Help-- insideflyer subs: Diners or starwood
 

I want to start by thanking all the people on this board from who i have learnt so much. I have some questions-- thought i was good at math but find I am lost. so here goes:
1. (Ihave AA miles --about 650000 lifetime and would like to get to a million - i fly about 20000 miles a year.
2. Would like to go from SFO to Sydney Auckland and back bus.class with my husband.( we could skip auckland)
3. I have a diners card and a British Air account-- i like to use BA to India - flat beds in bus.class
Should I get starwood points to transfer to Quantas or to AA (AA needs 105000miles to fly each of us bus. class sfo to sydney) Or should i get 3500 diners points and transfer them to BA for 3500 miles.
4. If i order say 30 subscriptions can i order them for 6 people for 5 years? this way i can keep 1 and give 5 different libraries a subs for 5 years.
Any and all help will be appreciated. And thanks for all the info on the boards. I appreciate it.

I don't think 1 and 2 were questions http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

According to the Starwood site, transfers from *wood to AA are 1:1, transfers from *wood to QF are 1:2 so for every *wood point you transfer, you get 2 QF FF miles. If you had no miles in AA then we could eliminate AA just based on the conversion ratio. Since you don't say how many AA miles you currently have it will be imposssible to decide which is the better airline for you.

Transferring 20,000 *wood points to a FF program adds a "bonus" of another 5,000 *wood points to the transfer.

A QF BC award requires 100,000 miles which in turn requires 40,000 *wood points.

40,000/2,500 *wood points/subscription = 16 subscriptions or $960 per person.

I believe the BA award is also 100,000 miles, but I may be wrong. If it is then:

100,000/3,500 miles for the DC promo = 29 subscriptions or $1,740 per person.

The QF site says that extra miles may be required for stopovers. Be sure to check my math for yourself http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif YMMV.

I would like to know the answwer to this as well.

Cheers,

birdstrike

thank you birdstrike. 1 and 2 were the facts. Anyway you have answered my question. I better order the magazines. I will call tomorrow and let you know on this thread about getting multiple years subscriptions pd in advance. I have about 500000 miles currently in AA. However i want to save them as i will be using some for europe 2for 160000 miles. Big difference between the cost for quantas and British Air. I guess I will get the starwood points. I suppose I could order all the magazines in one name put in it one starwood account transfer to one quantas account and get 2 tics issued from that account-- one for me and one for my husband.

Call Qantas as well and make sure the 100K award is good from SFO.

Also note that others have reported it can take up to two months for the *wood points to post to Qantas.

Cheers,

birdstrike


[This message has been edited by birdstrike (edited 06-02-2002).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by birdstrike:
[B]Call Qantas as well and make sure the 100K award is good from SFO.

I spoke to them, and 200K is necessary from SEA.

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sea-md:
[b]Interesting. I looked at the QF website and it claims that 160,000 is needed for either SEA-LAX-SYD, or SFO-LAX-SYD, or LAX-SYD.

The AA website has a 105,000 PlanAAhead award from NA to SYD.

Sorry, eager to learn, that kind of changes the calculations. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif It also explains to me why the Concorde deal is such a good one, JFK-LHR being such a short flight, relativly speaking.

birdstrike


[This message has been edited by birdstrike (edited 06-02-2002).]

It was good while it lasted-- thought i had a great deal. If i need 160000 points on Quantas( I will call them tomorrow) I would need to transfer 65000 swood points to get 80000 airline points and at 2for 1 i would get 160000 quantas points. i would need 26 subs to IF for a cost of 1560. Is my math right so far?
if however i needed 200000 points it would be better to get BA miles-- 100000 miles ( i could get 98000 miles for 28 subs for a total cost of $ 1680. (I have miles in my account i could use for the shortfall)
Birdstrike could you check my math and tell me if i got it right?
there has been some talk that the 2 to 1 may change. In that case would it be safer to get the BA miles tho it would cost a little more?

check out www.mileagerunner.com to determine number of IF subs for QF awards

Your math looks good to me, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

And for those who were wondering, you can order a two year subsciption and get 7,000 points, or three years for 10,500, etc.

Cheers,

birdstrike

[This message has been edited by birdstrike (edited 06-03-2002).]

Looks to me like a 1 years subscriotion is $45, not $60?

I don't see anything more than a 2 year subscription.

Are you saying you get more than 2,500 per year/subscription?

The *wood promo is 2,500. The Diner's promo is 3,500 or 1,200.

http://www.dinersclubnorthamerica.co...us_02_04_04_04

It's the 4th promo down. The 1,200 mile FT/DC bonus still exists at the top of the list.

The 1,200 mile promo is just for the magazine, the 3,500 one is for the magazine and Guidebook together.

What made the *wood promo so nice was the 1:2 exchange with QF. That option doesn't exist with DC, but they are running the yearly 1:1 exchange with BA at the moment.

I'm re-checking on what happens when you order multi-year subscriptions

I'm just waiting for my UA miles to post to DC before ordering http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

birdstrike


[This message has been edited by birdstrike (edited 06-04-2002).]

Maybe Randy can answer this -- there is another thread about this. If i order 5 different subscriptions for 4 years mailed to 5 different addresses do i get 3500DC points x20 = 70000 DC points for about $1200.

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