Hey all,

I recently just got into the whole points/credit cards thing. I signed up for a bunch of credit cards and got the minimum spends completed. Now it's time to start planning a vacation.

I will be getting married in May, and we'd like to use points to pay for the honeymoon as much as possible. We're pretty flexible about where we go. Our only requirements are:

1. She'd like to go somewhere warm.
2. I'd like to go somewhere that has fun/adventurous activities.
3. Travelling starts from Dallas.
4. We need to swing through Medford, OR at the end of our trip.

Here are the points I have (these are the bonuses. I have a bit more for the actual money I spent on the cards):

40,000 US Airways Dividend Miles
10,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points
30,000 Delta Skymiles
40,000 United
30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage points
40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points

Trying to figure out which points can be used where has been kind of overwhelming, so now I'm asking the forum for help. What are some suggestions of how to efficiently use the points I have? What are the best resources to figure this kind of thing out?

First thing for you to do is look at the reward schedules for the various airlines that you have. You can transfer your UR points to your UAL account so that could possibly help you. In addition, UAL and US Airways are part of the same alliance so you can book one ticket with UAL and one with US Airways (same flights).

For your need to go to Medford. Will you be paying for the flight from Medford back to DFW? Have you looked at what flights fly to Medford or any airports around there?

Then, since you want to fly in just a couple of months, are there any award flights available?

The above gives you a lot to think about and do research on. Once you have figured out the answers to the above, then I am sure you can get more help here.

Good luck and congratulations.

My grandmother lives in Grans Pass, OR.. The Medford, OR is really small with very limited flights.

This is it




AA for example runs about one flight a day and you have to SFO to PDX and back down to MFR or go SFO back up to MFR. It might be easier for you to fly into PDX and drive the four hours.

American flies nonstop DFW - San Jose Costa Rica. Costa Rica is warm, it's adventurous, and can be very romantic.

May is off-peak to Central America on AA, but you only have enough for one ticket if you use AA.

Wherever you decide to go, your best bet is flying on StarAlliance because you have the United and US Airways miles plus you can pad by transferring the UR points.

Once you figure out the honeymoon part (and nothing like leaving that to the last minute, eh?), do some reading on milevalue.com about how to add a free one-way. Depending on who you fly and what their rules are, you might be able to add the Medford leg on the same award ticket as the honeymoon for no / very little extra.

Anita

If you're going to be a churner start with the easily-churnable ones and only when you have a churn wait period get the ones that are usually once-only bonuses.

Alaska is an easy churn every 90 days, as is Hawaiin, US every 6 months, American every 18 months, etc. Chase and AmEx sometimes are very long "churns", if at all.

Also get cards a.s.a.p. that are dying- AirTran and US.

As you are new to the game,
and you better do the honeymoon PROPERLY ,

you might consider using one of the "consultants"
that specialize in putting trips together with miles.
Gary Leff is one well known expert.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Deant, is it usually better to transfer Chase rewards soon, or to leave them in your Chase account until you decide which program you want to use them in. Regarding paying for the Medford ticket, I'm just trying to figure out my options right now. I'll pay for whatever I have to, but I'd like to stretch the miles as awesomely as possible.

akp, Costa Rica was actually one of the places that I was thinking about. I read somewhere that it's the rainy season in May so will want to do more research. I suppose this is kinda getting last minute, but since I only proposed in January, I think I'm doing pretty well Great tip on the free one-way. I'll look into that.

poser, Yeah, Medford is a pain to get to. Unfortunately when I've looked at other airports in the past, the savings was not worth the cost of renting a car and driving vs flying direct. C'est la vie...

tassojunior, I wasn't planning on churning, but I can see how this could be addicting

Thanks y'all!

Never transfer rewards points until you are ready to use them, unless there is a transfer promotion. (And Chase has yet to have any.) While airlines will often make changes without notice (i.e. "As of this morning we increased our baggage fees), it would be quite unusual for a transfer partner to annouce "As of today, you can no longer transfer to Backstreet Airlines."

Keep in mind that whatever airline you travel on, your redemption is governed by the airline whose miles you use. So if you use USAir miles to travel on United, you are governed by USAir's rules. Most particularly, note that USAir does not allow one-way tickets (well, they do, but they charge the same as round-trip) and that is also true of Delta.

Is your fiance getting cards to get signup miles? If not, perhaps she should.

I'll also add that for hotels, Priceline's "Name Your Own Price" if used effectively can get you pretty good deals. If you're looking for a boutique hotel or something really high-end for a honeymoon, that might be a little tougher to find, and also some international destinations have a limited selection. But if you just want a Marriott/Hilton/Westin in the USA, you can save some fairly significant bucks.

