I'm struggling a little trying to plan/manage miles for trips we want to take in 2014. Some background: 4 pax, 2 boys are 10 & 12, based in SAT but can use AUS, IAH or even DFW. Wife and I are new churners starting the beginning of this year. Total points earned or on the way since then ~1.25 million, about 475K have been or will be redeemed for travel this year, highlighted by a quick whirlwind Europe trip: Paris, La Spezia, Catania, Zurich/Southern Germany.

We fly coach, any airline is fine as long as they have a decent on-time record, prefer small towns, nature/countryside and vacation rentals or local hotels.

2014 wants: Alaska long weekend July 4; and a 3-4 day Morocco tour from Marrakesh Thanksgiving week with 1-2 days in Europe on either end. Prefer any 2 of London, Palma, Barcelona, Madrid or Lisbon. The kids decide the primary destination for the int'l trip (this year Catania, next year Morocco).

Balances earned or on the way; I can easily add 10-15K to any of these per month:
AA 225K
UA 75K
US 115K
UR 75K
BA 50K
MR 140K
*Wood 30K
Frontier 40K
SW 15K + CP through 2014

The original plan:

AUS-ANC-AUS in July, 20K RT per pax on Frontier. Uses 40K Frontier and 40K MR.

Europe/Morocco option 1: SAT-LHR, PMI, or BCN on AA or AA/IB/AB, 20K per pax. Stop for 1-2 days, continue to RAK on BA/IB with Avios, or Easyjet. RAK-MAD or LIS on IB with Avios, Return on AA for 20K or UA for 30K

or Europe/Morocco option 2: SAT-LHR(20hr stop)-LIS-RAK(destination)-LIS(stopover)-SAT. 2 tix booked with US miles at 70K RT, the other 2 with UA miles at 80K RT.

But AA is harder to find 4 award seats on than UA, and there's no guarantee that US will still be Star Alliance miles in December. Frontier had lots of availability for 7/4 weekend this year, but they don't book until ~6 months out.

So I'm toying with the idea of booking SAT-ANC-SAT on United with US miles in August which would leave me with a few orphaned US miles and (maybe) less options for Europe/Morocco, but I wouldn't be at the mercy of whatever Frontier might do for the Alaska trip. And we could add a weekend trip to Yellowstone or anywhere in the Northwest with the Frontier miles.

If you're still reading, I'm looking for any tips, suggestions, tweaks or helpful thoughts. We have opened 22 cards in the past 6 months (12 me, 10 her) so we'll be taking it pretty slow on apps for the next few months, but we can get a couple more after July. Thanks in advance!

As for AA points and your trip to alaska....

Have you looked at booking the AA on Alaska Airlines? they have service to DFW, IAH, and SAT.

American code shares with Alaska such that if you flew through Seattle or Portland your flight to Anchorage would be operated by Alaska.

Not sure how it translates on American or Delta, but using AAlaska miles you can book a RT flight to ANC for 25K from SEA or PDX...not sure how it is elsewhere.

for some of the airlines you can book one way award travel tickets.

An alternate book flight to seattle or portland using other airline points then book on american to ANC.

As for the amount of time.

You need to give yourself 1 day each way for your flight. In Alaska you need to give yourself 4-10 days depending on what you wanted to do.

3-4 days for Seward, with 2 full days in Seward for tours.

For Denali you should try to be there for 3-4 fulldaysdays. visiting the park is a full daylong trip using the shuttle buses.

1 day ANC-sewards
2-3 days Seward
1-2 days travel from Seward to Denali
3-4 days Denali
1 day travel back to ANC
redeye back

If you are looking to do both look at it as a 8 day travel in Alaska with 2 days for travel or 10 days total.


As for Morocco trip...were it me I would look at doing 2-3 day in Lisbon and then 2-3 days in Barcelona.

As for the MR points...im assuming those are marriott rewards...i would have suggested you to specualte and booked a 4 night stay at a 30K-35K/night location before rates went up earlier this month. If I recall 4 nights pts stay means a 5th night free. Now some of the 35K hotels are now 40K

With complicated itineraries like yours to Europe, it's going to be tough to get 4 award seats on 5-7 different legs, which is what it will take when originating and arriving in non-hub cities. If you are comfortable splitting up -1 parent/1 child - you will probably be able to find similar itineraries arriving within a couple hours of the other. It's not ideal and there's a risk that a delay on one end will result in screwing up the trip for the other party (though this is true even if you are together), but sometimes it's the only way to get where you want to go. I think UA miles are going to be your best bet here. The availability and choices to Europe are far better than Oneworld partners and the routing can really work to your advantage for complex itineraries.

Alaska seems like a tough "long-weekend" trip from SAT. I would stick to something with less flying time.

Thanks for the help and timing recommendations. For Alaska we plan to get to ANC Wednesday night and leave on a Saturday night/Sunday morning redeye. Will probably just try to see Seward area. If I wait until I have "enough" time off I'll never travel!

The MR is AMEX Membership rewards points - can xfer to Frontier if 10K ANC-AUS seats are available, or will likely be used as Avios. My hotel points are Barclays Arrival.

I can position with WN (hope to have 2 Companion passes in 2014), or I can drive to IAH like I am this November, so I'm not worried about finding 4 seats as long as I can use either alliance. So I guess my goal between now and December will be to get to 280K United miles/UR points so we can do the entire Europe/Morocco trip on either Star or Oneworld. I just have a sneaking suspicion that there will be a point at which US Airways miles will be neither Star nor Oneworld.

I doubt it - that would seem to be a good way to anger your base. I would guess these will eventually all be converted to AA miles, with a period where it's optional to convert, much like the UA/CO merger.

I'm sure you're right and US miles will become AA eventually, but there will be a last day to use US miles for Star Alliance, and a first day to use them on Oneworld and/or convert them to AA. I just hope there is very little if any time between these two days.