Daisysmom

My boss is adopting from China next year. He has asked that I look into a few things, and I thought this forum might have some good info..

1. He wants to identify the airlines out of Indpls with the best flights to China.

2. He wants to identify a credit card he can use (personal purchases) to bank points redemable for miles for 1st class tickets for his trip to China.

3. He wants to find out how to get his miles with Delta/NWA/Continental combined.

Can anyone give me a hand here?

thanks!!!

Arcolaio99

1. Anyone of those 3 has a mile earning credit card. Chase CO Amex DL and I thinbk US bank NW.

2. I don't think you can combine all of those 3 FF into one. You can fly on either of them and credit to one of those accounts.

3. I would guess off the top of my head that NW would be the best bet. Most likely something like this. IND-DTW-China. With CO it would look something like this. IND-EWR-NRT-China. DL I am not sure about. Hope that helps.

Vulcan

There are other issues. My wife's friend has adopted in China twice. Most adoption agencies recommend flights directly to the US from China without stops in other countries to avoid possible questions about the legitimacy of the child's adoption. They flew into Hong Kong and trained it to Guangzhou. Once they had the child, they flew directly out of Guangzhou to the US. Not sure about the airline.

SPN Lifer

UA and CX fly nonstop from HKG to the U.S. mainland.

However, if you make a same-day transit through NRT, you will not have to clear immigration there if you stay airside.

Edited to add: Daisysmom, Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Also, one of our esteemed moderators may know of a more appropriate forum to move this thread to, as it does not involve a get-together of any members of the FlyerTalk Community.


[This message has been edited by SPN Lifer (edited 10-21-2003).]

essxjay

This is tough one because each question should be posed in their appropriate forums: #1 in TravelBuzz, #2 in MilesBuzz! (I think), and #3 in the DL or NW or CO forum.

Actually, I'm sure #3 has been addressed ad nauseum in each of those forums, so Daisysmom, please take a look there first. You'll be able to find everything you're looking for.

Also, answers to #2 I'm sure are covered quite will already in MilesBuzz!

So without further ado, please continue this thread in TravelBuzz.

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essxjay
FT Community moderator

kb1992

As a Chinese-American frequently visiting China, I would make some suggestions.

(1) What is the city you will get the child? If the gateway is Beijing, then I would recommend UA because there is a nonstop flight from Chicago to Beijing. If it is Shanghai, then UA has nonstop to Shanghai from San Francisco. Northwest flies to Beijing and Shanghai from Tokyo. There are nonstops from LAX, SFO, DTW, MSP, SEA, JFK to Tokyo. It adds few extra hours of layover. Probably you will get a NW connecting from Indianapolis to DTW. I think NW has adoption fares and you should ask. You could also fly to HK then switch to Chinese domestic flight to the city you will get the baby. NW has HK-Tokyo flight and CO has EWR-HK nonstop. DL does not fly to China other than a code sharing with China Southern (LAX-Guangzhou).

(2) It is very tough to bring a baby on the lap for such a long flight. Economy seats are just bad for both of you. You can't get exit row seating because of the baby. So I would strongly suggest that if both parents going, at least buy one BUSINESS CLASS ticket. I know the price is very high (up to $6,000 each), but you may try a consolidator for half of the price. Occasionally NW has WBC sales for under $2,000 a piece. This is a life time experience, and IMHO I would do that if I were adopting a child. Maybe it is tax deductible?

Vaze

My wife and I have adopted from China twice (most recently last month) you/your boss would be much better off finding the local chapter of a national organization called FCC (Families with Children from China) they will have a wealth of first hand information available and be able to answer pretty much any questions he has as we have all "been there, done that" .

civicmon

You can just fly China Southern to Guangzhou from LAX. All adoptions go through Guangzhou (the White Swan hotel is loaded with babbies and US parents) and then you go from there and back there to pick up the child that's being adopted. They can fly to HK and take the train from there or Shenzhen, pleasant ride...

[This message has been edited by civicmon (edited 10-23-2003).]

fimo

If travelling with infants, airlines should be seating you in the first row so that they can hook bassinets to the partition once the flight reaches cruising levels. You need not carry a lap on the baby for the flight.

Unless US airlines don't provide this as I've seen it in many others. But surely US airlines can't be *that* bad.

Vaze

The only problem with this is that there were only two bassinets available, at least on the flight we were on, and over 30 babies so the chances of getting one are slim to none for most families.

makin'miles

I don't know how much flexibilty your boss has, but NWA offers adoption fares that give a decent discount off full Y fares. I don't know if UA offers something similar.