I've been away from the points game for years, and never did more than AA miles redeemed for hotel stays on family trips. Now I am trying to get more active, and have most points posted for my first set of credit card apps.

Here is what I have so far:
AAdvantage #1 - 96,081
AAdvantage #2 - 53,313
Ultimate Rewards - 51,638
Hyatt Gold Passport - 1051 + 2 weekend nights

Miles/Points not yet posted:
AAdvantage #2 - 50,000 (about 4+ weeks away)
Ultimate Rewards - 25,000 (should come within next two weeks)

I am trying to plan a trip for 2 to Maui in May (flying SJC - OGG) for 6 nights.

My dilemma is whether or not to book what flights I can now, which would be economy one way, business class one way. Or if I should wait another month for the additional 50,000 AA miles and attempt to get business class both ways, but risk award seat availability being not available. If I book an economy award seat now, can it be upgraded with AA miles to business class later?

It's the same deal for Hyatt hotel stays. I can book two nights now with transferred UR points, and have two free weekend nights. When the additional UR points post, I could book a fifth night (I'll have to pay for the 6th night). Should I wait for all the points? Or book what I can now and try to tack on more when I can?

I've also looked into using the UR points for one direction of flights, and using the AA points for Hyatt, but the cost is 40k points per night at the Hyatt through AA, while only 22k through Hyatt Gold Passport.

I guess my real question is, is it better to wait, and risk lower availability for reward redemption, or book what I can now?

One more question - I see that you can upgrade to a Hyatt suite with 6000 points on paid stays. If I am only paying for one night, that means I can only upgrade that one night? Is there any possibility that they would allow the upgrade on some award nights that follow a paid stay?

So much to learn. Thanks for your help.

If it were me, I'd just buy the tickets to OGG. West Coast to Hawaii is pretty cheap and using AA miles for domestic flights is not the best use. A search for random dates in May showed RT coach for $354 SJC-OGG.

Also, transferring UR Pts to Hyatt may not be the best use. I like to convert to UAL miles for better value.

Why not use the miles for, say, a trip in J to Bali or Thailand? Or Europe--from West Coast to Europe in J or F can be very good value.

Meanwhile, get a few more AA credit cards or Chase INKs and build up miles for trip to other than Hawaii.

Hyatt is very unlikely to allow any kind of upgrade on a points stay. They want you to pay the 33K points per night for the suite.

Check out Priceline rates for hotels before deciding to use points. It can be a much better value. 22K UR points is a minimum of $275 in value, and you can probably get a Hyatt or comparable hotel cheaper by careful bidding on Priceline; check Hotwire also.

I'm not sure but I think AA allows you to upgrade if space is available for no "change" fee. As noted though, from the west coast, it might not be that great a redemption.

There's a frequent debate on this board about how best to use points. Most people feel it's for international premium cabin travel, and for me personally that's totally true. For me, going overseas in biz is "Sure, why not, let me just make sure I have some movies in case I don't like what's on the plane" while coach is "Oh crap, do I have to, I need a day to prepare, a day to suffer, and two days to recover."

However - some people just don't want to go overseas. Some hate flying economy anywhere anytime. Some people sleep well in coach and just hop on a plane from Chicago to Hong Kong and say "Wake me up when we get there." You can have valid reasons why SJC-OGG in biz is a good redemption. I was trying to get my parents a couple of biz tix to Hawaii, admittedly they are on the right coast, but given their age and health, it's likely to be their last trip anywhere.

One thing is true, don't let the miles burn a hole in your pocket - don't spend them unwisely just because they're there. Figure out what's worth the most to you - and being able to figure it out is the whole point of Flyertalk.

Thanks for the response biggestbopper.

I will be applying for more cards this week, with plans to travel to Europe next year with our family of four (and all kinds of destinations are on our bucket list for the next several years). We only have 6 nights we can get away by ourselves, and overseas from the west coast just takes too much time for this getaway.

We haven't been to Maui since 1995 (before kids), and want to go this year, as is our 20th anniversary year. We figured a Maui trip by ourselves is a good start to getting free travel (we haven't gone away more than two nights by ourselves in the last 12 years).

If I paid cash for our tickets, which I have looked into, then it would really cut way too much into our food/entertainment budget for the trip, and we'd like to eat at nicer restaurants than we normally do, and go on some nice outings while there.

Thanks for the response redtop43.

Ultimately, I have high hopes for international travel in business or first. I have to do it for four of us though, and right now I'm only getting cards myself, leaving my husbands credit free of inquiries, as we may be refinancing in the near future.

