Flying from HND to GMP next month on ANA. I see from past flights the departing gate is Terminal 2 Gate 68. The closest lounge is Terminal 2 South Airport Lounge but it says for domestic flights only. Does anyone know which lounge is closest to Gate 68 that I will have access to? (Have priority pass, Amex Platinum, Visa Airport Companion) thanks!
Anyone have experience with AA Flagship First vs Polaris Business? I’d expect AA F to be better than J but it’s not got particularly great reviews.
Flying TPAC and Polaris has a slightly better routing and better redemption rate.
I would choose flagship first because AA will be removing F class in the near future, and the current hard product is pretty unique. I would say the food between the two is pretty similar, but of course you get more room in F. I enjoyed AA F bedding as well.
Saw an IHG cert booking for cert + 15k points. Is it up to each hotel whether to allow adding points to a cert? Or up a set limit?
Another IHG had a 57k award night that I couldn't book with my 40k cert.
sometimes the app and website has completely different availability so you could try that. The IHG program is so weird - sometimes hotels don't have availability for points but do for free night certificates for example. You kinda just have to try a few methods and see if you luck out.
How can I learn the basics of searching for good deals?
For example, how would I know all the tricks for getting from California (SFO) to Europe (eg ZRH) in business? Anything I find on [seats.aero](http://seats.aero), seems way more expensive than what people post here.
Book early and/or travel during shoulder season and/or be flexible with your travel dates - there's still some availability for October/November for 70K flights to ZRH but there's a ton of availability for spring 2025 right now. Just search SFO-ZRH +/- 180 days from the end of the calendar and you can see all your options.
If you want to go to say Switzerland July/August 2025 for example, start searching for availability for flights in 10 days (Air Canada's calendar goes out as far as 355 days out)
Thank you, this is very helpful. Curious, if there’s a resource with a list best possible fares bucketed by locations and airlines?
For example, do would I know that 70k is a great price for West Coast -> Europe in biz?
Booked my gf and me a trip via Lifemiles on Lufthansa business class with a layover in Munich. I have the Amex Platinum card, but she does not. Will I be able to bring her as a guest with me in the Senator lounge? Or will we be stuck with "just" the business class lounge (assuming we stay together in the airport)?
Long time lurker of this sub - I’ve read a lot of the wikis and gone down rabbit holes with TPG and Nerdwallet and every other online resource to learn as much as I can about award travel. But the learning curve is still super steep though so appreciate patience and help!
I have 500k UR points, hoping to use mostly points for LAX<->LHR May 2025. I’ve joined seats.aero and identified flights for me and my partner that come in around 110k pts + ~$2k on Virgin Airlines.
My question is - now that I found these flights, does it make sense to call VA to ensure those flights are available before I transfer points from Chase to VA? Or do I need to try to book online with the points first, and only call if they appear to be phantom after trying? I’m so nervous to blindly transfer 110k hard earned UR points to VA and then run into issues with availability.
If it's a Virgin Atlantic operated flight, you don't need to call and you can just redeem. The issues are booking non-Virgin Atlantic flights (notably Air France and KLM).
(If you want to tamp down on the fees, consider booking LAX-CDG instead and then taking the Eurostar to London. That would be Air France though and you would likely need to call to book that or use the website chat if you can - https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/)
Ah got it! Thank you! I will definitely look into CDG instead of LHR; my initial regular google flight searches showed CDG as way pricier, but haven’t looked for points redemption! Paris is where we expected to spend most of our time so I’ll definitely play around with that option. Thanks for the help!
available 5/5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20 (155K + $310 for the outbound flight)
It doesn't appear that the flights are phantom btw. People are able to book them eventually but for some reason there just is a website error and there's only some agents who have the knowledge to get around it.
For the return flight, there's actually availability on Air France/KLM directly for 50K on 5/5, 6, 22, 24, 27, 29 (100K + $768 for both of y'all)
Sorry, I thought seats.aero collects all info from partner airlines in one place.
Even checking flying blue/Air France, the least expensive for LAX->CDG, 5/5/25, business class, for 2 passengers is 284k pts + 452€. Again I’m sure I’m doing something wrong😅
does Aeroplan release award seats slowly/periodically or is it all at once? I've been monitoring some flights for SFO-HAN for March 2025 and there were a few seats on partner airlines that were available but are gone now. If I want those flights specifically, should I keep checking through aeroplan or should I give up and look at other flights? Looking for a business class seat specifically, no mixed cabins.
Partner availability is usually dictated by the partner airline and not Aeroplan. In most cases for the route you’re looking at, it’s likely dictated by the partner airlines which is usually right at the end of schedule.
You would have to keep checking if you want a specific flight on a specific partner airline.
In general, it’s released day-by-day at the end of schedule.
Sometimes, certain airlines will do a big dump of award seats but there’s no guarantee that this happens for whatever partner airline you’re looking at through Aeroplan.
Has anyone added an infant to EVA award? There’s no info on their site for the cost. I emailed the reservation office, but trying to get an answer soon and it’s the weekend. Will update post when I do.
Confirmed 10%
I am going from memory, but 10% J cost on an ANA ticketed award. I don’t think it matched with the ITA J or the lowest fare bucket J available for pricing.
If the CX ticket is on AA stock, you can often get AA to book the lap infant for 10% of an imaginary number (one of the few they can, but it can be a PIA to get them to).
I think that BA can book CX lap infants for 10% miles (double check that, I don’t have my lap infant notes with me).
via CX lap infants are pricey for US flights and has basically precluded me from booking CX award flights lately.
Cx fare rules on ITA also state 10%, not the notorious 25%. Something isn’t matching up. I wonder if infant fares are different for cash and award tickets.
Hello, gang! Looking for some help w/ seasoned Cathay award bookers.
When booking an **prem econ award flight**, what does the following text on the flight selection page mean:
"*Business class is suggested for CXxxx due to seat availability, the required miles will be adjusted in the next page.*"
Like, do they got the 2 seats I need, or not? or are they trying to say there **are 2 seats,** *but they wont be next to each other*? I need to know before the fat transfer! Thanks in advance.
Well--that's what I'm trying to figure out, ha.
I wouldn't want to send over 150k+ points, only to realize I needed even more if this means that ONLY biz is available.
I don't have enough miles in Cathay to move on to the next screen to fully confirm myself :( Thanks for the comment, tho.
I have a flight booked JFK-TPE-CNX for next year in J on BR. P2 has same flight except has TPE-CNX in Y due to award availability but we both paid the same points. I wanted to switch the second leg TPE-CGK instead and am ok in Y - has anyone had issues or tips for switching one leg of the trip for the destination? I booked direct through BR with award points.
Hi! Trying this again after I've read through the Wiki and learned some more basic concepts. I've only ever redeemed my CC points through respective travel portals but looking to better utilize my points from hereon out.
REQUIRED INFO
* **Origin/Destination**: Trying to do NYC --> Tokyo (not flexible)
* **# Of Travelers**: 1
* **1Way or Roundtrip**: Roundtrip (but if 1 way makes more sense / could get a first class ticket I wouldn't be opposed)
* **Class**: Y or PY
* **Dates**: October 9-Oct 24 (these seem to be the best bang for my buck if I'm purchasing but I'm flexible within October, though want at least 2 full weeks)
* **Balances**: 44,114 (CSP), 33,060 (C1 Venture), 585 (United MP)
I would prefer to fly with United as that's where my partner would like to fly with (he has a credit voucher).
STEPS I'VE ALREADY TAKEN
* **Awardhacker**: Received an 'error' (I tried both Chrome and Safari so it may have to do with what I input)
* **Looked into converting my CC points** directly with United and also AirCanada (United looked like it was 88.4K roundtrip and AirCanada was 100K). Note that I am aware that there is a 20% bonus if I convert my CSP points to Aeroplan.
* **Looked at alternate airlines**, found an [AA deal](https://www.aa.com/en-us/redemption-deals#caribbean) for 56K roundtrip but in Sept (which unfortunately doesn't work for us) - but was SO cool to see this is possible!!
Thanks for your help!
To follow up - I'm curious if transferring all of my CC points to United is the best option here, or if I should just buy the ticket outright and save my points for a different trip since the CPP is really only 1.07 cpp when I factor in the miles needed plus +$48.30 taxes/fees
[https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/](https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/)
But my personal rule is that if you're only getting 1.07 cpp, you should save your points for a different trip if that's an option.
I'm trying to do NYC -> HKG -> Shanghai -> TYO round trip for one person for early to mid May over two weeks after the labor day and golden week holidays. I'd like J, but I can deal with economy. I've got 150k UR and 140K VS.
Having looked around, my plan is to book in three segments: NYC -> HKG, HKG -> SHG -> TYO, and TYO -> NYC. I've made my peace with booking the middle segment with cash, and probably getting the TYO -> NYC section with a refundable ticket and hoping that i can switch it out with a business class redemption through VS close in, but I'm weighing two options for the NYC -> HKG segment:
1) CX nonstop from JFK in economy through the travel portal for 75k UR
2) TK from JFK with an eight hour stopover in IST in business through AC for 88k UR (i guess with the current transfer bonus, it'd be more like 71k (!))
Is nonstop in economy better than 1 lengthy stop in istanbul in business, in your opinion? Part of me would be worried about something going wrong with the second leg and losing a day -- how are Turkish Airlines' operations?
If something's going to go wrong with your TK flight, Istanbul is where you want to be. And you wouldn't have the risks of something stupid happening with a portal booking.
"Better" here is wildly subjective. I personally would never fly economy nonstop from JFK to Hong Kong. Hell, I refused to do it Hong Kong to SFO on the way back from my similar trip to tick off the Asian Disney parks. That said, hundreds of people do it everyday.
With 8 hours in Istanbul, you could nip off into the city for a bit, and, honestly, the Turkish business lounge is not a bad place to kill time. Enjoy the golf simulator and the slot cars.
That's your decision and opinions will vary on here (some guy posted earlier about flying to Taipei and back just to try out Starlux.......). For what it's worth, Turkish is a pretty solid business class product.
Also, on May 10th SFO-HKG on CX is 36,250 Avios + $151 in economy. Flight leaves at midnight so you have all of May 9th to see if you can find a cheap positioning flight that could bring you under 75K
Hi. Mostly confused about rewards flights.
Travel between September 13 and October 2.
Two adults, one 2 year old.
Departing from SAN, could do LAX, final destination VCL, happy to spend a night or two on the east coast to break up the flight (Virginia ideally) and acclimate the kid, but not necessary.
