susiesan

I'm contemplating spending a vacation in Sri Lanka during the first half of 2014. Never been there before and it looks to be an interesting place.
I'd like to use miles to fly there in business class. I'd be orgininating in Kansas City, need 2 tickets. Which airline programs have partners that fly to Columbo? I have a lot of AA miles, UA and Ultimate Rewards miles, and AX MR points that can be transferred in to an airline plan.

How do I get to Sri Lanka? Is January-June a good time of year to go there?

jiejie

Sri Lankan Airlines is set to join OneWorld sometime this year, they are pretty good regionally. They have nonstops into Colombo from NRT, BKK, KUL, SIN. And connecting flights from PEK, PVG, CAN, HKG that route via BKK. They also do some code-sharing with MH via KUL. And of course, MH has just joined OneWorld. So you might find some possibilities there with AA miles.

Weather--temperature is relatively constant. Sri Lanka has a NE and a SW monsoon which affect the different coasts at opposite times of the year, but going between late January up through April should be OK for nearly everywhere. May starts to get iffier as far as rain goes for some of the popular tourist places on the island, and June I'd plan on rain at same.

SanDiego1K

Another OneWorld option is CX. It flies into CMB via BKK or via SIN.

Your Star option is SQ, flying from SIN.

If you are interested in visiting the Maldives, investigate pairing it with a visit to Sri Lanka. It's easy to get between MLE (Male) and CMB (Colombo).

Your Membership Reward points can be moved to British Airways. Avios redemption levels are quite good for one sector shorter flights. That woud make it easy to stop in BKK, KUL, or SIN and then use Avios for the flight into CMB.

susiesan

When I looked for flights on the Oneworld web site, the routing I got was MCI-ORD-AUH (Abu Dhabi)-CMB for a total time of 23 hours 15 minutes. The ORD-AUH segment is on Etihad. Their Business class is supposed to be nice.

Routings on CX going west over the Pacific would take longer and require more segments for me as I originate in Kansas City. It would be nice to do a stopover in an Asian city either coming or going, but AA awards do not allow for this.

A flight search on StarAlliance web site has a routing on Turkish Airlines that stops in Male on the way to/from Istanbul. I think *Alliance awards allow stopovers. I could route MCI-ORD on UA, the ORD-IST-MLE-CMB on Turkish.
Or go over on AA miles and back on *Alliance carrier miles. I can dump some points into ANA plan. I can't remember if *A allows for one way redemptions or not.

SanDiego1K

The decision to allow one way awards is made on a carrier by carrier basis, not on an alliance basis. ANA does not currently allow one way awards.

glennaa11

Right but UA allows one ways, so that is the place to put the miles. The UA website is fairly decent at showing award availability.

I find that AwardNexus is a good tool for searching award seat availability as well. I like it a little better than ExpertFlyer for that purpose.

One potential issue going on Etihad is that I believe AA requires use of more miles than a transpac OW combo would. Unless that has changed you get charged for two awards. One to the Middle East and then another for the continuation from there to Asia.

susiesan

I ran an awardnexus search using Jan. 2014 dates. There is a routing ORD-AMM-CMB on Royal Jordanian. Are they a BA partner? They are a OW partner, but it looks like I can't use AA miles for a routing through Amman. I could dump my MR points into the BA plan. Do Starpoints transfer into BA? I have never used BA Avios to book award travel and am not familiar with their terms and conditions. I'll have to play around on their web site and educate myself.

glennaa11: I called AA and asked about an award on Etihad through Abu Dhabi for an Asia 2 award. I was told yes, it is one award @ 55K miles in Business class. That would be the most direct route with the shortest travel time.

SanDiego1K

You only want to use BA Avios on short haul single sectors. They changed the program a year or so back. It prices per sector, has heavy fuel surcharges across the Atlantic, and has very high redemption rates on the long haul flights.

glennaa11

That's good to know about Etihad award flights. Sounds like that is the way to go then if you can find available seats.

If you are looking for Jan 2014 awards you are likely a little too early. Most airlines don't load their seats until 330 days out, sometimes less. I would wait a month or so and check again.

Yes, Royal Jordanian is OW. Not sure why you couldn't use AA miles. If they have seats available you should be able to book them but you have to call since the AA website only allows you to book AA award flights.

But I agree Avios is definitely NOT the way to go on longhaul flights, especially ultra-longhauls like this. And as noted you end up paying per segment. Avios are great for shorthaul segments though.

JDiver

Moved to MilesBuzz! for greater input.

JDiver, Senior Moderator

N.B. Some initial planning tools:

oneworld interactive map <link>

Star interactive map <link>

These won't reveal flights for all the airlines' partners, but they will reveal a number of flights we may not have thought of.

Some other issues: most codeshares will not provide one with award seats (but some may). As well, some airlines (Qantas, for instance,) publish their award seats more than 330 days out, but some airlines, such as American Airlines, can only show / book them 330 days out, so it creates an issue for some.

When to go? Wikipedia, on this page, says, in part:

"Sri Lanka's climate includes tropical monsoons: the northeast monsoon (December to March), and the southwest monsoon (June to October)..."

The World Climate Chart for Colombo:

sfernando

Have visited Sri Lanka on awards many times--was born there. A few points:

January will be noticeably cooler (less humid) than April, especially around Colombo. Also the whole place shuts down for the local New Year which usually occurs around April.

For *A, SQ via SIN and TG via BKK are options.

For OneWorld, it's CX, MH, RJ, with UL joining soon as noted, plus EY through AA.

For Skyteam, KE now flies nonstop from ICN.

There's a lot to do based on your specific interests. Be prepared to watch your life pass before your eyes if you plan to do much intercity driving!

susiesan

I don't plan to drive ourselves. We will hire a driver and have someone put together a private tour for us.

As to using DL miles with Skyteam partners, I could send my MR points to Delta but I keep reading that it's virtually impossible to get lower mile seats on DL award flights. Last time I used DL points and flew KE on an award I had to buy the segment MCI-ORD to hook up with the KE flight. I see they fly to ICN from DFW also, which is a fairly inexpensive flight to buy. Maybe we can do the stopover in Seoul, another place we want to visit.

guv1976

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

I suggest that the OP look into using AA's distance-based "Explorer" award, which does permit en-route stopovers and routings via the Atlantic. Once UL joins oneworld, this award should provide good value for Business Class travel (up to 20,000 flown miles for 130,000 AAdvantage miles). And there will be even more routing options once QR joins oneworld, but that might happen until 2014.

If necessary, look at using BA Avios for short-distance Coach flights (like MCI-ORD, or CMB-MLE) to avoid going into the next mileage band on the Explorer award.

And I'm pretty sure that the AA agent who said that one can travel from ORD to CMB via AUH on EY as a single award was mistaken: AA one-way awards between North America and Asia 2 do not permit connections in the Middle East.

susiesan

As someone who was born there, what month would you suggest we visit to get the best weather? We would like to do some snorkeling as well as tour around the island along the coast and up into the center/mountains.I am totally flexible as to when we go, any month in 2014. How long of a visit for the first time to get a good flavor of Sri Lanka-a week? 2 weeks?

guv1976

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

Here's one example of a possible AA Explorer award, once both QR and UL are oneworld members:

Mci-ord-doh-cmb-mle-doh-ord-mci

for only 130,000 AAdvantage miles in Business Class.