Buy ticket or use miles to Entebbe.
 

Will this ought to generate a lot of opinions.

I would like my wife to accompany me on a biz trip to Uganda. I have looked at (but not booked) fares from $1100+ on Emirates, to $1900 on NW/KLM. I am guessing that by the time I end up booking the fare could be about $1500.

On the other had, I have enough miles for an award ticket on AA (75,000 miles), though I haven't checked availability.

The question is, use miles or buy a ticket? Not sure if I buy a ticket I will be able to earn miles for all the segments.

Your ideas will be appreciated.

As this doesn't appear to be remotely related to a Mileage Run, I'll move it to TravelBuzz for further discussion on the merits of revenue vs. award tickets in this set of circumstances.

Dave, a.k.a. dmfriedman
Moderator, Mileage Run

I think checking for One World award availability would be useful at this point - award tickets might not be available on/around the dates you need, so the decision might have been made for you.

Also, do you have flexibility in choosing which airline you fly? I would imagine that you and your wife want to fly together, so that may have some impact on whether you use miles or buy a ticket.

Your points are well taken. I did a quick check last night and found some limited availability in the London-Chicago segment which I think is the stickiest as we want to travel around Easter. I should mention that we would like to do a stopover in London.

We have a second routing option on One World and that is via Brussels. I am guessing those flights would have more availability than via London.

I will have to use a US carrier as much as possible (so to Europe). There is some flexibility in carriers if prices are competative for my ticket.

Yes, we would like to travel together. But I will likely be going over by myself some weeks ahead of her. So, if it means for instance that we save $500 by returning on seperate flights or carriers; got to consider that.

So, I concede that at this point the question is hypothetical. But, if I could book an award flight for 75,000 miles is it a "better deal" than buying a $1500 ticket?