Extreme award redemptions
 

We are writing about "extreme awards" for the next issue of InsideFlyer and would like to hear from anyone who has redeemed miles and points for an over-the-top award or is saving up for an incredible trip or experience. Thanks for your input!

Paging lucky9876coins... the master of the insane TransPac. ;)

Well I'm sure this doesn't even rate in FT terms but ours have been:

1 BA Concorde
2 AF Concorde
2 EK F
4 SQ F

Not sure if this 'qualifies' ?
 

For our family cruise to Alaska in August of 2008 - I managed to book 12 RT. tickets to Seattle (embarkation Port) all from East Coast Airports - I used different Airlines and managed to get Standard Awards and booked similiar scheduales so we will all arrive in Seattle about the same time. Some are booked in First Class -

The route is very favored and hard to get as cruiseships carry 3,000 passengers and sometimes there are 4-6 ships leaving & arriving back in Seattle the same day!

I was on the phone and my husband on the Cell phone exactly 331 days at midnight before ticketing day!! :rolleyes:

I also booked our Pre-Cruise Hotel, for 17 of us, using Marriott Pts, but this is not as much of a feat as the Airline tickets.!! :p

best redemption was Qantas RTW first class for 300k
my routing was sin-lhr-bkk-syd-lax-jfk-lax-akl as you couldnt go back to the same country twice but could backtrack
it was a 70000km cap and I came in at like 59k if I remember rightly
then they cancelled the lax-akl F so they had to re route me lax-syd-akl. so I used that to go akl-scl-eze-syd on lanchile I think that award was about
120k. that was when QFf was good value! and reasonable availability

not anymore:rolleyes:

I have a few interesting award routings to share, although I'm not totally sure which direction you want to go with this. I should preface this by saying that I love to fly, which may explain these.;)

My most extreme award was the "Six Transpacs in Five Days." There was a glitch, I mean special;) on the UA website that allowed me to book an award from KIX to ICN by means of SFO each way, for a mere 40K miles in First. That meant I flew KIX-SFO-ICN-SFO-KIX, all within the course of a few days. Since I live in TPA I had to buy a revenue ticket to KIX, so it turned out to be six transpacific flights in five days. I really enjoyed the journey!^

A more mild journey I took was to NRT from the US, routing EWR-DUS-ZRH-SIN-NRT, staying in Tokyo three days, and then returning NRT-SIN-ZRH-FRA-EWR. This was primarily to sample the new Singapore Airlines Business Class on the 77W, and was only 90K miles in C. I wrote a trip report on this here.

On another "I love to fly" note, I did an award from JFK-LAX-NRT-SIN-BKK-SIN-BKK-NRT-LAX-JFK on UA/LX/TG/SQ all in F, and stayed in SIN for two days and BKK for one day. It was my first time in SQ F, which was the primary reason I took the trip.

If you are more interested in just regular awards to actually see destinations, I booked an award to New Zealand and Australia last year before United raised their award prices, and spend two weeks in beautiful New Zealand. I also recently flew to China on an award ticket and spent 10 days there.

If you would like anymore info, please contact me.:)

There was the time I flew award coach (that's extreme right?) in order to make the 14 hour AKL-YVR inaugural flight and continued on to PHX (via LAX on CRJs) for the mod do. The way back was less extreme although I almost misconnected at LAX to the last flight of the day thanks to delays on US Airways PHX-LAX.

Yikes, yes that is extreme!! Oye!

200K SPG point to see my Steelers win SuperBowl XL from 47-yard line, Steelers sideline, 20 rows from the field, seats. 2 nights SPG hotel, night-before NFL party, day-of-game party, rubbing elbows with Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, before an escorted entry bypassing the great unwashed standing in line to get in. ;)

Yes, I could have stayed 25 nights in a Cat4 hotel, but it was worth it.^

http://richs.smugmug.com/Super%20Bowl

The most I've ever spent was for an SQ award F tix roundtrip HKG-SIN-LHR with Aeroplan miles which I have done twice.

45K UA miles for TED award LAX-LAS on UA. My best use of miles ever. Almost as good as redeeming 25K miles for LAX-SNA.

FYI. IMHO it is not in anybody s interest to publish current good deals in using miles.

My wedding and honeymoon trip report was titled "How to Spend 670k Miles on a Single Trip" or something like that...
* 2 first class awards using American miles, LA - Tahiti and Tahiti-Sydney on Air Tahiti Nui + Melbourne - Los Angeles on Qantas
* Overwater Bungalow at Bora Bora Nui for 5 nights + Intercontinental Tahiti, Sheraton Tahiti, Westin Sydney, Intercontinental Sydney, Westin Melbourne, Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey
* Cash + points (Starwood) rooms for all family traveling to our wedding in Seattle

I just booked 2 F awards using United miles, North America to South Asia via the Atlantic which gets the Lufthansa First Class Terminal in FRA twice and the Thai First Class spa in Bangkok as well.

