Hey all,

I'm looking to head from NYC to MUC in late September (Oktoberfest!), and am completely new to the idea of maximizing miles for rewards. I usually just head to Kayak and pick the lowest fare that pops up, but it's dawned on me that I actually have a few miles accruing in various accounts that could help me out here. Long story short, I'd love to be able to fly at least the return trip back to NYC in business class (hungover and working the day after return won't be a very good mix in economy!).

I currently have ~40K miles in my Continental account and ~55K miles on my Amex rewards account. Do any of you have any advice on how to make the most of this, or maybe a place where a newbie can start learning on their own? And which account should I be focusing earning miles to (both are attached to credit cards that I can switch between)?

Thanks!

Welcome to FlyerTalk!!

There are a few things for you to consider in this endeavor. The first is that, for the most part, upgrades can only be granted on the airline where you have the miles. There are exceptions to this but they generally require having purchased the most expensive fares which will likely blow your beer budget and that doesn't bode well for an Oktoberfest trip. The second is that the time you are traveling is peak season for MUC so getting an upgrade might be hard to do.

You mention having a lot of miles in the CO program so I'd start with them. Since they do not fly to MUC you'll have to find an itinerary with the transatlantic flight on CO metal and then a connection, likely on KLM via Amsterdam or on Air France via Paris, to get all the way to MUC. You can use the Continental website to search for trips with upgrade availability (just search to AMS or CDG) and then see what it would price out to get the ticket that has those flights in it. That is probably a bit more complicated than it sounds (and it doesn't sound all that easy ) but it can be done. An upgrade on Continental is also going to require a co-payment of cash in addition to the miles, so that is probably going to skew your budget a bit.

You might be better off just looking for a straight award ticket for the trip. You've got enough miles in the AmEx + CO combined to do coach one way and business the other, assuming availability. And with a bit of work on the AmEx front you might be able to get enough for a reward in Star Alliance that could potentially get you on the Lufthansa non-stop flight.

If you have specific dates in mind (and it sounds like you do) sharing them might help some folks here work with you to craft some specific plans.

Thanks for the quick reply! You're right, it would probably make the most sense to work on the AmEx...I'm a little concerned about what the fees are to "cash out" miles from my rewards account to a frequent flier program, but I'm thinking I just have to suck that up. There's no way I could use CO miles for a one-way coach reward on the way out then work towards a one-way Lufthansa biz class on the way back, is there?

FYI, I'm looking to depart 9/16 or 9/17 and return 9/21.

Thanks again!

Right now the CO/LH mix won't work but it will next year when CO moves into StarAlliance and has LH as a partner. The "fees" aren't too horrible in general but they can add up if redeeming on carrier based outside the USA as there is potential for fuel surcharges which can be in the hundreds of dollars.

I'll take a look to see what I can with those dates...

Getting there on CO doesn't look too bad; the getting back in Biz does however. If you are willing to double-connect in AMSterdam and DTW (Detroit) then it looks like it might be possible.

The outbound would be CO56 to Paris and then connecting to basically whichever AirFrance flight you want to get to Munich. The return would be an 11:50am flight on that Monday MUC - AMS and then to DTW (NW47) and then to EWR (NW1024). Figure ~$50-60 in taxes and ~$40 to move the points from AmEx to CO and you're all set.

Looks like you are probably going to be flying CO.

That sounds perfect - I don't mind any extra stops if it keeps costs down. I'm having trouble pulling up the itinerary on the CO site, it seems to want to give me very few options in favor of fewer stops. Any hints on how to recreate the itinerary you're quoting above? Thank you again for your assistance!

You won't find the reward on CO's site because of the way it mixes partners. You can call and should be able to talk the agent through the specific flights and get what you want.

To find the flights I started by searching EWR-MUC on 9/16 as a reward trip with the return on 9/21. That gave me the details for the outbound segments. Then I searched for EWR-AMS on the same dates, picking a random flight for the outbound and paying attention on the return. Because it is a partner flight you'll need to scroll down on the page a bit to see it. I then used nwa.com to find the MUC-AMS flight by searching a r/t reward from 9/21 to 9/28. Once you have the details the agent can input them and assemble it correctly.

If you are doing it as business both ways it will be 100K points. CO will only let you hold it for ~72 hours but there are a couple ways to get the points from AmEx to fill out your transfer need if you don't have enough. There is a Points Advance feature that is a minimum of 15K, depending on the level of card you have in the MR program. Or you can buy the points from CO or AmEx. They are about 1/3 the price from AmEx as they are from CO so buy there if necessary.

For your transatlantic crossing, try to get an American airline (CO DL or NWA) rather than the European partners (KLM AF) who seem to charge much higher taxes/fuel surcharges.

Be prepared to be creative with your routing - if you cant find availability say Paris-New York, try Paris-Atlanta (with DL) in business, then ATL-LGA.

Also, when doing searches use NYC for New York rather than JFK only or EWR only

Also - dont transfer the miles from Amex to CO until you are 100% sure the award flights you want are available. The transfer happens IMMEDIATELY. Someone above mentioned you can put an award on hold for 72hrs (I did not know that) - a very good idea if you can. Good luck

This is not quite right. The taxes on a reward are based on the program from which the miles are withdrawn, not from the operating carrier. So a CO reward on AF metal would only pay the CO-required fees (basically federal taxes) while an AF reward on CO metal would be subject to the AF-required fees, including the fuel surcharge. The worst part about that is that AF would just pocket the surcharge as pure profit since CO would never even ask for the money.

And if in coach, flying on an international carrier has a much better chance of seeing free booze served, if that is important to you.