Why not Hawaii? It's over on the West coast side, warm, romantic and probably has some availability in May. United Airlines will let you do a stopover when booking a miles trip to Hawaii so you can do Dallas - Hawaii - Oregon - Dallas all in one itinerary.

You also noted United flies to Oregon.

+1.

You'd be redeeming one round-trip using US miles and one using UA miles, likely both on UA metal through SFO. I can't speak to how loose the stopover rules are with a small airport in Oregon involved...whenever I've done a stopover, it's been along a logical routing for the round-trip. Maybe you can work PDX in there? The UA/US experts will know better.

Hawaii's a good choice though. When we went in May a few years back, we were able to find our desired airline/hotel awards. I don't get the sense that Hawaii ever has a truly off-peak season, but going in May beats trying to go to Spring Break, Christmas/New Year's, etc.

With United, my experience is the rules are really loose and you can do almost whatever you want as long as you don't transit through the same airport twice on the same leg. United flies to Medford from SFO and DEN so you can do HNL-SFO-Medford-DEN-DAL on one leg.

I have done far crazier things. As an example, I've had GCM-HOU-SFO (stop)-NYC-CUN on a single leg. No way are SFO and NYC on the way to Cancun from Grand Cayman, but it was fine

I actually wrote a report of this routing on my website:

http://themilesprofessor.com/2013/02...cayman-cancun/

I have also done GCM-HOU-LAX (stop)-PTY.

With US Airways, the decision is made by the agent and not a computer. So if you call a few times, you should eventually get one that lets you do it. United, I am about 99% certain I could convince them to let me make the stop in Medford given what else I've convinced them to do

TheMilesProfessor, the HNL-SFO-Medford-DEN-DAL itinerary that you mention sounds like a really good possibility. How do I search for that and put it together on my own if I wanted to try and do that? Also, if I have to use US Airways miles for one of the two tickets, will I be able to book the exact same itinerary for both tickets?

Say we did go to Honolulu. What tricks would I use for hotels?

Thanks for all the help, I'm really learning a lot!

Head for Hawaii - just like Costa Rica, without the snakes. Those Costa Rican Bushmasters eat rattlesnakes for breakfast.

You want adventure - they have subs.

You should be able to book the same itinerary on both airlines.

Search on ual.com award booking for both as that's the place to find Star Alliance awards. Since multi-city search tends to not be that great, you should search one leg at a time putting it in as one ways.
1. DAL-HNL
2. HNL-Medford
3. Medford-DAL.

Write down all the flights you want.

You can then try booking on ual.com putting in the legs you want with dates using multi-cit. If all the flights you want come up that way, great! It should all cost 40k UA miles. Multi-city tends to be a little quirky so you may have to call and give the agent your flights.

With US Airways, you have to call and give them your flights. But you are allowed a stopover in an award on different regions.

Expect some confusion and resistance from the agent. It always happens when you're not booking the standard out-and-back itinerary. Just be diplomatic and sound confident that it's allowed. Quote the relevant rule allowing you to do what you want. If there's trouble, just call and get a different agent.

Like I said, I have gotten them to let me do all kinds of crazy routing so this one should work

Good luck!

book a flight to see granny and either pay for it and collect miles or use cash and miles on Delta or use a chunk of points and go see her. DO NOT try and make this part of your Honeymoon Itinerary, you will wind up flying many extra hours and adding 3 legs to get home after a honeymoon does not make for good memories (even if you say hi to grandma). Hawaii is great but if you want to do it mostly on miles you need more points and time. I would suggest flying grandma in for the wedding. Honeymoon in south padre, all of texas is warm (heck it was 85 degrees in DFW today), and wait until next year to do Hawaii.
You can strategically get more credit card bonuses to compliment the points you have and look for openings well ahead of time. Hawaii has many islands worth seeing and after a 8 hour flight you don't want to come back after only a week. Maui and the big island have whales Dec-Apr. and if you save your money you can visit multiple islands and go on excursions and adventures while your there. They can get expensive (and don't fall for the time share presentation, it's not worth the things they give you) Even with the flight and hotel for free, other expenses will add up fast. Our last trip we paid more to park in waikiki than the rental cost...i think the car was $17 a day and the parking was $20-$30. $5 a gallon gas is a reality there. A good luau cost $40 a head, some adventures are cheap but others cost a good bit (i liked the helicoptor tours). On our honeymoon we visited 3 islands and stayed in hotels on Oahu, a private condo (check VRBO.com) on Maui, and a Resort on Kuaui. I'm just sayin if your going to do Hawaii save up and do it right, the first time....if you just want warm, exciting and exotic book an all inclusive hotel/flight package for under $1000 a head to Mexico. DFW is about the same distance from Puerto Vallarta and Cancun or Riviera Maya (2.5 hour flight).....just my 2 cents....congrats and enjoy