And I've done several transpacific awards in first, that's an extreme award but also pretty standard....

Very do-able with Star Alliance, do-able with oneworld, almost impossible with Skyteam of course. (Although there are still some hidden value partnerships with DL Skymiles.)

Slightly OT, but glad to know you finally found a date United wasn't "filtering" TG F availability.

Mine was a simple RTW award
 

150K AA each for the bride and I in Business Class.

TVC-BOS (for son's college graduation), SNN (side trips to Norway, Venice and Brussels on Ryanair ugh), LHR-HKG-SYD-HNL-TVC.

Five week trip and total for airfare and all hotels using points and miles was $2300 plus food and goodies.

Thanks FT

I did a Skyteam RTW in Biz in 2006, spread out over 11 months, 6 continents, 5 Skyteam members and about 52k in flight miles, if I recall correctly. A great use of 220k miles and about $300 in taxes.

Not really!

I actually had to get one of my LH F segments via a manual sell... but my TG segments didn't come back confirmed. Instead I'm getting my TG F flight ex-BKK on BKK-PEK, there doesn't seem to be any sort of filter on the intra-Asian segments (and certainly not on TG's ancient 747s :eek: )

African Safari!!!!
* 2 First Class/3 Business Class on BA: CLE-DAR (Dar Es Salaam)/ EBB (Entebbe, Uganda)-CLE (580K QF miles)
* 2 Hilton 6 night safari awards (300K HH)

Morocco Odyssey!!
* 7 Business Class on AF: CLE-RAB (Rabat/ CMN (Casablanca)-CLE
(normally 630K AF/KL miles, but Webawards 50% off- 315K miles)
* 3 Business Class on BA: CLE-FEZ/RAK (Marakkesh)-CLE
(300K QF miles)

India In Style
* 5 Business Class on KL: CLE-DEL/DEL-COK (Cochin)/COK-DEL/DEL-CLE
(510K AF/KL miles)

Just this fall, 33-day six destination trip WAS-NRT-HGK-MEL-SYD-ZQN-AKL-WAS oneworld business awards for parents and myself for 150k AA miles each.

A few routing quirks, like up to YYZ to go TATL via BA to NRT (for better international service than AA), which also made it RTW. Got my parents bus seats on the only once a week SYD-ZQN direct flight (I did CHC and bounced back).

Amusingly, I scored a lucky direct back routing AKL-LAX-IAD, but I couldn't find any better way to get my parents back in business class than AKL-(QF)-BNE-(CX)-HKG-(BA)-LHR-(AA)-JFK-(American Eagle)-BWI! :eek: I had to get back to my job, while they are retired, so it wasn't that horrific.

Steve

Our best value ever for an award ticket was two tickets
Chicago-Quito-Cuzco-Chicago on American Airlines for
35,000 miles each, with side trips to the Galapagos and
Machu Picchu. These went through Miami and Lima; July 2006.

We redeemed two business-class awards with US Airways miles about three years ago for 120k each that took us all across the pacific in J - BOS-PIT-LAX-SYD-BNE-CNS-SYD-CHC-AKL-NAN-LAX-CLT-BOS. Yes, it is possible to find those awards out there with some serious searching!

Extreme Awards
 

After writing a letter of complaint and faxing it to customer service about a miserable paid two-room Hyatt experience at San Diego, was given points in compensation which I've turned into five room nights at a newly-minted (from Amerisuites) Hyatt Place in February at FLL.

This year (2007), prices to AMS from IAH in coach for Memorial Day were waaay high ($1K+) after being only $550 or so last year. Accordingly, I looked into option for redemption using KVS' SkyTeam Awards Search function. No luck on the direct routings, but searching segment-by-segment, I finally managed to find Saver award availability in J IAH-AMS.

The routing was: IAH-DTW-YUL-CDG-AMS-CDG-LAX-IAH One of the sillier routings I've dealt with for a simple TATL flight. I booked it over the phone with a bemused CO Elite Desk Agent. Thankfully, NW came out with a decently priced IAH-AMS coach fare ($700 or so) for my preferred dates about three weeks before departure, so I saved 100K mi. for my future honeymoon by redepositing the reward, and made it to AMS at an acceptable price.

