How to get to Cairns, Australia from Armidale, Australia
 

Hey everybody -

I was hoping for some more booking advice.

1) I am looking to get two award tickets from Armidale to Cairns, Australia.
2) We are not particularly picky with needing multiple flights (could be ARM-SYD-BNE-CNS if needed)
3) If needed, we can drive to Brisbane and fly from there
4) We are looking for November 12th and return on November 15th ideally, but we can be flexible with the dates as long as the morning of the 14th we are in Cairns.

The miles we have to work with are:
50k BA Miles
100k AA Miles (which we would prefer to save for Transpacific flights to/from US/AUS)
45k UR Points (For United Maybe? but I cannot figure out their partner availability)
40k US Airways
50k Southwest


Anyone have any advice?


Thanks!

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Use your BA Avios for one of QF's several daily BNE-CNS nonstops. Only 7,500 Avios per person, one way, in Economy.

I'm not sure if AA or BA miles can be redeemed on flights out of ARM: they are all operated by Qantas Link. In any event, flying out of ARM would require a connection at SYD.

Try BA. Go n their website and type it in. Should be pretty cheap too in terms of miles.

Based on my quick search online I cannot find an availability inbound with avios any later than the 9th (fro BNE). If you use your AAdvantage miles however you can fly BNE-CNS on the 13th and return on the 15th for 20,000 miles. Good luck! I hope you make it for the eclipse.

As an addendum, you could do both Avios and AAdvantage. (split it into two one ways).

I see Avios availability in Business on the 11th (BNE-CNS) for 15,000 Avios per person.

Then you could return in Economy using AAdvantage for 10,000 per person on the 15th.

Hopes this gives you some ideas!

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

BA should have access to exactly the same QF award inventory that AA has. If ba.com is not showing QF availability that aa.com is showing, a call to the BAEC Service Center may be in order.

Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all of the advice.

Yes, we are hoping to get there for our 1 year anniversary in order to see the eclipse, it should be a really amazing experience for us! :)

I like the idea of using BA to get there in Business Class via Brisbane, and then AA to come back.

Does anyone have any ideas about using US Airways or United miles in order to do the trip? I am far less versed with how to use those miles but I see that at least United is a partner with Virgin Australia, which should be running the same flight.

Does anyone have experience with US Airways/United Miles for trips within Australia or have any ideas for that?

Thanks again everybody!!

I dont believe United or US Air are FF partners with Virgin. So you are out of luck there. Sorry. For future reference you can use Delta Skymiles to book Virgin Australia award flights.