Well I'm finally going to LHR for 9 days this month. I've flown 2 carriers (AA & CP) on 2 plans (AA & CP) towards the promotion. My flight to LHR is on CP.

I'm trying to find a strategy to get some bonus points. I don't think 5 carriers is practical at a reasonable cost, but I'm willing to be convinced. My target is to pay up to $0.01 per point for the bonus.

I can see lots of ways to get 4 carriers at a reasonable cost in time and money, but not 5.

The obvious way to get 4, would seem to be BA LHR-MAN, and then either AY MAN-ARN or CX MAN-AMS. I could go out on Saturday and back on Monday (see BB, spend a day at the destination!) and get a cheapish return fare (to be precise, C$284.94! Although Travelocity then only shows fare-code info for MAN-LHR and claims it's "C" -- business class!?). $284.94+hotels+transfers for 100000 points. But I lose most of Saturday and Monday in transit.

I could actually spend up to $1000 on this (all-in) and still be within my bonus budget. I'm including hotel costs at the destination since checking out of my London hotel for the weekend is (a) a pain, and (b) could screw up a weekly or "free day" rate.

What's frustrating is that LHR-MAN is so short and frequent, I could do it on a same-day return for about $350 (C$312.28 according to Travelocity a few days ago). I could even do it the day I arrive (as the third carrier it would give me 50000pts)! (No I don't think I'd really want to, but I'd already be in Heathrow.)

YOW-LHR on CP76: AR 0920
LHR-MAN on BA1392: LV 1145, AR 1240
MAN-LHR on BA1395: LV 1430, AR 1520
then on to the hotel in London.

Fare code is BAP, the price is now $311.07 (ticket went from $260 to $259). If security issues allow me to check my bag at LHR, I could leave it in a locker for six hours. Consider this a points flight and a probably-can't-check-in-yet-anyway flight.

But I can't find any way to get reasonable connections on IB, AY, and/or CX to get two more!

Finnair's only Spanish destination seems to be Barcelona, and that from HEL. I rather go to ARN, but I can't find a decent connection between IB LHR-BCN and AY BCN-HEL anyway.

CX flies out of AMS and CDG at 0700, so no connections are going to be possible there (unless there's a redeye somewhere). And I still end up flying BA LHR-MAN as part of that itinerary. AY flies LHR-HEL itself, but codeshares with BA (which I think doesn't count for CP promo) on LHR-ARN. I could fly LHR-HEL-ARN, but that just duplicates (or eliminates) the benefit of LHR-MAN!

BTW, there's no particular reason to go to ARN rather than HEL, except wandering the web the Wasa sounded good!

So, am I right that 5 carriers isn't do-able with decent connections? Is it worth doing the MAN side-trip on arrival (ignoring the fatigue factor)? And should I forget the fourth carrier, too?

Any advice gratefully appreciated.

Thanks!
andrew

it sounds like you're between a rock and a hard place. lhr-man at that price is only worth doing if you're definitely doing the cx man-ams/cdg. if not, then you should either do lhr-arn on ba & arn-hel on ay OR lhr-mad on ba and mad-anywhere in spain on ib.

points for ay.

1. arn-hel runs about $190US return sat nite stay.
2. i put in different ff numbers at check-in for each segment, no problem with tracking.
3. hel isn't that bad in comparison to arn. in fact, i find the people much friendlier.

points for ib.

1. you can buy one way y class tickets for about $100-110US to most cities in spain from mad. c biz class tickets run around $115US. i'm going to sevilla on a c class on friday because that's all that was left. no issue on whether these count for miles on all carriers - THEY DO!!!
2. since they are single segments no problem flying on the same day, hence no surcharge.
3. accomodations in spain have got to be cheaper than anything in britain.
4. if you want to partake in the the spanish nightlife, it goes well into the morning with some clubs that open at 7. i've known some people (no names) that don't even find the need for accomodations. (this only works if you really can sleep on planes!!

i don't think you can get as reasonable pricing that qualifies on ib flights from outside of spain. if you could, maybe paris would be an option. that would maybe allow you to do the ba-cx-ib option, but probably not. i think you're right though, 4 sound about it. anyway, hope this helps.

Yes it is helpful, thanks Ionman! I'd be interested in others' comments too.

I'll probably just do a weekend trip to Scandinavia or maybe Amsterdam.

Are there any fares on BA, AY, and CX, that won't get me credit on CP or AA?

I will disagree on one point, though: I do consider the same-day LHR-MAN-LHR points run to be reasonable, even if it's the only other flight I make (I'm still debating). Why?

For <C$350 I get 50000 points from CP and AA. I'll be exhausted, but it requires the minimum loss of valuable (and expensive!) time in London. Saves time and cost of a round-trip from central London to Heathrow just for the points trip. Doesn't add a night in a hotel anywhere, or it saves checking out of my London hotel for one or two nights.

I do agree it makes more sense to do LHR-MAN as part of a two-carrier routing somewhere, but I just wanted to say why I think it's better than nothing and a reasonable value.

Thanks again!

andrew

no problem, andrew. i just thought that since you're over there, why limit yourself to just one additional carrier. if you doubled that expenditure, you'd double the mileage intake. if you're going that far...go for it all!!!

you might consider an ib/ay routing that i found the other day which prices out fairly reasonably and gets you up to 2 segments on each carrier. it requires a sat. stay.......first, use ba for lhr/bcn/lhr (around $250), then:

sat: bcn/zrh on ib, zrh/hel on ay
lv 4:10p ar 5:50p lv 7:25p ar 11:15p

sun: hel/zrh on ay, zrh/bcn on ib
lv 8:25a ar 10:20a lv 12:30p ar 2:10p

on a 10 day advance purchase ib/ay prices out at around $430 u.s.......all in you get 2 segments on 3 oneworld airlines for around $680 us...

andrew, also if you just want to pick up a cheapie flight on ba check lhr/bru or lhr/ory.......rt fares range from $168 to $210 us and they don't require a sat stay, so you could do a same day run any day of the week.......

Thanks, billedr!

On the last suggestion, I'd rather just do LHR-MAN-LHR if that's all I can manage (and the idea of doing it on arrival was to save transfers etc.). The C$310 is about U$210 and I wouldn't have to deal with immigration.

I like the other suggestion, although I was hoping to spend a full day at the destination. That said, the third European carrier gets me 50000 in each of CP and AA.

I'll give that some thought.

Thanks again!
andrew

lonman points out that one advantage to IB is that they are full fare tickets, so no Saturday night required. A further advantage is that you could actually get two one-way tickets (instead of round-trip), which makes it easier to post outbound to AA and return to CP (or vice versa), avoiding the headache several of us have noted about getting two segments on a single ticket posted to two different programs.

You could try MAN-AMS-MAN or MAN-CDG-MAN on Cathay. "Y" class return fares are available for about �140 through Airline Network. http://www.airnet.co.uk/ I got BA (UK) mileage on this!