My wife and I are planning a trip to Australia in September 2013. We want to know the best way to get 2 business class award tickets. We will fly from RDU. Presently we have: 130K AA miles, 150K US miles and 70K UR points. We have high credit scores, so we can apply for more credit cards to get the bonus miles. Which airline should we concentrate to get more miles? Thanks!
130K AA miles: 2 one-way CX Business Awards from the US to OZ 70K UR points + 55K UA miles (United Explorer Card 65K offer here:http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...up-60k-miles-now-65k-50-statement-credit.html): 2 one-way *A award on either UA non-stop to the US or via Asia on TG/OZ/NH/etc. Unfortunately, US doesn't allow one-way awards. Technically they do but you would be charged for a round-trip award.
Probably would make most sense to fly one way with your AA miles and then pick up some more United miles to fly back. However, you could consider flying roundtrip with any of the airlines mentioned as well. If you do this with United or USAirways, you'll be able to take advantage of stopovers and open jaws if you're interested in that. If you don't already have the Citi/AA cards, you could get them and pick up an extra 100k AA miles. Coupled with 130k you already have, you'd be pretty close to having enough to fly just with AA after meeting the minimum spends. You could then also throw in an Citi/AA business card and be over the 250k mark. USAirways only allows you to fly round-trip as Jimgotkp mentioned, but....there business class awards are only 110k roundtrip (whereas AA is 125K and United is 135k). Since you already have 150k, you could easily get up to 220k if you and your wife both opened up the Barclays USAirways card (40k each) or if you opened up 2 of them yourself (they are churnable, so you can get 1 every 3-4 months). As far as flying United, there is a plethora of cards out there that could get you United miles, but you'd have to open up quite a few to get enough to fly roundtrip with United. Chase Sapphire, Chase Ink Bold, Chase United Explorer. Of course, if your wife can sign up for these in addition to you, douple dipping is always the best way to go! You could EASILY get enough miles to fly roundtrip on any of these airlines with miles to spare!
I thought if you want to fly CX from USA to Australia in business, it has to be 2 awards ... USA-Asia 2 for 55K then Asia 2-South Pacific for 35K. 90 K one-way ...
No need to wonder, it's true. US-South Pacific cannot route through Asia on AA miles on a single award. Using CX would require two awards and increase the mileage cost. The 130K quoted by Jimgotkp can only work if you use AA's partners that route via the South Pacific, QF being the primary option, and HA being available to book on AA.com.
Thanks! How easy is to get 2 J tickets with QF or UA? Do they release them 331 days before or later on?
Cheapest method I have found is to redeem US Airways DM for travel on United. I booked 2 tixs today LAX-SYD-LAX for 110k +$168 in fees in J. QF is a lot harder to get tixs on than United is.
Not directly on-point with the subject of this thread, but close: Without giving an exact date, Ms. Rubin, the AA Advantage president, made it pretty clear in her milepoint chat last week that it won't be long at all before one can book QF online via aa.com . (And as DestinationDavid points out above, AA partner HA already allows this on aa.com with its flights.) And I certainly read the milepoint chat to say this would be possible with QF long, long before you and your wife's trip in September 2013. (As a humorous sidelight, Ms. Rubin said she likes Australia so much that she named her daughter "Sydney.") While it may still be the case that QF award seats are scarcer than hen's teeth, online or not, it always gives me a better feel of the lay of the land if I can scout out scenarios, even on the competition, from the convenience of my computer -- before I pick up the phone and have to talk to a human. Even if I end up calling a different airline (or alliance), online research in advance makes me more comfortable in knowing where to start with the routes and dates when I inquire. So keep a watch out by keying in possible routes and dates on aa.com. If it ends up being like other aa.com award searches, it will allow you to look at availability for a given award even without the necessary miles in your account, or, for that matter, without even telling it your AAdvantage number.
Though the cost in miles is higher, there are many, many more routing options going through Asia...and you'll be more likely to find availability. If you can route on ow through SIN, there is an other than trivial chance that you could get qf f on the 380 on an award seat. That is a route that does have some availability.
Without giving an exact date, Ms. Rubin, the AA Advantage president, made it pretty clear in her milepoint chat last week that it won't be long at all before one can book QF online via aa.com . So keep a watch out by keying in possible routes and dates on aa.com. If it ends up being like other aa.com award searches, it will allow you to look at availability for a given award even without the necessary miles in your account, or, for that matter, without even telling it your AAdvantage number.[/quote] You are correct. Thanks!