The experience did confirm my belief that saver redemption is almost always possible, if one is willing to put ridiculous amounts of time and effort into searching for availability on numerous route pairings, even during busy periods of the year (the booking mentioned here was for Memorial Day, so finding Saver domestic F availability was all the more difficult).

In 2006 I booked 3 x saver award first class tickets on United: IAD-EZE (break) EZE-IAD-DEN-ANC. The 300,000 miles these tickets 'cost' were almost completely funded by taking advantage of a series of overlapping promos whereby flying eight return flights BWI-DEN during the month of March 2006 earned one an effective 15K redeemable miles per segment.

Nothing can compare with the old TWA awards.

50K miles for all of the following:

• F ticket (I used it for BOS-JFK-TLV-JFK-BOS)
• F upgrade on any ticket (I used it for another BOS-JFK-TLV-JFK-BOS)
• 50% off one week of hotel
• one week free car rental

TWO times took family of five to Hawaii, all on Award tx.
First time on Standard Awards over Christmas, booked 331 days in advance.
Second time, on Saver (yeah!) also booked 331 days in advance.
First time used Hilton points for four of the seven days in Hawaiian Village, got upgraded rooms as well (desk agent felt sorry for us with three kids in one room, so got two rooms, one free!).

My best award trip was over Christmas/New Year a few years ago: 5 Business class tickets on Cathay SFO-HKG-DPS, 2 rooms-6nights at Sheraton Laguna Resort in Bali, 2 rooms-6 nights at Conrad Hong Kong.

So that's why TWA went under :p

I've done two OW220C awards, in 2005 and 2006...one a 34-segment trip, but the next only 16 segments (thanks to the new rules).

The first was LAX-YYZ-LHR-HEL-xARN-BGO-xARN-MAD-BCN-CAI-xBCN-VCE-DUB-xLHR-CPT-xLHR-DXB-BOM-xSYD-HKG-BKK-xHKG-DPS-xHKG-MEL-AYQ-SYD-BNE-AKL / PPT-IPC-SCL-GIG-xSCL-LIM-LAX.

The second was LAX-xNRT-HKG-LHR-IST-xLHR-MRU-xLHR-MAD-TLV-BCN-VIE-HEL-xHKG-BKK-SYD-LAX. I hate the new rules.

Didn't realize it was that good at the time, but we used AA's 'Fly 2 Fly Free' promo to get three tickets for BOS-ZRH in August 2004. And the itin was booked in May I think.

I have almost never burned miles yet but I did a great trip last summer in Europe with my girlfriend: TLL-ARN-OSL-TOS-LYR-TOS-BOO-TRD-ARN-RIX for 10000 SAS points in business / person :) The end destination was LYR with overnight stops in OSL and TRD, did not have time to stop in the other cities. Unfortunately, there is no business class on Norwegian domestic flights, but it is still a great value for miles, this 3500 miles long award trip :)

Translation of the codes:

TLL: Tallinn, Estonia
ARN: Stockholm, Sweden
OSL: Oslo, Norway
TOS: Tromsø, Norway (up north)
LYR: Longyearbyen, Norway, the island between the Norwegian North Cape and the North pole, 80 degrees north :)
BOO: Bodø, Norway (great panorama over the Lofoten archipelago on this flight!)
TRD: Trondheim, Norway (in the middle of the country)
RIX: Riga, Latvia

I have used my miles for the following:

American Airlines
LHR-NBO on BA J x 7 = 525k
KHR-CPT on LX J x 2 = 150k
ORD-BOM-LHR-PVG-NBO-LHR on AA F / CX J / BA J = 190k
ORD-LHR on AA Y = 60k
LHR-MIA on Iberia Y = 40k

I only have 40k AA miles left! :-(

Total AA miles = 1,005,000


United
LHR-SYD on LH / TG / SQ J = 120k
LHR-SIN-BKK on SQ J x 2 = 210k
LHR-NBO on SA J = 75k

My most recent 'extreme' award redemption ticketed just a couple days ago.

2 AC Aeroplan *A Business Class award tickets to Australia (Asian routing)

YYC-SFO AC J (23 hr connection)
SFO-ICN OZ J (overnight connection)
ICN-HKG TG J (22 hr connection)
HKG-BKK TG J (23 hr connection)
BKK-SIN SQ J
SIN-PER SQ J (destination)
PER-BKK TG J (stopover)
BKK-NRT NH J
NRT-SFO NH J
SFO-YYC AC J

100,000 miles per ticket, $145 taxes per ticket, all confirmed in business, 24,632 miles roundtrip...pretty good value for 100,000 miles/ticket IMO.