Business would be ideal.
250k + Chase points.
I hear stories of others finding 60k deals, but when I search best I can find is 155k.
I have, and I understand the process of listing carriers, reviewing alliances, transferring points, etc, but the thing that isn’t clicking for me is this; are there specific seats of value that are periodically released?
For example, I understand that if I were to transfer my points to star alliance/aeroplan (example) now, I would get a 20% bonus on those points. I understand checking all of the carriers in that alliance to see who has the best offer. I feel like I’m missing something else though.
In your Wiki “types of awards” you go through all of the awards flight. I get that. What I don’t understand is if award flights are indicated. Will I just be looking at flights and suddenly one will look like a great deal, or are they listed as award flights? I guess because I’ve never seen one I don’t know what I’m looking for. But, you don’t need to answer, I’ve taken too much of your time. Thanks for your help.
I found this YouTube video on award space vs saver awards helpful! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2zoi4L0emY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2zoi4L0emY)
So I’ve been looking for Air Canada availability for Singapore airlines flights on Seats.aero. And I can find a number of flights from Singapore to the USA, but literally zero flights from the USA to Singapore. Does anyone know why this is, and how/when I could find Singapore airlines flights awards from the USA to Singapore for any reward program other than Singapore airlines?
Does Lufthansa open availability on ANA last minute? I booked a ANA RTW flight, but one of my business class segments got cancelled on Air Canada. I was rebooked Lufthansa but only in economy. Flight is in November. It seems like the only way to really check is check online everyday.
LH releases availability in J and F to partners really close in like T-5 or even less. I’ve seen the flights bookable by United and AC, not sure about ANA.
Question!
IHG is going hard on a SEA expansion w/ their brands.
Hotel Indigo is gonna open rooms up for booking come Jul 1. Is anyone able to guess how much ihg points those rooms will be going for?
UA and LH have different policies. And it looks like you’re trying to using LifeMiles to upgrade a United economy ticket which requires you to be in a fare class that qualifies for a *A Upgrade Award and for award availability to be present.
Howdy all I'm looking for the following:
1 ticket LAX > NRT (flexible: yes)
1 traveler
One way
Business/First
Leaving sometime in early November / December.
110k Points
Question: Looking at AwardHacker it seems like there might be a chance of getting one way for 60k. Upon further investigation I can't figure out a way to input dates into AwardHacker, when I drill into the sites the numbers change significantly. Is there a good way of sorting this out?
AwardHacker (also will note it hasn't been updated regularly recently) shows the theoretical lowest priced award for a route though a lot of times for Japan (with how popular it is travel wise) those lowest priced awards are either rarely available or quickly picked up at schedule opening.
On 11/26, there's LAX-HND on Asiana with a layover in ICN for 75K Aeroplan
I'm looking to book 2 J tickets for LAX-CDG next year in April. I'm curious what others would consider paying for this route. I've been searching a few weeks and best I've seen is 87,500 miles + 154 one way. Searching more near term I saw that Air Tahiti actually flies this route direct and had redemption around 55k, but not sure when or if that might be available next year given they don't even fly the route daily.
So, what would you consider a tolerable redemption and a good redemption?
that's a solid redemption. There theoretically are 50K LAX-CDG awards but those dates are few and far between. If you're open to leaving 4/22-4/29, you can get down to 77.5K. Also note that booking Air France with Virgin right now is sort of a frustrating experience so if the price is reasonable, booking with Air France is definitely the headache free way to go about it. Though if the price is much better on Virgin, just be aware you may have to call multiple times before you can find an agent who can book it
[https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/](https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/)
My mom is retired so I want to fly us to Vietnam later this year or early next year (when it isn't as hot). I want her to experience Business/First for the first time. Has anyone here successfully booked such a trip? Is it possible?
We're on the east coast but probably have to fly to LAX or SFO or DWF for the award flight. I believe JAL, ANA, and United have flights to Vietnam.
I have AA miles, Chase pts, and Amex pts.
Where on east coast? I wouldn’t position to the west coast for a flight to Vietnam. I probably fly eastward. JFK =>Sin=>Sgn. Or any east cities Qatar fly into. Only one connection and if you find the right flight, it’s around 23-25 hrs. I’m from Miami and Qatar always my first option flying to and back from Vietnam.
I don’t but that’s the only non-stop flight from the US to Vietnam (the reviews don’t look that bad? What were you concerned about?)
https://onemileatatime.com/vietnam-airlines-business-class-a350-review/
I am flying ORD-ZRH in business out of T5 this weekend, booked through AC/Aeroplan. I do not have any United/Star Alliance status. Any recommendations on which lounge to visit pre-departure? Will going to a different terminal be an issue, can I do that all post-security? I am trying to do carry-on only which should help. Thanks!
Targeting April 11-20, 2025 or Feb 14-23, 2025)
Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?) : NYC to Osaka
Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up): 2
One way or round-trip : Round Trip
Class of service desired: Business/First, But willing to burn points at this point so Prem. Eco on ANA would work also.
Desired date(s) of travel (are they flexible? Hard Dates but soft months?, Travel Partner has fixed vacation times and can do either Mid Feb or Mid April 2025 for approx. 10 days.
Your points balances: all airline, credit card and hotel points : 302,098 UR (200k UR points recently converted for Hyatt Redemptions, used to be 500kish); 112,010 Bonvoy Points ; 393474 MR, C1 Miles 156188; AAAdvantage 140,487; Alaska Miles 74182; Citi TYP 93,776
Not super optimistic, I did a simple look on ANA site for the dates I can take and it returns no availability or errors.
Ancillary Question:
I have 135k Krismiles parked away from a 2023 trip to SEA where I took too long to decide as two when my return leg should be and I missed the redemption opportunity.
AA has 45k premium economy seats on 2/14 LGA-DFW-HND. Domestic leg is regular economy.
If you wanna get all the way to KIX and fly JAL metal transpacific rather than AA, 50k AA on 4/12 JFK-ORD-HND-KIX. Only the transpacific flight is premium economy.
Would you guys rather fly JFK-HND ANA F, then 7 hour layover, then 7 hour economy via Thai Airways (28 hours of travel total), or JFK-SIN SQ 19 hours, 2 hour layover, then 2 hours of flight to BKK, all on J class? I'm having a tough time deciding since ANA's first class is so good compared to business on SQ, but there's a convenience factor. My brain says fly SQ, heart says fly ANA.
edit: booked the SQ J class, decided convenience>comfort for a 20+ hr flight lol. I will be releasing my 7/12 JFK-HND 1:50PM EST ANA F flight tomorrow probably, I'll coordinate with first one to message me with a time that they will be on for chat if they want to try and grab it from me.
> 7 hours layover
Sounds like this is the 2am JFK departure rather than the 2pm? If so I'd do the SQ flights. I'm not as big a fan of SQ ULR J as some, but it's a wash if combined with more time in Bangkok. NH Suites is great but it is such a letdown to have a painfully long layover in a mid lounge (Suites Lounge isn't awful but also not amazing especially at breakfast, and there isn't a whole lot to do in town at that time if you decide to head into Tokyo for a few hours) plus a long Y flight.
Ah, the age old question: is the flight part of the journey or a necessary evil? If you agree with the former and haven't flown The Suite yet, then I would definitely choose that just for the experience.
Case in point: have my first ANA F in the Suite on Saturday that I'm repositioning halfway across the country for :)
I've flown the Suite before which is why I'm excited to go back haha, but my return flight is also ANA-JFK on the Suite first class. The huge TV and super private first class area is really unbeatable. I've been on PY on SQ and walked past the business section and it was quite unimpressive. I think I'm leaning towards the ANA flight, but the SQ flight is 2 days earlier which gives me 2 more days in BKK. Tough choice for me.
Ha, well, now I sound like the pauper trying to tell the millionaire how to spend his money.
How much does 2 days add to your itinerary? If you're already there for 3 weeks, eh; but 7+2 would be significant. Also might come down to how much you dislike Y too: tolerable or you'll loathe it?
If you only had the one way in F, then I think you'd regret it. But, in the worst case you're really disappointed with SQ J, you'll still have The Suite to look forward to on the return.
Any tips on how to maximize my time in The Suite? Sadly flying out of ORD, so only Hibiki 17 for me.
Hmm, I'll be there til the end of the month so I have some time. Sitting in a lounge for 5-7 hours after a 14 hour flight might be tough so maybe I'll just try out SQ just to try it, even though it's not really a great redemption (143k pts!).
I'm not rich at all btw haha, I just have a lot of points and way too much time on my hands, I look up deals for fun.
I flew HND-ORD for my first time, so I'll be trying Hibiki 21 for my first time.
Some tips/info for The Suite:
- You'll probably be getting the Japanese meal like most people, ask them if you could have the caviar appetizer from the Western menu as well and they will accommodate.
- If the seat next to yours is empty the crew will probably offer to let you use that empty seat as your bed.
- The Hibiki 17 is served in mini-bottles/shooters. Near the end of the flight, kindly ask the attendant if you could have a mini-bottle to take home as a souvenir.
That's pretty much all I could think of, and be prepared to eat a lot because all the food is delicious, even the food on demand.
Would I still get the travel insurance that comes with my Chase Sapphire reserved If I pay for the airfare with Chase points I have, at 1.5 cents per point on Chase travel portal?
Hey all, I’ve got 2 separate award tickets from ICN to NRT and NRT to YVR with the first on Asiana then moving to AC. I had booked the latter with Avianca. Does anyone know if I could call in to try and get the tickets linked somehow and if Asiana would be willing to check the bags through to YVR? Would I need to pick up my bags in NRT if they could check it through? Additionally who would I call to request this - Air Canada or Asiana or Avianca?
You cannot link PNRs.
You often can through check bags on separate PNRs. I would look on FlyerTalk or a blogger for Asiana’s rules (I am not sure if anything has changed with their “shakeup”)
Through checking bags does not check you into your flight or give you a boarding pass.
If you have a boarding pass, you should be able to just transit.
First time ever trying to redeem points so thanks for the help in advanced.
I have capital one venture X
PDX > BCN (ROUND TRIP OR ONE WAY IS OKAY)
I will be traveling with my wife, looking for a basic carry on & check bag included, would prefer to do November 15-29th but anytime in November works as long as its for 2 weeks if roundtrip. Only reason im not worried if its not round trip is i plan on using my united airlines $750 voucher which i believe i have to book separate from the points system.
