Orlando to Phuket using miles
 

We just got notified that we can trade our timeshare for one in Phuket from 3/2 to 3/9/18. We are looking at spending 3-4 days in Bangkok either coming or going. Any recommendations for best connections from Orlando to Bangkok? Any thoughts on possible routing either way where we could use either American miles, British Airways Avios or Delta miles going or coming? We have never been to that part of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvarnabhumi_Airport

There are a number of oneworld partners you can use since American Airlines does not serve Bangkok:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay_Pacific

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines

Delta Airlines also does not serve Bangkok, but a number of Skyteam partners do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Southern_Airlines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air

There's plenty of advice in the Delta and American forums on how to book awards.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...aster-thd.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...aster-thd.html

For instance, AA will charge you an extra award routing to the Pacific through Europe/Africa/Middle East, so unless you want to pay more miles you're going to need to go trans-Pacific. (Not sure about Delta.)

In my opinion it's fairly useless to make recommendations on routing without you doing some research on what is available for your dates to actually GET to Bangkok. Suggesting "oh, you should definitely transit Taipei on China Airlines" is not much of a recommendation if there's no award availability. Are you planning on first class, business class or coach redemptions?

Also, how tied are you to wanting an award all the way there? If you could find flights going MCO-LAX and JFK-MCO for cash but no miles, but the overseas segments were open, are you willing to pay cash for positioning flights? Sometimes it's the domestic segments that are hardest for an award.

My first idea would be to use AA miles on CX or JL. You may have to pay for positioning flights. For your BKK stopover, you’ll probably also have to buy either a one way or round trip ticket on TG or PG to and from HKT. But that is easy and inexpensive.

I don’t know anything about DL. They do not fly to BKK anymore. Sky Team partner KE does, for example. But, again, if you could get the long haul flights on a DL award (if you have millions of sky pesos I imagine for business class;)), you could then add the final legs to BKK/HKT on TG or PG (or other airlines).

since you have miles on different airlines, another possibility is doing two separate one way tickets, on different airlines and routings.