Millionmiler is incorrect in implying that all econ is the same, as somebody who flew nearly 100k real miles in Y last year I can say that the in flight entertainment and food on some carriers is way better than on others. I think that with your routing the only place you'll have a choice is from HKG to LHR at the end, their you can take BA or QF,I think the QF IFE and food is better.

You'll use LA a bit, they are as good as QF, unfortunatly you'll also fly AA, they're a huge step down.

Another area to look at the carrier is in respect to air miles. I'd recommend joining the AA program (you'll never get anthing useful with BA), with AA you can check the earning tables for various airlines, e.g. you will earn more with LA in L compared with QF in L. For this reason you may be better booking the SCL-AKL route using the LA flight number rather than the QF one.

You can pay to upgrade to WT+ on the BA flights, however I don't think it's really worth it, save the money and spend it on upgrading your hotel instead.



Also may be worth seeing if you could book with AA, their taxes may be lower for the same itin.

Regarding the Galapagos, you can book the flights in advance with the airline TAME, they fly from UIO to GPS. There's another airline flying to San Cristobal.

You can fly to Borneo very cheaply from JHB (takes about an hour to get there by bus from SIN. AirAsia flys the route and I think we paid about 50USD.

Use your miles for expensive areas of the world (not Asia), in Asia there's a couple of very good and cheap operators, with modern fleets, such as AirAsia. Unfortunately there's also some low quality operators as well.

Dear Kiwi,

thanks for your help< i couldnt believe it when they told me, I know that some L class is restricted but it seems impossible that all dates will be unavailable.

Is there anywhere where I can check availability of flights online.

cheers

Max

Echo india,

thanks for your advice, I had planned to use a BA premier plus card to book amex on the double ba miles offer, I see that AA would be better and If had more time would have tried to get the citibank card that Gardyloo mentioned.

You suggested the following

Regarding the Galapagos, you can book the flights in advance with the airline TAME, they fly from UIO to GPS. There's another airline flying to San Cristobal.

would I be able to use any miles to book tthese flights ? do you know the other airlines name ?

I will take your advice in asia

Many thanks

The other airline flying from UIO to the Galapagos is Aerogal, both Aerogal and Tame stop briefly in Guayaquil (in case you want to join the flight there).

You won't be able to use your miles on these airlines, for BA you can only book with their partner airlines, same for AA (partner airlines means oneworld plus a couple of others).

You'll have enough miles by the time you get to NZ/Oz to get a flight, however jetstar and virgin blue are very cheap there so don't go wasting miles on a cheap flight.

Also don't go out of your way to get miles, you can buy them for 2.5c each so don't undertake a transactions, e.g. an expensive (annual fees, fx trans fees) credit card unless the miles you'll get are going to be significantly cheaper than 2.5c.

Regarding the SCL-AKL availability you can use www.seatcounter.com
It will show LA but doesn't seem to work properly for BA flights. When we booked this route it was full for every day up to about 3 months out, however this depends on the time of year days can open up due to cancellations, etc.

Many thanks echoindia.

I will try and find the best times for the SCL to Easter island to Tahiti to Auckland flights.

Is there a reservation list if there is zero availability now Ie do seats ever get released after they are bokked ( someone cancels etc )

max

In order to waitlist you'll probably have to make (and pay for) a booking for another date, then ring and see if you can waitlist. I'm told that QF won't waitlist for Y, and that LA sometimes do.

I'd recommend you don't bother trying to waitlist, there's little chance of getting it and you should have firm(ish) plans before you leave.

Also if you waitlist and Y seats become available then it's unlikely that they'll put them back into the L bucket if they think they can sell them in a more expensive bucket.

There's plenty of things you can do/see in central and south america while waiting for your flight. For example LAN sometime have some really good deals on flights. Also the quality of buses is high in most places.

Last year we were hoping to change our SCL-AKL flight during a RTW, in the end it introduced too much uncertenty so we booked (from an internet cafe in easter island) flights from SCL-MEX-SCL and enjoyed a great 6 week break in central america which we hadn't originally planned on.