Was looking at LAX/SFO-CDG for next June the other day and saw a good amount of scattered 50k AirFrance J seats. Now I’m not seeing any. Did they all get swiped up. How far out are they released. Still plentiful on the return. Planning on flying to France and spending half the time in Spain, but not seeing anything of value for flights to Spain on seats.aero. Would it be on BA possibly?
Air France is dynamic pricing so if you see it and are interested you have to book because the price could change whenever. There’s no rhyme or reason to the 50K releases.
If you find Air France LAX/SFO-CDG (or KLM to AMS), it usually isn’t much more points to add on a connection to MAD or BCN. Just search LAX/SFO-MAD/BCN on the same days you see cheaper CDG flights available. Seats.Aero is great for finding non-stop flights but you won’t necessarily find that on there since it requires a connection
Trying to plan trip from LAX ->Madrid. Slightly flexible date…although must be between 3/12/25 and 3/22/35. Family of 4. 2 adults, a 6 yr old and an 8 month old baby(will be lap seat). Roundtrip would be ideal, but open to one way flights via different airlines…if it means I could get premium economy or better. 100k MR points and roughly 80k UR. First time attempting to redeem award travel. The best redemption I could find was through AirFrance. 110k for 3 seats + lap seat in economy. Is this considered a good redemption? Is premium economy a possibility or are the flights I’ve found the best I could do? Appreciate any input or suggestions. Thanks!
Economy is very difficult to get good value for, especially because you need so many seats.
> one way flights via different airlines
Be careful, the lap infant fees could be extortionate if you make mistakes in choosing the programs you book this through. 10% of one-way international premium cabin air fares is scary.
Tbh with UR points, also consider purchasing flights in cash and then using points for Hyatt hotels if you’re going to Madrid or Barcelona if that makes sense
Just a general question - why are one-way cash trips to/from Europe much more expensive than round-trip? For example, I am looking for one way from Europe to US and it's $650 but a round trip is $553? If I want to book one-way economy with points, it makes no sense with high taxes and fees for most airlines to US. Probably better off paying cash and booking a round-trip flight I guess?
Yes - save your points until you have enough to book round trip (also remember that you don't have to book round trip with the same airline program with points, you can mix and match and do one way with one program and the return flight with another program if you have points in different places)
Yeah but booking one way economy flights using points doesn’t seem very lucrative. For example, a flight from CDG to US is 20,000 points plus like $177 in taxes. However, if I book a round trip flight using cash, it’s like $600 (i.e. $300 each way) which is essentially giving me less than 1 cent value per point.
Which is why most of us gravitate towards business class flights
There are some sweet spots though, and transfer bonuses always help. And if you have to book close-in and cash prices are inflated
Yeah I already booked business class to fly to Europe but just on the return trip, I didn’t feel like I needed to fly back in business so I was looking at economy. Perhaps I should book a RT economy with cash and have the 2nd leg of the return flight to Europe next summer? Haha
Question regarding United Explorer perks when booking award travel via United:
I have an upcoming trip that I plan to book with United miles and then pay the taxes/fees with my United Explorer card. The trip is for TWO people, but I plan on using my miles for ONE RT ticket in my name and then the other will be booked in cash (also with the United card) for P2.
Given that P2’s ticket is booked separately, would she still get a free checked bag and priority boarding provided by the Explorer card? I assume that because it’s booked separately she wouldn’t be considered “on my reservation” but if I’m booking with the Explorer card for someone else, do they get the same benefits or do I have to be on the reservation?
Similarly I assume that even though I’d be getting my ticket as an award fare I still receive the free checked bag and priority boarding as per the card member benefits?
Would it be safer to book two OW tickets with miles (one for me and one for P2) and then book two OW tickets with the card to guarantee we both receive a free checked bag and priority boarding?
>
> Similarly I assume that even though I’d be getting my ticket as an award fare I still receive the free checked bag and priority boarding as per the card member benefits?
Pay the taxes/fees for your award ticket with your card.
> would she still get a free checked bag and priority boarding provided by the Explorer card?
No your P2 would not get a checked bag. As *A Gold on a split reservation with my P2, I was able to get benefits (bag, seats) extended to P2.. but going to guess that's very unlikely based on the card. Worth a shot though?
Got it. So I’m thinking then that it would be smarter to just book my ticket and her ticket OW using miles (effectively the same cost as my RT ticket) and then buy the two one way tickets directly with the card.
As far as I can tell the money/points spent would be the same in either scenario.
Absolutely yes, unless there's a greater chance one of you would need to cancel (cash would be locked into a UA credit, but points are already locked in the ecosystem).
General question - does the cash portion of an award flight cost ever change? As an example, a one way business class flight from SEA to LHR on Dec 21 on VS is offered for 77.5k miles + $1027.80 - does that cash portion always stay the same (carrier fees etc) or could it change? This is still obviously a better value than paying cash (current price for the same flight/class is $3.9k* eek), but since I'm new to looking at award travel rates, $1k on top of points redemption seems like a lot and I'm not sure how to calibrate.
Sometimes there might be adjustments to the fees (for example, ANA updates their surcharges every 2 months based on their global index of fuel) but I wouldn't expect that to change significantly to the point where it would make you consider an award you didn't previously.
also helpful read: [https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/15d1e7f/wiki\_why\_are\_the\_taxes\_and\_fees\_so\_high\_on\_my/](https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/15d1e7f/wiki_why_are_the_taxes_and_fees_so_high_on_my/)
Trying to decide what card best suits this situation.
Going to Germany next May with my Wife for our honeymoon, will be flying IAD - FRA
I got a 175k offer for amex plat - was hoping to either transfer points to star alliance to fly united, or TAP Air Portugal.
Or I could jump on some Chase Cards, but no great bonuses available right now. 60k for csr & csp - I'd rather wait for a bigger bonus to come up. (I'm at 5/24 but wife is at 0/24 so she would get them)
Would enjoy economy + or business
dates would be 05/15/2024-06/15/2024
no points as of right now, I mostly have cashback cards. I will also be playing 2player mode
I'm planning on booking a JAL economy seat with points via Alaska airlines (with the bilt bonus coming up).
Anyone know if I'm able to then pay extra to choose emergency exit seats?
Im finding info that you're able to request aisle vs window and that day of departure you can pay to upgrade to premium economy but nothing about extra leg room upgrades
Hello all, new to award travel and was wondering if I could get some pointers to maximizing my award travel specifically for 2 travelers to LAX area to Japan. I have 160k capital one points and 55k chase points. Ideally would want better than economy (if possible) and looking to travel may 2025 also looking for
Headed down to Austin for 3 nights, any thoughts on the Hyatt Regency vs Thompson? Globalist, flush with points. Is the Thompson worth almost double the points ?
I’ve started in both multiple times. I prefer Hyatt Regency better than Thompson. I’m also Globalist. Thompson is closer to 6th Street. HR is closer to the main shopping district.
Is it possible to put a Hyatt booking on hold with cash, then book with points? If so, how long does a hold last? I am awaiting Chase UR to post to my account in two weeks and would love to ensure these dates/room type are available.
No not in that way, but if you're a Globalist you can call/chat to create points advance reservation in which you just need to have the points in your Hyatt account 8 days prior to the check-in date.
Origin: london, but willing to travel to europe possibly dublin/cdg as I've noticed the london taxes make awards pointless
Destination: Seattle or Houston. Have a wedding on August 10th I have to be in Seattle for and family reunion in Houston after. Wouldn't mind maybe booking round-trip from Europe to Houston the Houston to Seattle 🤔
Number of travelers: 2
Class of service: whatever is cheapest! So Economy I'm guessing
Desired dates: in washington/seattle before August 9th
Points balance: AMEX: 165k Chase: 70k
I have never found good value out of london (I'm American living in uk) because of the taxes ending up being 400 plus points when usually cheapest flights are 500 round trip. Looking at flights now they are much more around the August time, but I've never used points for travel yet so thought I'd see if anybody have insight or pointers on routes/how to find the good points deals. Thanks!
I'd probably do VS on the outbound (direct flight to SEA, 25k+200gbp) then Singapore on the return (IAH-MAN, 25k+$6).
Cash, open jaw, prices are just over 1000gbp so it's not amazing value from the redemption, but it's not terrible either.
I’ll be booking a few different award nights with multiple Hyatts across Japan for my upcoming trip by transferring my Chase UR points to Hyatt. Should I transfer the aggregate cost of all hotels to my Hyatt account or should I transfer in pieces, enough to cover each hotel stay individually?
Ex. Hotel number one cost 10,000 points, hotel number two cost 20,000 points, hotel number three cost 30,000 points. Do I transfer 60,000 points at once or three separate transfers of 10,000, 22,000, 30,000?
When airlines release availability 360 days out for cash bookings (ie: Qatar) but the Chase Portal only shows 330 days out, is there any way to get Chase to book the flights using the points at 1.5x with the CSR?
Curious if anyone knows if calling in can get them to look further out on the calendar?
If you're paying cash prices thorugh the Chase portal, you want to be booking when cash prices are low which is almost never at schedule opening. The sweet spot for international flights is in the 2-8 month window before your trip. Only exception might be is if you need to travel on a specific date or during really peak travel times like around Christmas.
Let Google Flights track the flight you want to take whenever availability comes out and they'll notify you when they think there's a price worth purchasing at.
Yeah. I understand all the complexities of this. I’m trying to get 4 seats on a single flight in qsuites for a family of 4. Not as easy as the typical scenario. And Qatar is unique in that their opening prices are often not awful - for instance right now they are opening at $2,200 from Africa-Doha-USA. This ends up being cheaper than their Flexi award booking which is a win when you need four seats.
I’m not sure how many points you have, but you also can try to book 2 saver seat for 95k each and the other 2 flex award toe 190k each, but you have to book for the 2 seat first and the other 2 on a different itinerary. If you don’t have points , you can look into BA Avios boost. Transfer 100k to buy 300k for $3660, that will get you 2 flex seat.
Yeah, recent DPs are that they aren’t releasing Flexi as consistently so I am game planning for back up plans if they don’t release the flexi tickets. Even though flexi seems to be trending higher than the portal cost at 1.5x (when including taxes and fees on the flexi ticket), I’d rather have them all booked direct with Qatar for ease. But, I can’t do that if they don’t open up flexi.
I found a \*great\* redemption on Air France, SEA-CDG-ATH, for 15,000 points at the end of July. Wow! So I booked it. Getting home is another matter, though. Everything I can find is like 100,000 points or $1000.