My best award redemption is as follows:

120K UA miles for F award to Asia from BOS

1) BOS-ORD-LAX (on UA F, ORD-LAX on three cabin F)
2) LAX-NRT-SIN (SQ F), SIN 23 hour layover
3) SIN-CMB (SQ F destination, 4 days)
4) CMB-SIN (SQ F, 20hour layover)
5) SIN-NRT (SQ F) - ICN (OZ F), ICN stopover for five months!! :D
6) ICN-NRT (OZ F) - 22 hour layover in NRT
7) NRT-ORD (NH F) - BOS (UA F)

So, if you look carefully, there are about five round trip tickets in this routing :D

1) BOS-ORD
2) US gateway to NRT (ex. LAX and ORD)
3) NRT-SIN
4) SIN-CMB
5) NRT-ICN

Initial reservation was very quick to set up and took 15 minutes. But I had to call back several times to find NH availability in F (which is very tough). In this process, I was able to have an agent route me via NRT from SIN and to ICN and back to NRT to catch NH F to ORD. :D

All this for 120K miles, all in F cabin, and about 140 USD in taxes! Though CMB was my destination, it was just a fluke destination so that I can get most of flying out of 120K miles and go to ICN! A long way around to go to ICN.

This was about 26000 miles of flying. I'd do this any day again! :D

Ah, the days of AF Concorde for 125k miles...

Steve B.

I booked mine today for December 25: CDG to Ekatharinenburg in Russia in C. 25000 LH miles + Tax compared to 5376 USD + Tax. I never got a mile value of nearly a Quarter a mile before :D

Saved For Nothing
 

Once upon a time with HHonors they had an elite award for two RT coach anywhere worldwide and six nights at any Hilton or Conrad property for something like 325,000 miles and you could also use the point discount coupons to get lower than that. Had banked enough points to do it, was going to go to Holy Land on the award then do another week at Red Sea using timeshare exchange, but...before I actually took the trip they eliminated the airline tix and now it's just six nights in the hotel:td:

I think this takes the cake: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766615

Wife and I saved up CO miles, SPG points, and HH points for a year and a half to do the following trip to Oz last year:

240K CO miles for 2 BF tickets from IAH - NRT - GUM (overnight) - CNS - GUM - HNL - IAH

103,500 SPG points for : 3 nights in a suite at Westin Sydney, 3 nights at Sheraton Port Douglas lagoon view room, and 1 full day snorkeling excursion to Great Barrier Reef (redeemed 9000 SPG points for that)

18,000 HH points for point stretcher for overnight at Hilton Guam in an executive floor room, and redeemed on Q3FN certificate for one night at Hilton Cairns in an executive room

To top it off, redeemed ~3700 Parking Spot points so parking at IAH was free for entire trip.

My all-time Extreme Award Redemptions were using British Airways miles.

For 175,000 miles, I did the following a few years ago:

LAX-JFK First class on the three class American Airlines 767
JFK-LHR Concorde
LHR-BKK British Airways First Class
BKK-SYD British Airways First Class

SYD-SIN British Airways First Class
SIN-LHR British Airways First Class
LHR-JFK Concorde
JFK-LAX First class on the three class American Airlines 767

Under the rules, I was only allowed one stop-over in each direction in addition to my ultimate destination in Sydney, but I managed with little difficulty to end-up with stopovers in each of the cities.

A little later, I did the same trip for 150,000 miles, but instead of Concorde on the trans-Atlantic segments, I had to lower my expectations to mere British Airways First Class (which I greatly preferred over the essentially coach-class seat on Concorde).

When BA "improved" its Executive Club program, that 150,000 mile award escalated to 420,000 miles.

Had some good ones (X) indicates which program, // is stopover/openjaw:

Honeymoon: AUS-ORD-LHR-CPT//JNB-LHR-ORD-AUS for 125k first (BA)
AUS-ORD-NGO//TBS-LHR-BRU-ORD-AUS for 90k biz (AA)
AUS-DFW-MIA-LIM//CUZ-LIM-UIO//UIO-LIM-DFW-AUS for 60k biz (AA)
AUS-ATL-TAB//CAY-PTP-MIA-ATL-AUS for 35k econ (DL)
GRK-DFW-EZE//IGU-GRU-MIA-DFW-GRK for 90k biz (AA)
GRK-DFW-EZE//EZE-ASU//ASU-EZE-DFW-GRK for 40k econ (AA)
DFW-ORD-LHR-AGP-MLN-MAD-LIS//LIS-MAD-MIA-NAS for 90k biz (AA)

I've redeemed more interesting routes, but redeposited the miles as I couldn't/didn't take the trip.