Should I buy points or flights?
 

Well I have to go to Geneva in a few weeks. Should I pay $1100 for the San Diego-Geneva economy fare or should I somehow buy points and use those?

Help.

[This message has been edited by emaij (edited 07-11-2002).]

It will cost you more to buy miles from the Airlines. Even after you purchased those 50,000 miles - the minimum required to fly you in economy - it is very hard to find award seats to Europe. Summer is a high season and award seats are hard to find.

AndrewM

It's painful to pay $1100+ for an economy seat that should be half that. I don't really see any alternative though.

Try buying two separate tickets - say SAN-JFK and JFK-Geneva - to see if you can cut costs.

Mike

Let's back up here a second. Could you share with us what miles you do have in which aircounts and then we'll look at the value of "topping off" as well as some special international awards lurking around right now.

I'm doing as you suggest but it doesn't seem to be saving me anything. Thanks for the idea though.

Suuure.
Delta: 55,000
AC: 25,000
Starwood: 40,000
Northwest: 30,000

That kind of thing.

(deleted when I realised that my suggestion was no better than the $1100)

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 07-11-2002).]

1. Convert the 40,000 starwood points to Delta Skymiles + 55,000 you currently have with Delta will translate into one un restricted ticket in economy.

2. 40,000 Starwood will translate into 100,000 Qantas miles. Free award ticket on BA to Europe. or

3. 40,000 starwood + 30,000 NWA = Free restricted Business class on NWA\KLM.

The problem is you don't have enough time to complete the transaction.

Maybe I am missing something here, but you can get a SkySaver award on Delta from the US to Europe for 50,000 miles. It looks to me that, since you have 55,000 miles on Delta, you wouldn't need to buy a ticket or buy miles.

Why don't you transfer 20'000 *wood points to Qantas netting 50'000 Qantas points, enough to book 1 award ticket on BA?

Let's just hope they have seats available.

AndrewM, you beat me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Damian's idea is interesting... unless AndrewM's accounting is more accurate. I don't actually want to use the Delta points for this.

[This message has been edited by emaij (edited 07-12-2002).]

#2 above 100,000 miles Qantas award ticket on BA is for Business class from the east coast.

You need 80,000 miles for economy from SAN.

http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/...ables#qf_ba_aa

AndrewM

I don't have time to research your cities and dates right now, but in half a dozen similar situations over the past few months the best deal for paid tickets has been (by several hundred dollars) a flight to London followed by a partner ticket onward. With AA or BA you ask for a Visit Europe Pass ticket. *A has a similar program. You have to get these in North America in conjunction with a trans-Atlantic flight on an alliance member.

The usual online booking places don't have these fares. You have to call the airline and ask about them.

The reason this works is that competition to the UK keeps those fares low, and the intra-European fares in these programs are designed to compete with European bargain airlines.

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.