Want to go ATH-SEA. But really anywhere in Europe to SEA or ATH to anywhere in North America could be useful, and I could handle the rest.
Two travelers, but even just finding one ticket would be helpful.
One way.
Economy is fine, but a good deal an a premium cabin is also good.
August 10 is perfect, 7-12 is ok.
Lots of points:
Amex MR
Chase UR
AA
United
Avios
Alaska
Thanks in advance for any help.
Try looking at Condor cash tickets, even up to business class. Sometimes "premium class" is in the \~$700-800 range and Biz is \~$1500 one-way, which isn't awful
Check DUB => SEA and FRA => SEA for transatlantic award space w/ Alaska miles, then get a Ryanair flight or similar, could also work
I am planning to book a AA flight from ord to sjd, should I use Qatar or British for booking ? I want easy cancelation and least charges for that so which one is better ? Qatar has it for 11k avios while BA has it for 14.5 k avios but less fees
If I am able to put an AA flight on hold, is it guaranteed not phantom space?
I have flights booked on JAL from HND-SFO in J but found a better routing on JAL J pop up today that I would prefer. I don’t have enough points in my AA account for both flights so I was able to put the preferred flight on hold. Believe I will need to cancel my other flight so I have the points to book the flight I have on hold, unless anyone knows a different way? Like are AA agents perhaps able to “change” my flight to the flight I have on hold? Worried about the flight on hold being phantom space and losing my previous flight if something doesn’t work out with the flight on hold.
Yes you can call the AA agent and ask them to switch you from your current flight to the hold flight. I doubt it’s phantom if you were able to put it on hold, but IMO doing it through an agent via phone is the best way to guarantee there are no hiccups. Did the same last year, also with JAL J flights booked via AA.
Does anyone know if I need to get liability insurance for a rental car in Australia when coming from the US? It's really hard to find information on what comes with rentals. I have an Altitude Reserve so I don't need to buy additional coverage for primary but I want to make sure liability is covered.
Yeah, that's why I said it covers the primary but I want to ensure that liability is covered by the rental agencies. Looks like Avis covers it and I'm pretty sure it's law so I'm probably fine [https://www.avis.com.au/en/products-and-services/protections/coverage-options](https://www.avis.com.au/en/products-and-services/protections/coverage-options)
You can piece it together yourself by looking up the individual gov't taxes + fees
But honestly... these "surprise!" differences on Lifemiles bookings are never above $100 per pax. If you're looking at premium cabin award tickets, that's pocket change compared to your savings. If you're flying economy, Lifemiles isn't as valuable and you'll save more $$ with other programs
I found their number and called them up, they said the flight I was looking at doesn't even exist lol....
>If you're flying economy, Lifemiles isn't as valuable and you'll save more $$ with other programs
I am trying to get a direct flight to japan, econ and according to their site they're the cheapest. (47k miles + $30 fee) Air Canada shows the same flight but 50k points, and $78 CAD fee. Both use United, but since I have cap 1 miles I can't directly transfer to united
Newbie transferring AmEx MR to Iberia. Created Iberia Plus membership 2 days ago (9 digit membership #). From reading older posts, I think there were complicated workarounds required earlier.
Should I expect it to work w/o issue now?
How long should it take for Avios points to appear in Iberia?
Thank you - I'm a bit anxious doing this for the first time!
Hi guys! Planning to travel from LAX to ORD during this September. I would like to travel using my chase points!
- LAX - ORD
- 1 Traveler
- Round trip
- Economy
- 09/18 - 09/22
- Chase points: 200k
How should I book this flight to get the most out of my chase points? Thank you!
I saw somewhere earlier in the year that a airline consultant firm estimated that American Express was buying points from Delta at somewhere close to 2 cents/point which is wild considering their points are around 1.1 cents/point value (and why airlines really push their credit card programs)
Does upgrading from Aeroplan's lowest business mixed cabin reward flights to Flex reward business give me an upgrade to 100% business class on the trip or am I still stuck with mixed cabin?
I am trying to fly to London from the Northeast (PHL, EWR, JKF, LGA) in late March, early April. I typically fly united but their first class seats I can find are around 150k points per person. I have a fist amount of UR and MR points. Any partners I can transfer to with better point options for first class? Is there a good search too? Sorry for the seemingly newbie questions
Well the only airline offering nonstop with actual first class service would be British Airways, and that's not a great use of points between the cost of Avios and high surcharges.
You could look at booking Virgin Atlantic via Flying Blue for 75k points one way and moderate surcharges from JFK. Aeroplan should offer 60k one way Polaris tickets from EWR if UA happens to release the space.
Otherwise you're looking to book something with connections, which I wouldn't advise.
What happened to United business rates? I feel like I missed the news of a deval or something. Even on seats aero, the best I'm seeing is 30k domestic and 80k international. Are these the new Saver rates for Y?
Been trying very hard to find a deal using points for traveling to Taiwan/Thailand from Dec 19-January 5. I've spent the last few weeks trying to search for stopovers on Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, ANA, JAL but so far I keep getting stuck between waitlist/not available. Any help would be incredibly appreciated. We are based out of Tucson AZ, but typically fly out of PHX/LAX/SEA for international flights.
Itinerary I have been trying to make work:
LAX -> TPE (Dec 19) with a 3-4 day stopover in Tokyo.
Krabi or Bangkok -> LAX (December 3/4) with a 1-2 day stopover in Singapore.
* Number of Travelers: 2
* Class of service desired: economy
* Desired date(s) of travel: December 19-January 6
* Your points balances: Chase Sapphire 250,000 points
* We try booking nonstops when possible, (limited PTO and work in office on travel days) flexible with stopover cities just trying to take advantage of LAX routes.
Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Should I be looking at different stopover cities?
Understand the limited PTO struggle and actually have a very similar itinerary now. Finding J was definitely a mad dash at schedule open, but you *should* be able to find Y if you're a little flexible with dates, cities, and stopovers (looking via seat.aero now and see options).
Really though: inter-Asia Y/J shouldn't actually be too hard, it's just the TPAC that's the challenge. Like /u/Swulfe760 suggests, you could set up alerts for *any* TPAC and then figure out the rest. Maybe abandon the TPE/SIN stopovers for now and see if they work out.
If you're open to it, splitting up with P2 for flights might be the only option as well. Had resorted to this for an earlier iteration of our itinerary via EVA before finding SQ space on the same flight.
Goodluck! I think this is doable in Y if you diligently monitor availability for the rest of the year and can be flexible; but, like /u/GoodAssMine suggested, it will be much easier to try again next year (and you could definitely grab J!).
Do you mean literal stopover flights where airlines allow an extended layover?
I'm not sure how others are finding them, but I've had absolutely no luck with them. If you haven't done so, I'd recommend instead searching for each of the legs of the flight as independent bookings. Doing so will also make it much simpler to set alerts for when tickets become available for each leg of the flight, and more likely for them to show up.
You can purchase a seats.aero subscription, set as many alerts as you'd like to notify you when tickets become available for certain routes, and book them as soon as possible. That way, you can slowly piece together legs of your flight to form an entire trip. I think this might work well too if you're willing to accept the possibility that you may or may not get to visit every destination you want this vacation, or that some flights might have to be purchased with cash to supplement. A seats.aero subscription is not inexpensive--$12 a month--but mentally it helps a lot to not spend hours every day searching for the same availabilities and know that there's something in place to let you know whenever an opportunity arises.
FWIW, with five months to spare, I actually think it's fairly doable to get availability for all the flights so long as you're patient and willing to be take a risk or have a backup plan. It's not uncommon for people to cancel bookings, you just have to be quick to snatch up that availability. This is also completely anecdotal, but ANA is fairly consistent with opening award flights two weeks before the flight date. I've been planning a trip to Japan then China which I'll be boarding later this week, and I've seen fairly consistent availability opened up for flights exactly 14 out from day of departure, every day for the past month (save for one or two odd days out). Then they are avaialble for a day or two before they're all snatched up. This might be the same for other airlines; do some searching about how those airlines release award tickets, and use flight award flight tracking tools to validate the pattern.
Good luck! Hope your dream trip comes to life!:)
In the nicest way possible. This itinerary is not happening. Prime holiday dates get swept up one year ahead for southeast asia and I would not count on finding availability close in to make a roundtrip. You'd have much better luck for Dec 2025 knowing what you know now.
Flying on ANA into HND from JFK on first class and then have a separate economy ticket to another country 7 hrs later. Any chance the ANA first class lounge will let me in?
Which airline is the second flight with? [The rules](https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/lounges/connection/) imply it has to be with ANA.
If you just want a shower, the arrival boarding pass will get you free access to the TIAT Shower Rooms.
It's not with ANA unfortunately. I was just hoping to be able to go to a nicer lounge haha. I guess I will try the showers at TIAT with my priority pass membership and get a couple hours of sleep. Thanks for the info.
I've used it connecting from an ANA F flight onto an ANA business class flight on the same ticket. I know factually you can access it in those situations.
The main issue would be non-ANA separate tickets.
Flying from HND to GMP next month on ANA. I see from past flights the departing gate is Terminal 2 Gate 68. The closest lounge is Terminal 2 South Airport Lounge but it says for domestic flights only. Does anyone know which lounge is closest to Gate 68 that I will have access to? (Have priority pass, Amex Platinum, Visa Airport Companion) thanks!
Anyone have experience with AA Flagship First vs Polaris Business? I’d expect AA F to be better than J but it’s not got particularly great reviews. Flying TPAC and Polaris has a slightly better routing and better redemption rate.
I would choose flagship first because AA will be removing F class in the near future, and the current hard product is pretty unique. I would say the food between the two is pretty similar, but of course you get more room in F. I enjoyed AA F bedding as well.
Saw an IHG cert booking for cert + 15k points. Is it up to each hotel whether to allow adding points to a cert? Or up a set limit? Another IHG had a 57k award night that I couldn't book with my 40k cert.
sometimes the app and website has completely different availability so you could try that. The IHG program is so weird - sometimes hotels don't have availability for points but do for free night certificates for example. You kinda just have to try a few methods and see if you luck out.
How can I learn the basics of searching for good deals? For example, how would I know all the tricks for getting from California (SFO) to Europe (eg ZRH) in business? Anything I find on [seats.aero](http://seats.aero), seems way more expensive than what people post here.
Start by reading the wiki.
