than LAX-JFK by 300miles), but that is a matter of semantics. So I spent a total of 65k pts, for about 25 out of 32hrs in coach and the other in business. The only options I had were to book a intnl business class for 100k.

In the end I may have overspent a little, but since the CO points did not have as much value to me, it was no big deal. I was NOT spending $75 to fly PDX-MDZ-LAX and then $250 just to fly LAX-PDX.

Do I have more to learn? Of course the day I stop learning is the day I die, but we all have more to learn and I do not regret what I did in the least.

AA and UA offer one-way charts, so you used 2x20K for the outbound. On the return, you could have only used UA miles (2x30K) and saved your AA miles. This would have been 100K rt for 2 people, rather than 130K.

Even though you only had 50K UA miles, that's what we're trying to teach OP ... build up points in transferable programs like Chase UR so that you can top off accounts. This may have worked for you, but with advance planning, you could have made out better.

Again, to put into perspective, you spent 130K for two rts, when you could have spent 140K for one-way in coach, return in international business. Or you could have spent 100K for all coach.

Save your time and energy - it would be immensely difficult to explain to someone who think they have done brilliantly to save a few hundreds so they are on free flights using miles, including, gasp, a domestic Transcon F...

130K is enough AA miles that can travel 20K miles in International business class when using it to book an Explorer award.

To give some perceptive, 20K miles can mean a r/t from West Coast to South Pacific if route it smartly...

You should also point people the way to your excellent trip report on your F class trip to India on that 120K? US miles...

Facepalm indeed.

Maybe it's just the coastal person in me, but I think actual transcon business class (like JFK-LAX, JFK-SFO, MIA-LAX on AA, etc etc) is worth it when you're down to using miles domestically. I've routed plenty of domestic awards via those routes mostly because the airlines give them a premium feel and make the mileage upcharge slightly more worth it. When it comes to regular ol' domestic first ... not worth it.

Or an RTW, like ORD-HKG-BKK-DEL-AMM-IST-MAD-ORD, with stopovers everywhere.

Oh you mean this? #shamelessplug

Actually 120K in First from LA to North Asia ... via Europe. A stopover, too, if you want one. An extra 30K for Singapore Business within South Asia to India, well worth it for 17 hours roundtrip on Singapore Airlines. And a few thousand Avios to get from North Asia (HKG) and South Asia (BKK), though I went with Emirates A380, cause well, showers on a plane.

The kicker is that I saved 10K miles by routing the way I did, and got to visit 2 more cities.

If the Grand Slam were happening this year, I'd tell OP to get in on that, but sadly, not this year :(