zach46290

Hi,

I'm looking to book two award ticket in business class from Asia to Australia in late December. Ideally I was looking to redeem Alaska Airlines points with Cathay for Hong Kong to Brisbane/Sydney but I've been checking and calling for like 2 months and not availability. I wanted to see what other suggestions people had for business class awards. I'm flexible as to where I leave from in Asia tho Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei or maybe Shanghai would be ideal. I'd prefer to fly into Brisbane but Sydney would also be ok. I have AA/United/Alaska Miles as well as Chase/Citi/MR points I can transfer if necessary.

Any help of advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited it to make it clear I am looking for 2 seats, sorry.

Thanks
Zach

Mwenenzi

The week before Christmas - late December is a peak time to travel. Airlines will be expecting a lot of cash sales

Have you looked at which airlines fly the routes you are considering?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_Airport

AA & AS have many common ff partners (in Oneworld), but the AS award chart is limited.
With AA when looking for award not all partners are available on line.

Have you looked for SQ business class award flights (United partner)

Edit.
Just looked at you other post on this topic in this thread--->Cathay Pacific (CX) Award Redemption, Booking and Availability – 2017 and Later
In that you say 2 business award tickets. So 4 times as hard (2 squared)

BSBtraveller

Mwenenzi

Tend to agree. 1000's of Aussies go home for Christmas/New Year. Those with ff miles who go every year will book awards early.

But if OP keeps looking may find something
Some ffp's have Chinese airline partners (that are not in the alliances)

zach46290

Thanks for the feedback.

So I guess based on this I should take anything I can find including flights with a stop in Bangkok or Singapore. I'm not that interested in flying with Chinese airlines as I don't think most of there business products stack up with Cathay, Thai, or Singapore. If i'm incorrect about that assumption please let me know and i'll start to look into them.

Guess i'm giving up the dream of flying Cathay on Hong Kong to Australia, at least I got fly Hong Kong SFO last year in first with them

Mwenenzi

Any business class is better than economy.

zach46290

I'd tend to agree but if its an inferior product have to weight the cost in miles vs just buying economy. Tho for an 8 hour flight like this basically any lie flat should make it worth it no matter how bad the soft product is.

zach46290

So United is not finding this routing on there own but is seems like there is availability on both EVA and Thai for December 24/25 from TPE to BKK and then the following day for BKK to BNE on Thai. Is Awardace correct that TPE to BNE should be 40,000 United points in business class? United is showing it as 20K from TPE to BKK and 45K from BKK to BNE and both are saver awards. If Awardace is correct I should be able to call united to give them the individual segments and have then reprice it, as they do not violate any of united routing rules I am aware of.

Edit: Its seems like Awardace was lying according to United it 55K miles
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...ardTravel.aspx

Mwenenzi

Using my QF ff account can see

• 1 business class award HKG-MEL-BNE on QF on 24 Dec . [Did not look for 2]
• 1 business class award HKG-BNE-SYD on QF on 16 Dec (but did not show on a HKG-BNE search ) [Did not look for 2]

These may be bookable via AA ffp

Edit 1
Tried HKG-BNE again and 16 Dec now shows up.

Edit 2
Looking for 2 awards ---> nil showing

So hope is not lost

number_6

MH tends to have good availability KL to Oz if you have some date and O/D flexibility. Also sometimes F awards are available when J awards are all gone (but not much F into Oz unless you can redeem on EK,, then quite likely to be easy to get SIN/KUL-SYD/MEL on EK in F. Most of their real F pax go nonstop DXB-Oz so these 1-stop flights are empty in F for revenue pax.

zach46290

I see the 24th and the 27th available on AA with a stop in MEL but only for one seat, and nothing on the 16th.

kaiotes

KE would be your best bet.

CPMaverick

Virgin Australia just started a route HKG-SYD and it has had a lot of J availability since it is a brand new route. Great J class too, one of the best. Maybe give it a look. Can be booked with DL, SQ, EY points, plus some others. I know you didn't say you had those, but maybe there are transfer options?

If you can get DL or other Skyteam miles somehow, Asia-Australia is surprisingly well serviced by Skyteam (CZ, MU, CI, KE, GA, VN, MF), and awards seem fairly easy to find since there is no Skyteam airline based in Australia or NZ. Add in VA and there are 8 airlines that DL miles will work for between these continents! Some even fly to airports like ADL and DRW, which might be easier to find J awards flying into.

I agree this will be a VERY difficult time to get 2 J awards, but I feel like Skyteam will give you the best chance. Oneworld and Star Alliance partners will be booked up with QF and NZ points well in advance.

zach46290

Its looking like my best option is using 40K AA miles and flying PVG - SYD - BNE on the 17th. The flight is with Qantas in their A330

While looking at flight I decided I want to spend some time in New Zealand, but i'm having an even harder time finding two business class tickets that get me over there.

Mwenenzi

Many airlines fly the trans Tasman route Australia New Zealand from a range of airports. Not just SYD & AKL. Flight time is ~3:30hr. One way economy fares can be ~Au/NZ$250, or less or more.

Airlines that fly Australia (CNS* MCY* BNE OOL SYD CBR MEL ADL PER) to/from New Zealand (AKL WLG CHC DUD ZQN) (not from all airports to all airports).

• Air Asia D7 (OOL - AKL)
• Air New Zealand NZ Codeshares with VA. [Star Alliance] {* winter seasonal}
• China Airlines CI (BNE-AKL, MEL-CHC**) [Skyteam Alliance] {** November to end March}
• Emirates EK (SYD – CHC) Codeshares with QF. EK now only fly’s SYD-CHC from 25 March 2018.
• Jetstar JQ (owned by QF)
• LAN LA (SYD AKL) [OneWorld Alliance]
• Philippines PR (CNS - AKL) Withdrew from route 06 Dec 2017
• Qantas QF Codeshares with EK. [OneWorld Alliance]
• Singapore SQ (MEL- WLG) [Star Alliance]WLG CBR replaced by WLG MEL 04 May 2018
• Virgin Australia VA Codeshares with Air NZ & AC*. (Delta & AC** partner) [*= some routes in 2017?, ** ffp late 2017?]