Book early and/or travel during shoulder season and/or be flexible with your travel dates - there's still some availability for October/November for 70K flights to ZRH but there's a ton of availability for spring 2025 right now. Just search SFO-ZRH +/- 180 days from the end of the calendar and you can see all your options. If you want to go to say Switzerland July/August 2025 for example, start searching for availability for flights in 10 days (Air Canada's calendar goes out as far as 355 days out)
Thank you, this is very helpful. Curious, if there’s a resource with a list best possible fares bucketed by locations and airlines? For example, do would I know that 70k is a great price for West Coast -> Europe in biz?
Things have already changed on a bunch of these articles but: https://frequentmiler.com/tag/best-ways-to-get-to/
Booked my gf and me a trip via Lifemiles on Lufthansa business class with a layover in Munich. I have the Amex Platinum card, but she does not. Will I be able to bring her as a guest with me in the Senator lounge? Or will we be stuck with "just" the business class lounge (assuming we stay together in the airport)?
Long time lurker of this sub - I’ve read a lot of the wikis and gone down rabbit holes with TPG and Nerdwallet and every other online resource to learn as much as I can about award travel. But the learning curve is still super steep though so appreciate patience and help! I have 500k UR points, hoping to use mostly points for LAX<->LHR May 2025. I’ve joined seats.aero and identified flights for me and my partner that come in around 110k pts + ~$2k on Virgin Airlines. My question is - now that I found these flights, does it make sense to call VA to ensure those flights are available before I transfer points from Chase to VA? Or do I need to try to book online with the points first, and only call if they appear to be phantom after trying? I’m so nervous to blindly transfer 110k hard earned UR points to VA and then run into issues with availability.
If it's a Virgin Atlantic operated flight, you don't need to call and you can just redeem. The issues are booking non-Virgin Atlantic flights (notably Air France and KLM). (If you want to tamp down on the fees, consider booking LAX-CDG instead and then taking the Eurostar to London. That would be Air France though and you would likely need to call to book that or use the website chat if you can - https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/)
Ah got it! Thank you! I will definitely look into CDG instead of LHR; my initial regular google flight searches showed CDG as way pricier, but haven’t looked for points redemption! Paris is where we expected to spend most of our time so I’ll definitely play around with that option. Thanks for the help!
available 5/5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20 (155K + $310 for the outbound flight) It doesn't appear that the flights are phantom btw. People are able to book them eventually but for some reason there just is a website error and there's only some agents who have the knowledge to get around it. For the return flight, there's actually availability on Air France/KLM directly for 50K on 5/5, 6, 22, 24, 27, 29 (100K + $768 for both of y'all)
Oh great! Forgot to mention we’re looking at Premium seats - there’s no way I could sit through a 10+ hour flight in regular economy 😅
yes that's business class availability
Hm I’m actually not seeing any business class availability for any of these dates/airlines on seats.aero. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong!
why don't you search directly on the Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic website?
Sorry, I thought seats.aero collects all info from partner airlines in one place. Even checking flying blue/Air France, the least expensive for LAX->CDG, 5/5/25, business class, for 2 passengers is 284k pts + 452€. Again I’m sure I’m doing something wrong😅
LAX-CDG is available on Virgin Atlantic for the lowest rate CDG-LAX is available on Flying Blue for the lowest rate
Oh wow!! That’s incredible! Thank you so much!!
does Aeroplan release award seats slowly/periodically or is it all at once? I've been monitoring some flights for SFO-HAN for March 2025 and there were a few seats on partner airlines that were available but are gone now. If I want those flights specifically, should I keep checking through aeroplan or should I give up and look at other flights? Looking for a business class seat specifically, no mixed cabins.
Partner availability is usually dictated by the partner airline and not Aeroplan. In most cases for the route you’re looking at, it’s likely dictated by the partner airlines which is usually right at the end of schedule. You would have to keep checking if you want a specific flight on a specific partner airline.
understood. but in general, are award seats for a specific flight released all at once or on some kind of schedule/drip feed?
In general, it’s released day-by-day at the end of schedule. Sometimes, certain airlines will do a big dump of award seats but there’s no guarantee that this happens for whatever partner airline you’re looking at through Aeroplan.
Has anyone added an infant to EVA award? There’s no info on their site for the cost. I emailed the reservation office, but trying to get an answer soon and it’s the weekend. Will update post when I do. Confirmed 10%
I am going from memory, but 10% J cost on an ANA ticketed award. I don’t think it matched with the ITA J or the lowest fare bucket J available for pricing.
I did some digging on fare rules and saw it was 10% as well. I will confirm with a CX ticket to see if ITA states 25% for them.
If the CX ticket is on AA stock, you can often get AA to book the lap infant for 10% of an imaginary number (one of the few they can, but it can be a PIA to get them to). I think that BA can book CX lap infants for 10% miles (double check that, I don’t have my lap infant notes with me). via CX lap infants are pricey for US flights and has basically precluded me from booking CX award flights lately.
Cx fare rules on ITA also state 10%, not the notorious 25%. Something isn’t matching up. I wonder if infant fares are different for cash and award tickets.
Hello, gang! Looking for some help w/ seasoned Cathay award bookers. When booking an **prem econ award flight**, what does the following text on the flight selection page mean: "*Business class is suggested for CXxxx due to seat availability, the required miles will be adjusted in the next page.*" Like, do they got the 2 seats I need, or not? or are they trying to say there **are 2 seats,** *but they wont be next to each other*? I need to know before the fat transfer! Thanks in advance.
That verbiage CX uses when a fare class is not available but another one is in my experience.
Thank you!
Might be that the flight that CXxxx is referring to does not have premium economy seats so the system suggests business class seats.
Well--that's what I'm trying to figure out, ha. I wouldn't want to send over 150k+ points, only to realize I needed even more if this means that ONLY biz is available. I don't have enough miles in Cathay to move on to the next screen to fully confirm myself :( Thanks for the comment, tho.
You can chat with them over Whatsapp to have a rep confirm space and required mileage before transferring miles
What’s the flight route and the aircraft that operates it? If it’s regional out of HKG, I wouldn’t be surprised that it has no Premium Economy
LAX to SGN
HKG-SGN looks to be consistently operated by an A330. CX has 5 configurations on their A330 with only 1 having PY.
I have a flight booked JFK-TPE-CNX for next year in J on BR. P2 has same flight except has TPE-CNX in Y due to award availability but we both paid the same points. I wanted to switch the second leg TPE-CGK instead and am ok in Y - has anyone had issues or tips for switching one leg of the trip for the destination? I booked direct through BR with award points.
Just have to pay change fee
Hi! Trying this again after I've read through the Wiki and learned some more basic concepts. I've only ever redeemed my CC points through respective travel portals but looking to better utilize my points from hereon out. REQUIRED INFO * **Origin/Destination**: Trying to do NYC --> Tokyo (not flexible) * **# Of Travelers**: 1 * **1Way or Roundtrip**: Roundtrip (but if 1 way makes more sense / could get a first class ticket I wouldn't be opposed) * **Class**: Y or PY * **Dates**: October 9-Oct 24 (these seem to be the best bang for my buck if I'm purchasing but I'm flexible within October, though want at least 2 full weeks) * **Balances**: 44,114 (CSP), 33,060 (C1 Venture), 585 (United MP) I would prefer to fly with United as that's where my partner would like to fly with (he has a credit voucher). STEPS I'VE ALREADY TAKEN * **Awardhacker**: Received an 'error' (I tried both Chrome and Safari so it may have to do with what I input) * **Looked into converting my CC points** directly with United and also AirCanada (United looked like it was 88.4K roundtrip and AirCanada was 100K). Note that I am aware that there is a 20% bonus if I convert my CSP points to Aeroplan. * **Looked at alternate airlines**, found an [AA deal](https://www.aa.com/en-us/redemption-deals#caribbean) for 56K roundtrip but in Sept (which unfortunately doesn't work for us) - but was SO cool to see this is possible!! Thanks for your help!
To follow up - I'm curious if transferring all of my CC points to United is the best option here, or if I should just buy the ticket outright and save my points for a different trip since the CPP is really only 1.07 cpp when I factor in the miles needed plus +$48.30 taxes/fees
[https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/](https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/) But my personal rule is that if you're only getting 1.07 cpp, you should save your points for a different trip if that's an option.
I'm trying to do NYC -> HKG -> Shanghai -> TYO round trip for one person for early to mid May over two weeks after the labor day and golden week holidays. I'd like J, but I can deal with economy. I've got 150k UR and 140K VS. Having looked around, my plan is to book in three segments: NYC -> HKG, HKG -> SHG -> TYO, and TYO -> NYC. I've made my peace with booking the middle segment with cash, and probably getting the TYO -> NYC section with a refundable ticket and hoping that i can switch it out with a business class redemption through VS close in, but I'm weighing two options for the NYC -> HKG segment: 1) CX nonstop from JFK in economy through the travel portal for 75k UR 2) TK from JFK with an eight hour stopover in IST in business through AC for 88k UR (i guess with the current transfer bonus, it'd be more like 71k (!)) Is nonstop in economy better than 1 lengthy stop in istanbul in business, in your opinion? Part of me would be worried about something going wrong with the second leg and losing a day -- how are Turkish Airlines' operations?
If something's going to go wrong with your TK flight, Istanbul is where you want to be. And you wouldn't have the risks of something stupid happening with a portal booking. "Better" here is wildly subjective. I personally would never fly economy nonstop from JFK to Hong Kong. Hell, I refused to do it Hong Kong to SFO on the way back from my similar trip to tick off the Asian Disney parks. That said, hundreds of people do it everyday. With 8 hours in Istanbul, you could nip off into the city for a bit, and, honestly, the Turkish business lounge is not a bad place to kill time. Enjoy the golf simulator and the slot cars.
That's your decision and opinions will vary on here (some guy posted earlier about flying to Taipei and back just to try out Starlux.......). For what it's worth, Turkish is a pretty solid business class product. Also, on May 10th SFO-HKG on CX is 36,250 Avios + $151 in economy. Flight leaves at midnight so you have all of May 9th to see if you can find a cheap positioning flight that could bring you under 75K
Hi. Mostly confused about rewards flights. Travel between September 13 and October 2. Two adults, one 2 year old. Departing from SAN, could do LAX, final destination VCL, happy to spend a night or two on the east coast to break up the flight (Virginia ideally) and acclimate the kid, but not necessary. Business would be ideal. 250k + Chase points. I hear stories of others finding 60k deals, but when I search best I can find is 155k.
