DFW-HYD-DFW, Need advice/help
 

Planning for a trip to HYD, India from DFW in Dec 13/Jan-14 for three (2 adults and a kid). Following are my miles:

AAA -70k + 50k (expected from AA Citi card)
BA - 150k
UR - 60k
SPG - 30k
HHonors - 50k
Marriott - 75k
SW RR - 105k
Citi TYP - 25k

Wife's AAA - 50k + 50k (expected from Citi AA card)
Wife's BA - 50k
Wife's SPG -30k

I plan to transfer 40k SPG to AA during bonus period adding another 50k AA each. Would like try J class for the first time since it will be long flights. Please help me plan the route using One World flights (guessing that's my only option). Using Avios seem to be inefficient due to fees and taxes. I believe there are no one-stop options, so two-stop is fine. I should have mentioned I plan to apply for two more card for me and wife and hope fully get 50k more for each of us. I understand all my calculations are based on future accumulation, but I would like to plan on these accumulations.

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AAA might get you a tow truck if your car breaks down, but won't get you a flight anywhere.

We can't help you plan an award redemption using AA, because we don't know what carriers have award-seat availability for your desired dates of travel.

Have you looked at AA's partner redemption chart to see how many miles you will need in Business versus Economy? Have you called AA to ask what's available between DFW and HYD?

DFW-HYD-DFW, Need advice/help
 

The only direct availability you will get is on BA and they will charge you an arm and a leg in taxes and fees. You can try Royal Jordanian.. But the best option is to call AA and ask them to plan. You will be done in 15 mins. If you find something that you like then just hold the ticket for 2 weeks and get the miles converted to your AA account.

DFW-HYD-DFW, Need advice/help
 

I'm not sure if etihad flies to HYD but if they do, then you shouldn't have any issue finding availability on etihad. The only issue might be Flying in J. I've booked a few recent flights from DFW-LHE using AA miles and didn't have any problems finding availability on Etihad albeit in economy. Just call AA and see what's available. Goodluck.

By AAA, I meant American Airlines Advantage. I guess are just being sarcastic. At this point I am not trying to figure out seat availability, but existence of routes either using AA miles.

AA needs 90k miles for Coach and 135k miles for Business class for a round trip.

I will call them and check, but I read somewhere in the forum that Etihad also flies to HYD and and AA miles can be used to redeem Etihad flights. I was hoping someone here would give if there any other other flights to HYD/BOM/BLR from DFW using these miles. Thanks anyway for your reply.

Thank you, will do that. My dates are pretty flexible based on availability of seat and I would like to fly in J once for the long trip.

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You can Google "HYD airport wiki" to get a link to the HYD airport Wikipedia article. That will list HYD's current carriers, and the cities they fly to/from. You can then identify which of those carriers are AA partners by looking at the list of AA partners at aa.com.

Permissible award routings will depend on the published-fares of the "over-water" carrier and the rules associated with those fares; AA can advise you on that. Some routings might require two awards, and would therefore cost more miles than what is listed on the award chart. But once you actually check which flights have available award seats, you may find that you have little (or no) choice of routings.

Based on the total number of AA miles that you and your wife expect to have
after SPG transfers, I don't see how you will be able to get three roundtrip awards in Business Class. You might have enough for Coach award travel in one direction, and Business Class award travel in the other. At the time of the year when you are traveling, a Coach award can be had for as little as 40K miles one way if you connect (or stop over) in Europe, and combine a North America-Europe off-peak award with a Europe-India award.

I checked Etihad and they do fly to HYD. I will have to route through DFW-ORD-Abu Dhabi-HYD and same in return. I will call and check with AA. Etihad seem to be code sharing partner of AA, but not a member of One-World Alliance.

I should have mentioned I plan to apply for two more Citi cards for me and wife and hopefully get 50k more for each of us (it's an assumption). I understand all my calculations are based on future accumulation, but I would like to plan on these accumulations.

Can I convert HH and Marriott Rewards into AA miles? (to avoid new Citi cards)

Can I redeem AA miles with a code sharing partner? Thanks for your detailed reply and in advance for any future replies.

DFW-HYD-DFW, Need advice/help
 

Yes you can redeem AA miles with codeshare partner.

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You can book a reward flight on any of AA's redemption partners; about half of them are oneworld members, and about half of them are not.

Codesharing is irrelevant. You cannot book an award flight under an AA codeshare flight number; you can only book it under the operating carrier's flight number, and there is no requirement that AA codeshare on the particular flight.

Yes, you can convert points in some hotel programs to AA miles, but there is usually significant devaluation when you do so. (SPG is a notable exception.)

Confession - I had to look up HYD. I guess the rest of you are more up on your airport codes. ^

I redeemed for a business class flight from SFO-HYD last year on Etihad. I flew out of Chicago and came back via New York. Getting 3 award seats in Business might be the biggest challenge. All the best.

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If you need to make the trip again in Business Class from the West Coast, you can actually save 5,000 AA miles by routing via the Pacific on a distance-based "Explorer" award. SFO-HKG-HYD-HKG-HND-SFO can be had for 130,000 AA miles in J class. And you could even have en-route stopovers, if desired.

Thanks