Hi all,

I never participated in FF programs or mileage based credit cards before.
I'm doing a ton of research trying to get up to speed.
It's a bit overwhelming so I can really use some help....

Am I getting it?
Is my understanding of mileage credit cards correct?
You sign up for a credit card and they give you xx,xxx bonus points for after you reach a certain threshold....
You can then transfer these points into miles to certain airlines they have partnerships with....like Chase Sapphire is only for United, Southwest, British and Korean Air?
Once you accumulate enough miles, you use the miles on your FF account to obtain free airline tickets.

Goals
Earn enough points to be able to afford two round trip tickets to China every year.
We plan on flying from LAX and going to WUH. Most likely connect in PVG or CAN.

Side goal: earn enough points get 2 tickets.
1. Roundtrip ticket LAX to WUH (I have to be in china for a week)
2. Roundtrip ticket from a gateway in china to PPT (vacationing spot )

Alliances/Programs
For my long term goal, I'm leaning towers SkyTeam because it seems like China Eastern and China Southern has more flights compared to Air China during the month of February.
I think most of my flights will be through MU and CZ because I don't see many Delta airline options to China. I see some going to PVG but I prefer to have 1 itinerary for my China trip and I don't want to pick up my bags and change flights multiple times.
It's a pity that I only get receive credit for 50% of the miles I travel through MU and CZ...but tough luck I guess?

Plan
Sign up for Skymiles, Delta FF program?, and start churning credit cards?
It looks like AmEx Delta cards and AmEx SPG cards are a good deal.
Does anyone have any experience booking multiple 1 way tickets?

Sorry for the wall of text. I formatted it many times and organized sentences to make it more coherent.

It would be difficult to plan long term with miles as the mileage program on airlines can devalue by the time you accumulate enough miles. So I would first start on the short term goal and get points in Amex membership rewards as that transfers to Delta if that is your plan or you will have flexibility to transfer
to a bunch of other partners in case your flights using DL miles are not feasible.

While delta is not the best in terms of mileage program, there are good values to be had to australia and china southern as you would have researched. Dont accumulate too much in any one program but have the ability to get the miles in those programs.

SPG, UR and MR are the best to accumulate points on but if you know for sure that in short term you are going to use the miles then definitely accumulate miles on a specific program till you reach the amount you need.

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

Has DL started offering one-way redemptions for less than the roundtrip redemption rate?

Dragonair (a oneworld affiliate) flies to WUH from HKG, so amassing and redeeming AA miles for LAX-HKG-WUH might be a possibility. (AA does offer one-way awards.)

You can't redeem miles from any FFP for travel to/from BOB; the closest you can get with miles is PPT.

DL remains a r/t system. Sure he can fly one-way but pay a r/t price if he wants to use DL miles.

I believe DL's Chinese partners also charge YQ which is about as bad as BA's.

OP would have a hard time to get from WUH to PPT. Better to separate the WUH to some gateway, and then from that gateway to PPT. Said gateway may not need to be in US, fwiw.

As for the CC game, he only gets some of it. Way more to learn on both how to accumulate miles and what miles / points to accumulate for the "goals". DL actually is not necessarily the one to focus on.

Not quite. There are three basic card types: cash back, rewards cards, and airline/hotel cards.

No need to discuss cash back cards, as their name tells you how they work.

With airline or hotel branded cards, purchases earn you FF miles or hotel points (depending on card type) which are deposited directly into your FF or hotel account.

Rewards cards earn you generic "points," which you can use in a variety of ways. You can transfer the points into some (but not all) FF or hotel programs, use them to book tickets via the credit card company, buy merchandise via the card company, or (sometimes) redeem points for cash. They are therefore more flexible than dedicated FF points.

You'll probably need to get both the co-branded airline card and several rewards cards to generate enough total points to do what you want to accomplish.

I believe Delta's FF program only allows booking round-trip tickets.

If you are going to be traveling too small places in China frequently, you should use Skyteam. However, the redemptions are awful and frustrating - especially for a Novice. Cz and MU do charge surcharges, but not as bad as BA (on BA).

The only real long haul to WUH is from CDG, so you'll always require a connection.

As good as CX and KA are, connecting in HKG is out of the way and requires longer flight times.

Honestly speaking, you can always just buy a round trip ticket to a major gateway and then use Ctrip to buy a connecting flight to Wuhan for less than a ticket all the way to Wuhan on one ticket.

I'd go with StAr Alliance and credit to UA, But that doesn't make it easy to get to PPT. There is a NRT PPT flight accessible with DL and AA miles but I doubt availability is good. You're best going to the Chinese travel agencies locally for this I think.

Thank you guys so much for the insightful information.
I think I'm trying to do too much at once so I decided to focus on figuring out the yearly China trip first.

Fuelsurcharge was something I had not considered. My main destination will be WUH but I don't mind using another city as a gateway if it's more cost efficient. Can anyone recommend an airline that flies to China that does not charge a fuelsurcharge...or at least not as high?

I don't mind flying economy but the upgrade option is always nice to have.
I am not enrolled in any FF programs or and rewards/airline CC's that can translate into miles. It seems like UA and AA may be the better option compared to Delta.
If I'm looking at this correctly, it'll cost 70,000 miles + ($2-$98 charge) with AA and 65,000 miles + ($2 - ??? charge) with UA?
The 2 links I've looked at.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/f...ward-chart.jsp
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...ardTravel.aspx

As you have picked up awards are not "free". Some (or all ?) now charge real taxes and some charge others fees, mainly the YQ fuel surcharge. These can be high $$

Be carefull of miles expiring: read the rules. Is now common to need an elegible activity every 18 months for many programs. You can fly airline A and collect (and burn) miles in airlines B's freq flyer program

Who do fly with now, or does it change depending on price ?
What class do you travel (First, business, economy) ?

I would be considering a OneWorld or Star Alliance airline. Look here (but more questions than answers)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...post-here.html

Taking a canoe would be better than Delta.


For AA, 35,000 each way in Y, yes. Now, bear in mind that a Y ticket LAX/ORD-PVG can be had for $860rt without trying and under $700 if you find them on sale. That makes the spend side for points in Y a bit problematic to my mind. I'd actually only see the benefit if spending on business or first - Y seems a waste given the very low cost of paid tickets.

Don't forget you can use AA points on OneWorld carriers, not that you have a lot of choices ex-US to China, and the points can sometimes be cheaper than AA.

Honestly, China flights in economy aren't that expensive. Sometimes the flight from HKG/PEK/PVG to WUH will raise the cost of the ticket significantly, as international Agencies don't get the same prices as domestic Chinese agencies. Always check major international airports first before adding the flight to WUH.

UA/DL/AA are all basically the same cost to China with miles and cash. DL has the beSt domestic partners, but is impossible for a beginner to navigate - it's really hard to use Delta miles as a beginner.

Chicago Seminar is a good place to start.
I use UA from PVG AA is good also,
UA seems easier to book, and has last minute openings.
DL is a pass, for me