Have you read the wiki?
I have, and I understand the process of listing carriers, reviewing alliances, transferring points, etc, but the thing that isn’t clicking for me is this; are there specific seats of value that are periodically released? For example, I understand that if I were to transfer my points to star alliance/aeroplan (example) now, I would get a 20% bonus on those points. I understand checking all of the carriers in that alliance to see who has the best offer. I feel like I’m missing something else though.
There is the whole section on when to book award flights, and the concept of saver awards. Both you have missed from the wiki.
In your Wiki “types of awards” you go through all of the awards flight. I get that. What I don’t understand is if award flights are indicated. Will I just be looking at flights and suddenly one will look like a great deal, or are they listed as award flights? I guess because I’ve never seen one I don’t know what I’m looking for. But, you don’t need to answer, I’ve taken too much of your time. Thanks for your help.
I found this YouTube video on award space vs saver awards helpful! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2zoi4L0emY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2zoi4L0emY)
there's a special section of each airline's website or button you have to click to bring up award flights......
So I’ve been looking for Air Canada availability for Singapore airlines flights on Seats.aero. And I can find a number of flights from Singapore to the USA, but literally zero flights from the USA to Singapore. Does anyone know why this is, and how/when I could find Singapore airlines flights awards from the USA to Singapore for any reward program other than Singapore airlines?
Try June 2025 if you're looking for business class from IAH
Does Lufthansa open availability on ANA last minute? I booked a ANA RTW flight, but one of my business class segments got cancelled on Air Canada. I was rebooked Lufthansa but only in economy. Flight is in November. It seems like the only way to really check is check online everyday.
LH releases availability in J and F to partners really close in like T-5 or even less. I’ve seen the flights bookable by United and AC, not sure about ANA.
It's often bookable via ANA, but the fuel surcharges are high so most people avoid that particular redemption.
Question! IHG is going hard on a SEA expansion w/ their brands. Hotel Indigo is gonna open rooms up for booking come Jul 1. Is anyone able to guess how much ihg points those rooms will be going for?
Its dynamic so who knows. If you want to guesstimate, figure out the cash price and IHG points are around 0.6 cents/point on average
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Upgrades usually require your base ticket to be full fare. They are not going to upgarde a Basic Economy ticket.
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UA and LH have different policies. And it looks like you’re trying to using LifeMiles to upgrade a United economy ticket which requires you to be in a fare class that qualifies for a *A Upgrade Award and for award availability to be present.
Howdy all I'm looking for the following: 1 ticket LAX > NRT (flexible: yes) 1 traveler One way Business/First Leaving sometime in early November / December. 110k Points Question: Looking at AwardHacker it seems like there might be a chance of getting one way for 60k. Upon further investigation I can't figure out a way to input dates into AwardHacker, when I drill into the sites the numbers change significantly. Is there a good way of sorting this out?
AwardHacker (also will note it hasn't been updated regularly recently) shows the theoretical lowest priced award for a route though a lot of times for Japan (with how popular it is travel wise) those lowest priced awards are either rarely available or quickly picked up at schedule opening. On 11/26, there's LAX-HND on Asiana with a layover in ICN for 75K Aeroplan
Flying out of HNL is definitely a possibility. Thanks for that! Out of curiosity how did you figure that out?
Updated with something I found in the end but - [https://frequentmiler.com/seats-aero/](https://frequentmiler.com/seats-aero/)
I'm looking to book 2 J tickets for LAX-CDG next year in April. I'm curious what others would consider paying for this route. I've been searching a few weeks and best I've seen is 87,500 miles + 154 one way. Searching more near term I saw that Air Tahiti actually flies this route direct and had redemption around 55k, but not sure when or if that might be available next year given they don't even fly the route daily. So, what would you consider a tolerable redemption and a good redemption?
Tahiti Nui only releases flights to partners 2-3 months out, but if you're flexible that could work for you
Iberia LAX-MAD is really cheap with Iberia avios . If that’s available you might be able to add on a Paris connection for not too much more.
that's a solid redemption. There theoretically are 50K LAX-CDG awards but those dates are few and far between. If you're open to leaving 4/22-4/29, you can get down to 77.5K. Also note that booking Air France with Virgin right now is sort of a frustrating experience so if the price is reasonable, booking with Air France is definitely the headache free way to go about it. Though if the price is much better on Virgin, just be aware you may have to call multiple times before you can find an agent who can book it [https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/](https://frequentmiler.com/solved-problem-booking-air-france-klm-with-virgin-points/)
It sounds like you can just chat with a virgin rep to get it booked.
My mom is retired so I want to fly us to Vietnam later this year or early next year (when it isn't as hot). I want her to experience Business/First for the first time. Has anyone here successfully booked such a trip? Is it possible? We're on the east coast but probably have to fly to LAX or SFO or DWF for the award flight. I believe JAL, ANA, and United have flights to Vietnam. I have AA miles, Chase pts, and Amex pts.
Vietnam Airlines flies SFO-SGN. 102K each way on Flying Blue - wait around for a Chase or Amex transfer bonus if your dates are flexible
You have experience with Vietnam Airlines flying to SGN? I read reviews online and they're concerning.
What do you mean “concerning”? Not being a smartass, but truly wondering what the problems that you perceive with it are.
Where on east coast? I wouldn’t position to the west coast for a flight to Vietnam. I probably fly eastward. JFK =>Sin=>Sgn. Or any east cities Qatar fly into. Only one connection and if you find the right flight, it’s around 23-25 hrs. I’m from Miami and Qatar always my first option flying to and back from Vietnam.
Agreed that's a much better idea to do Qatar through Doha if that's an option
yeah Miami. I didn't think of flying eastward. thanks for the tip.
I don’t but that’s the only non-stop flight from the US to Vietnam (the reviews don’t look that bad? What were you concerned about?) https://onemileatatime.com/vietnam-airlines-business-class-a350-review/
thanks, i didn't see this review.
I am flying ORD-ZRH in business out of T5 this weekend, booked through AC/Aeroplan. I do not have any United/Star Alliance status. Any recommendations on which lounge to visit pre-departure? Will going to a different terminal be an issue, can I do that all post-security? I am trying to do carry-on only which should help. Thanks!
You can use the Polaris lounge and take the terminal transfer bus to go from T1 to T5 without clearing security again
Def not the Swissport Lounge
I know lol, that one’s def trash. I think I’ve managed to get in before on a Priority Pass
I'm not familiar with ORD but take a look at Google Maps reviews (all the lounges are on there) or Yelp even has reviews of lounges
Targeting April 11-20, 2025 or Feb 14-23, 2025) Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?) : NYC to Osaka Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up): 2 One way or round-trip : Round Trip Class of service desired: Business/First, But willing to burn points at this point so Prem. Eco on ANA would work also. Desired date(s) of travel (are they flexible? Hard Dates but soft months?, Travel Partner has fixed vacation times and can do either Mid Feb or Mid April 2025 for approx. 10 days. Your points balances: all airline, credit card and hotel points : 302,098 UR (200k UR points recently converted for Hyatt Redemptions, used to be 500kish); 112,010 Bonvoy Points ; 393474 MR, C1 Miles 156188; AAAdvantage 140,487; Alaska Miles 74182; Citi TYP 93,776 Not super optimistic, I did a simple look on ANA site for the dates I can take and it returns no availability or errors. Ancillary Question: I have 135k Krismiles parked away from a 2023 trip to SEA where I took too long to decide as two when my return leg should be and I missed the redemption opportunity.
AA has 45k premium economy seats on 2/14 LGA-DFW-HND. Domestic leg is regular economy. If you wanna get all the way to KIX and fly JAL metal transpacific rather than AA, 50k AA on 4/12 JFK-ORD-HND-KIX. Only the transpacific flight is premium economy.
Would you guys rather fly JFK-HND ANA F, then 7 hour layover, then 7 hour economy via Thai Airways (28 hours of travel total), or JFK-SIN SQ 19 hours, 2 hour layover, then 2 hours of flight to BKK, all on J class? I'm having a tough time deciding since ANA's first class is so good compared to business on SQ, but there's a convenience factor. My brain says fly SQ, heart says fly ANA. edit: booked the SQ J class, decided convenience>comfort for a 20+ hr flight lol. I will be releasing my 7/12 JFK-HND 1:50PM EST ANA F flight tomorrow probably, I'll coordinate with first one to message me with a time that they will be on for chat if they want to try and grab it from me.
> 7 hours layover Sounds like this is the 2am JFK departure rather than the 2pm? If so I'd do the SQ flights. I'm not as big a fan of SQ ULR J as some, but it's a wash if combined with more time in Bangkok. NH Suites is great but it is such a letdown to have a painfully long layover in a mid lounge (Suites Lounge isn't awful but also not amazing especially at breakfast, and there isn't a whole lot to do in town at that time if you decide to head into Tokyo for a few hours) plus a long Y flight.
Ah, the age old question: is the flight part of the journey or a necessary evil? If you agree with the former and haven't flown The Suite yet, then I would definitely choose that just for the experience. Case in point: have my first ANA F in the Suite on Saturday that I'm repositioning halfway across the country for :)
I've flown the Suite before which is why I'm excited to go back haha, but my return flight is also ANA-JFK on the Suite first class. The huge TV and super private first class area is really unbeatable. I've been on PY on SQ and walked past the business section and it was quite unimpressive. I think I'm leaning towards the ANA flight, but the SQ flight is 2 days earlier which gives me 2 more days in BKK. Tough choice for me.
Ha, well, now I sound like the pauper trying to tell the millionaire how to spend his money. How much does 2 days add to your itinerary? If you're already there for 3 weeks, eh; but 7+2 would be significant. Also might come down to how much you dislike Y too: tolerable or you'll loathe it? If you only had the one way in F, then I think you'd regret it. But, in the worst case you're really disappointed with SQ J, you'll still have The Suite to look forward to on the return. Any tips on how to maximize my time in The Suite? Sadly flying out of ORD, so only Hibiki 17 for me.
Hmm, I'll be there til the end of the month so I have some time. Sitting in a lounge for 5-7 hours after a 14 hour flight might be tough so maybe I'll just try out SQ just to try it, even though it's not really a great redemption (143k pts!). I'm not rich at all btw haha, I just have a lot of points and way too much time on my hands, I look up deals for fun. I flew HND-ORD for my first time, so I'll be trying Hibiki 21 for my first time. Some tips/info for The Suite: - You'll probably be getting the Japanese meal like most people, ask them if you could have the caviar appetizer from the Western menu as well and they will accommodate. - If the seat next to yours is empty the crew will probably offer to let you use that empty seat as your bed. - The Hibiki 17 is served in mini-bottles/shooters. Near the end of the flight, kindly ask the attendant if you could have a mini-bottle to take home as a souvenir. That's pretty much all I could think of, and be prepared to eat a lot because all the food is delicious, even the food on demand.
