Before you transfer any points from Starwood to Qantas, make sure you do not need to use these for atleast 6 to 8 weeks. The Starwood to Qantas transfers are poorly managed. A number of us made transfers in May which have not yet posted to Qantas andd neither Starwood or Qantas will give us any idea of what is going on. If you are lucky, your points will show up in your Qantas account in 30 days, if not it can take 60 days or longer. Qantas will not make an award booking till the points are actually in your account. So just make sure that you have enough time to make your bookings. Good luck!

Thanks for all of the ideas but I think the time frame is too short for some of these things to work. The flights to London from here are not much less than the flights to GVA right now. And the flights from New York are not much lower either. I may just have to bite that bullet.

If the money is an issue, you might want to consider priceline or hotwire.

The bad part is that you won't earn any miles http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif and won't know the schedule until you purchase

But you could save some money http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Just a thought

------------------
==================
Another evil plot for world domination through the use of points and miles.

I have been trying Hotwire but it won't give me any prices on SAN-GVA around my dates. I haven't done Priceline yet... The prospect of not earning points really is quite unpleasant to me.

Maybe I'll give Priceline a shot today and otherwise just buy the BA ticket.

I am curious. Why is it that you wouldn't use your 50K on Delta if you could get an award ticket? Seems like saving $1100 might be a good use of 50K.

------------------
Ms.DtG

I would use the Delta miles. But I would first check the websites of consolidators for a better fare. I have often found better fares this way than on big search engines like orbitz, etc and even some of the fare bots like sidestep, etc. One to try for example is economytravel.com

If you post your exact dates, maybe someone can help you get a good fare.

dgordon, good question. Fact is, that this is a subsidized trip for me. I don't want to use a chunk like that of my own points. If it was under 30,000 I'd consider it but 50,000 is a good trip for me in the future.

economytravel.com came up with a good fare (<1000) but it wasn't available for any of the dates I tried.

satish_ny, right now I have booked July 31 to August 7 on BA for $1100. Leaving afternoon of July 31 is good but I'd prefer the return to be August 6. Those dates added a couple of hundred dollars though.

Ideally, I'd say July 31 to August 6. But August 7 or even 5 is alright too.

I am a bit confused as are probably other people here. Are you going to GVA for business and then trying to tag on a pleasure trip on the end? How much is you company willing to chip in towards your trip? Most companies wouldn't blink an eye at a $1,100 european ticket? Have you talked to your boss about what an acceptable price is for this ticket? do you have a corporate travel department?

A relative of mine is paying part of it. I'm going to enjoy the trip but I'm really going because he wants me to be there.

So can anyone better my $1100?

If the airlines are charging $1100 and lots of pax are paying $1100 then, unfortunately, it IS worth $1100.

It just may not seem worth $1100 to you and me who get spoiled by the low fares in the off months in the winter.

You could fly SAN-LGW on Continental for $758, then fly EasyJet for around $100 onwards to GVA.