I have a travel plan for my husband and I to fly next Jan 2014 to San Francisco and then Hawaii.
From previous threads and postings I have the following cards for miles and points to use.
I need advice as to whether this is the most efficient way to use the points and miles for this trip. thanks ^

ROC to SFO Jan 2014 for 3 days
Airtran rewards /Southwest - presently have 10 A+ points will need 6 more or try to get the SW or Airtran card in January ( making the expiration date of award one year) husband has the card presently I would sign up for one with bonus offer and he would cancel his.
Not sure if the newly configured planes on SW will still have business class otherwise it would be an option on Airtran. Just heard on the news last night that Southwest will be flying out of ROC starting in April

SFO- 3 nights with 80K Priority club points presently have the card

SFO to OGG ( Maui) Pick up the United Plus CC in January? other?
when I researched fares in August for a mid January 2013 ( for example)flight it was around $176

Condo stay -vrbo

Car rental- pick up a membership for Costco for best car rental prices.

OGG to ITO (Maui to Hilo) Hawaiian air ( conversion of 50k Marriott pts) gives me 16k only need 7k per flight

Planning on staying at a B&B unless I can get points for 2-3 nights for hotel stay- which card??

ITO to ROC -20k one way- United flight using Chase S Prefered points transfered to UA - presently have the card given 40k pts

Also my husband picked up the Chase SP in February so since I have it now does it make sense for him to cancel to save the annual fee? or downgrade??
Same for Airtran cc.

thank you for all the wealth of information and tips everyone has already given .

How about the Hawaiian air card and use that for your flights instead of converting points from marriott or the UA card? You get 2, husband gets 2 and that's 140k.

This seems to be a rather inefficient way to book the airfare for this trip.

You can book something like this as a single United award:

ROC-ORD-SFO (stopover)
SFO-OGG (destination)
open jaw between OGG and ITO - you can probably find a cheap flight in cash
ITO-LAX-ORD-ROC

For 40k miles in coach plus $10. That's a single UA card signup.

This works because United allows one stopover and two open jaws per award to Hawaii.

For the OGG-ITO flight, theoretically you could book that using an extra 5000 United miles on a Hawaiian air flight. Not sure if it would be valid to add that to the main ticket (i.e. book everything as a single ticket at 45000 miles) or if you would have to book that separately. Either way, you get the entire vacation at one signup per person.

Everything is subject to availability but you're booking way in advance, which helps.

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If award space is not available on UA for ROC-EWR/ORD/IAD-SFO, use the AirTran redemption for that portion of the trip. Then, if you can find space on AS for SJC/OAK-OGG, transfer CSP Ultimate Rewards points to BA Avios. It costs only 12,500 Avios to fly on a nonstop from California to Hawaii.


And both AA and UA miles can be redeemed for one-way travel on HA, subject to availability, of course.

That's the one with a $75 fee correct ( first year not waived)
How would we get 2?

https://www.applyonlinenow.com/USCCa...9984070-693624

Have to be careful as to which card to add.. presently I have 3 Chase and I had to lower credit on one in order to get the 3rd.

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For Hawaiian car rentals, I suggest checking prices using the links on Island Air's website. You can often find very good deals, and there is no requirement that one fly on Island Air to get the rates.

These aren't Chase cards

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...5k-offers.html

Maybe I misunderstood you. It sounded like you planned to book this way:

ROC-SFO for 8 A+ credits
SFO-OGG for $176 cash
OGG-ITO for 7k Hawaiian miles
ITO-ROC for 20k UA miles

It's not sure 8 A+ credits + $176 + 7k HA + taxes is better than 20k UA + taxes. It might be, depending on how you would otherwise use that currency.

You can easily book the combined ticket on United. Search for one-way availability on each leg of it and write down the flights you find. In other words, search for ROC-SFO, then SFO-OGG, then ITO-ROC. After you have dates with availability, switch to a Multiple Destination search and pick those same three legs with the dates you found. Usually, the same flight options will appear and, at the end, it gives you a single ticket booking. Occasionally, you won't see the same flights, but you can call to book in that case.

Out of curiosity, I tried to book the four segment trip with the OGG-ITO included. The website won't do it. So you'd have to book that 5k ticket separately.

(Note that the OGG-ITO may be 7k Hawaiian miles, but it's definitely 5k United miles booking onto the Hawaiian flight.)

ok thanks, I do have other Visa Signature cards though.

thanks I was on TripAdvisor and I have a few other links suggested there too.
Just seemed everyone was getting a better deal with Costco and it also helps with the grocery store that is there.

Doesn't matter. Visa isn't issuing you a card, the banks are.

You can book this kind of ticket with United miles, however you get them. For example, if you do a transfer from Ultimate Rewards that works too. The key question: is this redemption the best value for YOU? That's mostly a factor of how else you would use the points/miles you have. This is an option - one of many.

Even without the miles, you can look at some example dates - not the ones you want, since they're still too far out to book, but other dates, to get a feel for the system. When you get to the booking page, it'll tell you how many miles are required and then remind you that you don't have enough.

Keep in mind, if your plan all along is to book SFO-OGG using 20k UA miles and ITO-ROC using another 20k UA miles, then it's the same price to add on the ROC-SFO to the beginning. There's no sense in using A+ credits in that case.

Thanks so I would definitely need to get the United Mileage Plus card then.