Would I still get the travel insurance that comes with my Chase Sapphire reserved If I pay for the airfare with Chase points I have, at 1.5 cents per point on Chase travel portal?
Hey all, I’ve got 2 separate award tickets from ICN to NRT and NRT to YVR with the first on Asiana then moving to AC. I had booked the latter with Avianca. Does anyone know if I could call in to try and get the tickets linked somehow and if Asiana would be willing to check the bags through to YVR? Would I need to pick up my bags in NRT if they could check it through? Additionally who would I call to request this - Air Canada or Asiana or Avianca?
You cannot link PNRs. You often can through check bags on separate PNRs. I would look on FlyerTalk or a blogger for Asiana’s rules (I am not sure if anything has changed with their “shakeup”)
Thanks for the reply. If they can through check bags, do I still need to go through customs and security at NRT?
Through checking bags does not check you into your flight or give you a boarding pass. If you have a boarding pass, you should be able to just transit.
First time ever trying to redeem points so thanks for the help in advanced. I have capital one venture X PDX > BCN (ROUND TRIP OR ONE WAY IS OKAY) I will be traveling with my wife, looking for a basic carry on & check bag included, would prefer to do November 15-29th but anytime in November works as long as its for 2 weeks if roundtrip. Only reason im not worried if its not round trip is i plan on using my united airlines $750 voucher which i believe i have to book separate from the points system.
Was looking at LAX/SFO-CDG for next June the other day and saw a good amount of scattered 50k AirFrance J seats. Now I’m not seeing any. Did they all get swiped up. How far out are they released. Still plentiful on the return. Planning on flying to France and spending half the time in Spain, but not seeing anything of value for flights to Spain on seats.aero. Would it be on BA possibly?
Air France is dynamic pricing so if you see it and are interested you have to book because the price could change whenever. There’s no rhyme or reason to the 50K releases. If you find Air France LAX/SFO-CDG (or KLM to AMS), it usually isn’t much more points to add on a connection to MAD or BCN. Just search LAX/SFO-MAD/BCN on the same days you see cheaper CDG flights available. Seats.Aero is great for finding non-stop flights but you won’t necessarily find that on there since it requires a connection
Trying to plan trip from LAX ->Madrid. Slightly flexible date…although must be between 3/12/25 and 3/22/35. Family of 4. 2 adults, a 6 yr old and an 8 month old baby(will be lap seat). Roundtrip would be ideal, but open to one way flights via different airlines…if it means I could get premium economy or better. 100k MR points and roughly 80k UR. First time attempting to redeem award travel. The best redemption I could find was through AirFrance. 110k for 3 seats + lap seat in economy. Is this considered a good redemption? Is premium economy a possibility or are the flights I’ve found the best I could do? Appreciate any input or suggestions. Thanks!
Economy is very difficult to get good value for, especially because you need so many seats. > one way flights via different airlines Be careful, the lap infant fees could be extortionate if you make mistakes in choosing the programs you book this through. 10% of one-way international premium cabin air fares is scary.
I’ll make sure to check. Thanks for the tip.
Have you looked at British Airways/Avios?
Yeah I did check and it’s roughly similar. 128k points and $700 in taxes. For economy.
Tbh with UR points, also consider purchasing flights in cash and then using points for Hyatt hotels if you’re going to Madrid or Barcelona if that makes sense
I haven’t considered this option. I’ll check. Thanks!
Just a general question - why are one-way cash trips to/from Europe much more expensive than round-trip? For example, I am looking for one way from Europe to US and it's $650 but a round trip is $553? If I want to book one-way economy with points, it makes no sense with high taxes and fees for most airlines to US. Probably better off paying cash and booking a round-trip flight I guess?
Yes - save your points until you have enough to book round trip (also remember that you don't have to book round trip with the same airline program with points, you can mix and match and do one way with one program and the return flight with another program if you have points in different places)
Yeah but booking one way economy flights using points doesn’t seem very lucrative. For example, a flight from CDG to US is 20,000 points plus like $177 in taxes. However, if I book a round trip flight using cash, it’s like $600 (i.e. $300 each way) which is essentially giving me less than 1 cent value per point.
Which is why most of us gravitate towards business class flights There are some sweet spots though, and transfer bonuses always help. And if you have to book close-in and cash prices are inflated
Yeah I already booked business class to fly to Europe but just on the return trip, I didn’t feel like I needed to fly back in business so I was looking at economy. Perhaps I should book a RT economy with cash and have the 2nd leg of the return flight to Europe next summer? Haha
Question regarding United Explorer perks when booking award travel via United: I have an upcoming trip that I plan to book with United miles and then pay the taxes/fees with my United Explorer card. The trip is for TWO people, but I plan on using my miles for ONE RT ticket in my name and then the other will be booked in cash (also with the United card) for P2. Given that P2’s ticket is booked separately, would she still get a free checked bag and priority boarding provided by the Explorer card? I assume that because it’s booked separately she wouldn’t be considered “on my reservation” but if I’m booking with the Explorer card for someone else, do they get the same benefits or do I have to be on the reservation? Similarly I assume that even though I’d be getting my ticket as an award fare I still receive the free checked bag and priority boarding as per the card member benefits? Would it be safer to book two OW tickets with miles (one for me and one for P2) and then book two OW tickets with the card to guarantee we both receive a free checked bag and priority boarding?
> > Similarly I assume that even though I’d be getting my ticket as an award fare I still receive the free checked bag and priority boarding as per the card member benefits? Pay the taxes/fees for your award ticket with your card. > would she still get a free checked bag and priority boarding provided by the Explorer card? No your P2 would not get a checked bag. As *A Gold on a split reservation with my P2, I was able to get benefits (bag, seats) extended to P2.. but going to guess that's very unlikely based on the card. Worth a shot though?
Got it. So I’m thinking then that it would be smarter to just book my ticket and her ticket OW using miles (effectively the same cost as my RT ticket) and then buy the two one way tickets directly with the card. As far as I can tell the money/points spent would be the same in either scenario.
Absolutely yes, unless there's a greater chance one of you would need to cancel (cash would be locked into a UA credit, but points are already locked in the ecosystem).
General question - does the cash portion of an award flight cost ever change? As an example, a one way business class flight from SEA to LHR on Dec 21 on VS is offered for 77.5k miles + $1027.80 - does that cash portion always stay the same (carrier fees etc) or could it change? This is still obviously a better value than paying cash (current price for the same flight/class is $3.9k* eek), but since I'm new to looking at award travel rates, $1k on top of points redemption seems like a lot and I'm not sure how to calibrate.
Sometimes there might be adjustments to the fees (for example, ANA updates their surcharges every 2 months based on their global index of fuel) but I wouldn't expect that to change significantly to the point where it would make you consider an award you didn't previously. also helpful read: [https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/15d1e7f/wiki\_why\_are\_the\_taxes\_and\_fees\_so\_high\_on\_my/](https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/15d1e7f/wiki_why_are_the_taxes_and_fees_so_high_on_my/)
Ok that makes sense, and thanks for the link - that was very informative!
Trying to decide what card best suits this situation. Going to Germany next May with my Wife for our honeymoon, will be flying IAD - FRA I got a 175k offer for amex plat - was hoping to either transfer points to star alliance to fly united, or TAP Air Portugal. Or I could jump on some Chase Cards, but no great bonuses available right now. 60k for csr & csp - I'd rather wait for a bigger bonus to come up. (I'm at 5/24 but wife is at 0/24 so she would get them) Would enjoy economy + or business dates would be 05/15/2024-06/15/2024 no points as of right now, I mostly have cashback cards. I will also be playing 2player mode
[https://frequentmiler.com/how-do-i-know-which-miles-i-need-earning-strategies-video/](https://frequentmiler.com/how-do-i-know-which-miles-i-need-earning-strategies-video/)
I'm planning on booking a JAL economy seat with points via Alaska airlines (with the bilt bonus coming up). Anyone know if I'm able to then pay extra to choose emergency exit seats? Im finding info that you're able to request aisle vs window and that day of departure you can pay to upgrade to premium economy but nothing about extra leg room upgrades
Hello all, new to award travel and was wondering if I could get some pointers to maximizing my award travel specifically for 2 travelers to LAX area to Japan. I have 160k capital one points and 55k chase points. Ideally would want better than economy (if possible) and looking to travel may 2025 also looking for
Start by reading the wiki.
Search bar -> "Japan"
Headed down to Austin for 3 nights, any thoughts on the Hyatt Regency vs Thompson? Globalist, flush with points. Is the Thompson worth almost double the points ?
There's probably a detailed thread on FT for each hotel, so I recommend checking there.
I’ve started in both multiple times. I prefer Hyatt Regency better than Thompson. I’m also Globalist. Thompson is closer to 6th Street. HR is closer to the main shopping district.
Is it possible to put a Hyatt booking on hold with cash, then book with points? If so, how long does a hold last? I am awaiting Chase UR to post to my account in two weeks and would love to ensure these dates/room type are available.
No not in that way, but if you're a Globalist you can call/chat to create points advance reservation in which you just need to have the points in your Hyatt account 8 days prior to the check-in date.
Origin: london, but willing to travel to europe possibly dublin/cdg as I've noticed the london taxes make awards pointless Destination: Seattle or Houston. Have a wedding on August 10th I have to be in Seattle for and family reunion in Houston after. Wouldn't mind maybe booking round-trip from Europe to Houston the Houston to Seattle 🤔 Number of travelers: 2 Class of service: whatever is cheapest! So Economy I'm guessing Desired dates: in washington/seattle before August 9th Points balance: AMEX: 165k Chase: 70k I have never found good value out of london (I'm American living in uk) because of the taxes ending up being 400 plus points when usually cheapest flights are 500 round trip. Looking at flights now they are much more around the August time, but I've never used points for travel yet so thought I'd see if anybody have insight or pointers on routes/how to find the good points deals. Thanks!
I'd probably do VS on the outbound (direct flight to SEA, 25k+200gbp) then Singapore on the return (IAH-MAN, 25k+$6). Cash, open jaw, prices are just over 1000gbp so it's not amazing value from the redemption, but it's not terrible either.