We are very frugal, and paying more than $100 per night for a hotel, even a very nice one, just feels like a waste of money. But miles and points are easier for me to spend. We've always been budget travelers, though admittedly, not frequent travelers. We've never flown anything but coach, and only twice in the last 20 years, so first class on points, even for that short flight, will be a huge luxury for us.

Welcome to FT bhnash!

The most important thing here is getting a redemption that you would be satisfied with. That said, there are several ways to budget points and I'll just add a few thoughts to those mentioned by previous posters.

- One of the biggest strengths of the AA program is the ability to add a stopover on an international itinerary. If you use AA miles for your flights, you might want to consider adding a flight to South America or Europe at a later date or save your AA miles for your Europe trip later.

- I wouldn't bother spending the extra miles for business on the hop over to Maui. I am a little biased though as that's one of the shortest flights I take!

- Note that UR points transfer to BA and it only costs 25k BA miles for a round trip from the bay area to Maui on Alaska Airlines (on non stop flights). Compared to the 45k AA required, it seems like something worth considering.

if you can get 2 first tickets on aa for the days you want right now you could buy 14k miles with 3k bonus for the account with 96k in it, this will cost $385 then book 2 tickets one way suing account 1 and one return using account 1, the book on return on account #2. while i realize it is not a good value to purchase miles, spending 385 to lock in first class tickets to maui can some times be really worth it,
remember there is great value in going on a great vacation, much more than saving 20k on a ticket you woudl never have bought in the first place.

Right now I can get MileSaver business/first tickets for 37.5k one way. And since AA flies two cabin planes to Maui, we'd get the first class cabin. Or economy MileSaver seats for 22.5k one way. That is why I thought of flying business/first one way for 75k miles from AA#1, and economy the other for 45k miles from AA#2. I don't know how long the MileSaver awards will be available, which is why I'd like to book asap.

If you're flying SJC-OGG you're looking at the non-stop Alaska Airlines flight, right?

Wouldn't you be able to redeem 12.5k BA Avios each way for coach? And wouldn't you be able to transfer the UR points to Avios to make that happen?

That would be 25k per person in coach. (I recall reading that first class takes 3x the Avios. Personally, I would just go in coach on the non-stop flight.)

This. Go Alaska one way with avios from UR.

Then you could use AA for business class back if so inclined.

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

Even if the OP can't find SAAver seats on the AS SJC-OGG (or OAK-OGG) nonstop, and has to fly AA SJC-LAX-OGG, it would still be cheaper to use Avios: 17,000 Avios one way in Coach versus 22,500 AA miles.

I had not thought at all about using Avios on Alaska. Thanks for the idea, I'll be checking that out now.

But if I use my UR points for flights, then I won't be able to use them for the Hyatt, and will have to do a bit of digging for nice hotels using the AA points.

In fairness, saacman5033 did mention it too...

You can book one-way awards, as well. Perhaps the best move is to make a list of everything that's actually available for the dates you want and take the best combination.

Also make sure you understand what the change/cancel restrictions/fees are with each option.

And SFO is an option if the price/availability differential is big enough. Supershuttle is an option to get you there and, if SJC itself is actually very convenient, the Monterey Airbus has scheduled service between the airports.

Yes, I see now that he did, though I mis-read it at the time. I though he was saying 25k points each way, and I am so new to this, when he mentioned BA I didn't register that to be Avios.

Anyway, I did some poking on the BA site, and see that in addition to 25k round trip in coach, that Business/Club is 50k round trip, which definitely beats AA's 75k for Business/First round trip. The Alaska plane only has two cabins, so I am hoping they would treat Business/Club as a first class ticket?

First things first...go price the itin. You might find good paid fares from Bay Area to Maui. I see cheap deals from there all the time.

Second, the Avios route is the way to go. If it's a two-cabin plane, you will *not* get the three-cabin F service you may be envisioning. It'll be more akin to a normal continental U.S. F service, totally *not* worth the miles.

But worth 25k Avios R/T for a coach seat? Assuming you aren't finding a cheap deal, then absolutely yes - West Coast to Hawaii a popular use of Avios around here. ^ In my limited AS experience, they do not treat non-elites too poorly. Perhaps because they get so many partner fliers and don't have as many "native" elites, they don't feel the need to make your life miserable like AA, UA, and DL sometimes do.

I would not convert AA miles to hotels - you'll get a very poor return doing that. Especially now that you have built a stash of AA miles that could take you a long way in terms of flight awards later, don't burn 'em up on hotels.

Are you tied to Hyatt? Do you need to be in a major-brand hotel? Your stay length (1 week) could lend itself nicely to a condo rental. Saves you a lot of money vs. a hotel and it's a much better experience if you aren't a top-tier elite in a major chain.