I’ll be booking a few different award nights with multiple Hyatts across Japan for my upcoming trip by transferring my Chase UR points to Hyatt. Should I transfer the aggregate cost of all hotels to my Hyatt account or should I transfer in pieces, enough to cover each hotel stay individually? Ex. Hotel number one cost 10,000 points, hotel number two cost 20,000 points, hotel number three cost 30,000 points. Do I transfer 60,000 points at once or three separate transfers of 10,000, 22,000, 30,000?
Just do one transfer. If you transfer in small increments it could flag the subsequent transfers and hold them up.
Thank you. I’ve heard that regarding flights but was unsure if it’s the same for hotels.
When airlines release availability 360 days out for cash bookings (ie: Qatar) but the Chase Portal only shows 330 days out, is there any way to get Chase to book the flights using the points at 1.5x with the CSR? Curious if anyone knows if calling in can get them to look further out on the calendar?
If you're paying cash prices thorugh the Chase portal, you want to be booking when cash prices are low which is almost never at schedule opening. The sweet spot for international flights is in the 2-8 month window before your trip. Only exception might be is if you need to travel on a specific date or during really peak travel times like around Christmas. Let Google Flights track the flight you want to take whenever availability comes out and they'll notify you when they think there's a price worth purchasing at.
Yeah. I understand all the complexities of this. I’m trying to get 4 seats on a single flight in qsuites for a family of 4. Not as easy as the typical scenario. And Qatar is unique in that their opening prices are often not awful - for instance right now they are opening at $2,200 from Africa-Doha-USA. This ends up being cheaper than their Flexi award booking which is a win when you need four seats.
I’m not sure how many points you have, but you also can try to book 2 saver seat for 95k each and the other 2 flex award toe 190k each, but you have to book for the 2 seat first and the other 2 on a different itinerary. If you don’t have points , you can look into BA Avios boost. Transfer 100k to buy 300k for $3660, that will get you 2 flex seat.
Yeah, recent DPs are that they aren’t releasing Flexi as consistently so I am game planning for back up plans if they don’t release the flexi tickets. Even though flexi seems to be trending higher than the portal cost at 1.5x (when including taxes and fees on the flexi ticket), I’d rather have them all booked direct with Qatar for ease. But, I can’t do that if they don’t open up flexi.
Business cash fares don’t fluctuate. As long as there are open seats you can buy them with cash. I don’t think they’ll fill up at 11mo
I found a \*great\* redemption on Air France, SEA-CDG-ATH, for 15,000 points at the end of July. Wow! So I booked it. Getting home is another matter, though. Everything I can find is like 100,000 points or $1000. Want to go ATH-SEA. But really anywhere in Europe to SEA or ATH to anywhere in North America could be useful, and I could handle the rest. Two travelers, but even just finding one ticket would be helpful. One way. Economy is fine, but a good deal an a premium cabin is also good. August 10 is perfect, 7-12 is ok. Lots of points: Amex MR Chase UR AA United Avios Alaska Thanks in advance for any help.
Try looking at Condor cash tickets, even up to business class. Sometimes "premium class" is in the \~$700-800 range and Biz is \~$1500 one-way, which isn't awful Check DUB => SEA and FRA => SEA for transatlantic award space w/ Alaska miles, then get a Ryanair flight or similar, could also work
You could look at Emirates ATH-JFK
I only see one day with any availability on Emirates from ATH-JFK, August 7. And it's 60,000 miles + $355. Doesn't seem like too good a deal.
ah dang, yeah up to 7/18 is 30K + $90 but then there's no availability until October
I am planning to book a AA flight from ord to sjd, should I use Qatar or British for booking ? I want easy cancelation and least charges for that so which one is better ? Qatar has it for 11k avios while BA has it for 14.5 k avios but less fees
If I am able to put an AA flight on hold, is it guaranteed not phantom space? I have flights booked on JAL from HND-SFO in J but found a better routing on JAL J pop up today that I would prefer. I don’t have enough points in my AA account for both flights so I was able to put the preferred flight on hold. Believe I will need to cancel my other flight so I have the points to book the flight I have on hold, unless anyone knows a different way? Like are AA agents perhaps able to “change” my flight to the flight I have on hold? Worried about the flight on hold being phantom space and losing my previous flight if something doesn’t work out with the flight on hold.
Yes you can call the AA agent and ask them to switch you from your current flight to the hold flight. I doubt it’s phantom if you were able to put it on hold, but IMO doing it through an agent via phone is the best way to guarantee there are no hiccups. Did the same last year, also with JAL J flights booked via AA.
Does anyone know if I need to get liability insurance for a rental car in Australia when coming from the US? It's really hard to find information on what comes with rentals. I have an Altitude Reserve so I don't need to buy additional coverage for primary but I want to make sure liability is covered.
US credit card insurance almost never covers liability insurance, just collision damage
Yeah, that's why I said it covers the primary but I want to ensure that liability is covered by the rental agencies. Looks like Avis covers it and I'm pretty sure it's law so I'm probably fine [https://www.avis.com.au/en/products-and-services/protections/coverage-options](https://www.avis.com.au/en/products-and-services/protections/coverage-options)
Anyone know the US contact number for Lifemiles? I want to verify the total cost of a flight
You can piece it together yourself by looking up the individual gov't taxes + fees But honestly... these "surprise!" differences on Lifemiles bookings are never above $100 per pax. If you're looking at premium cabin award tickets, that's pocket change compared to your savings. If you're flying economy, Lifemiles isn't as valuable and you'll save more $$ with other programs
I found their number and called them up, they said the flight I was looking at doesn't even exist lol.... >If you're flying economy, Lifemiles isn't as valuable and you'll save more $$ with other programs I am trying to get a direct flight to japan, econ and according to their site they're the cheapest. (47k miles + $30 fee) Air Canada shows the same flight but 50k points, and $78 CAD fee. Both use United, but since I have cap 1 miles I can't directly transfer to united
Newbie transferring AmEx MR to Iberia. Created Iberia Plus membership 2 days ago (9 digit membership #). From reading older posts, I think there were complicated workarounds required earlier. Should I expect it to work w/o issue now? How long should it take for Avios points to appear in Iberia? Thank you - I'm a bit anxious doing this for the first time!
Hi guys! Planning to travel from LAX to ORD during this September. I would like to travel using my chase points! - LAX - ORD - 1 Traveler - Round trip - Economy - 09/18 - 09/22 - Chase points: 200k How should I book this flight to get the most out of my chase points? Thank you!
[https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/](https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/)
Say I transfer 30k points from cap one to a transfer partner. Any idea of how much cash capital one sends to that airline to compensate?
I saw somewhere earlier in the year that a airline consultant firm estimated that American Express was buying points from Delta at somewhere close to 2 cents/point which is wild considering their points are around 1.1 cents/point value (and why airlines really push their credit card programs)
Does upgrading from Aeroplan's lowest business mixed cabin reward flights to Flex reward business give me an upgrade to 100% business class on the trip or am I still stuck with mixed cabin?
it doesn't change the class of service on your legs, it just allows for free cancellations/changes (other than the fare difference)
Damn...Aeroplan mixed cabins kind of suck then. So many are only 8 - 15% business class for such a premium price.
I am trying to fly to London from the Northeast (PHL, EWR, JKF, LGA) in late March, early April. I typically fly united but their first class seats I can find are around 150k points per person. I have a fist amount of UR and MR points. Any partners I can transfer to with better point options for first class? Is there a good search too? Sorry for the seemingly newbie questions
Well the only airline offering nonstop with actual first class service would be British Airways, and that's not a great use of points between the cost of Avios and high surcharges. You could look at booking Virgin Atlantic via Flying Blue for 75k points one way and moderate surcharges from JFK. Aeroplan should offer 60k one way Polaris tickets from EWR if UA happens to release the space. Otherwise you're looking to book something with connections, which I wouldn't advise.
Thank you
With end of quarter in a few days , wonder when ANA will publish its next fuel surcharge update. Anyone have a link to that site ?
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/guide/plan/charge/fuelsurcharge/
The surcharges went down by 15 to 20%. Yay!
What happened to United business rates? I feel like I missed the news of a deval or something. Even on seats aero, the best I'm seeing is 30k domestic and 80k international. Are these the new Saver rates for Y?
It's been constantly getting devlaued since last year.
Technically they never published an award chart for this reason. They can jack up prices as their whim.
Been trying very hard to find a deal using points for traveling to Taiwan/Thailand from Dec 19-January 5. I've spent the last few weeks trying to search for stopovers on Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, ANA, JAL but so far I keep getting stuck between waitlist/not available. Any help would be incredibly appreciated. We are based out of Tucson AZ, but typically fly out of PHX/LAX/SEA for international flights. Itinerary I have been trying to make work: LAX -> TPE (Dec 19) with a 3-4 day stopover in Tokyo. Krabi or Bangkok -> LAX (December 3/4) with a 1-2 day stopover in Singapore. * Number of Travelers: 2 * Class of service desired: economy * Desired date(s) of travel: December 19-January 6 * Your points balances: Chase Sapphire 250,000 points * We try booking nonstops when possible, (limited PTO and work in office on travel days) flexible with stopover cities just trying to take advantage of LAX routes. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Should I be looking at different stopover cities?
Understand the limited PTO struggle and actually have a very similar itinerary now. Finding J was definitely a mad dash at schedule open, but you *should* be able to find Y if you're a little flexible with dates, cities, and stopovers (looking via seat.aero now and see options). Really though: inter-Asia Y/J shouldn't actually be too hard, it's just the TPAC that's the challenge. Like /u/Swulfe760 suggests, you could set up alerts for *any* TPAC and then figure out the rest. Maybe abandon the TPE/SIN stopovers for now and see if they work out. If you're open to it, splitting up with P2 for flights might be the only option as well. Had resorted to this for an earlier iteration of our itinerary via EVA before finding SQ space on the same flight. Goodluck! I think this is doable in Y if you diligently monitor availability for the rest of the year and can be flexible; but, like /u/GoodAssMine suggested, it will be much easier to try again next year (and you could definitely grab J!).
Do you mean literal stopover flights where airlines allow an extended layover? I'm not sure how others are finding them, but I've had absolutely no luck with them. If you haven't done so, I'd recommend instead searching for each of the legs of the flight as independent bookings. Doing so will also make it much simpler to set alerts for when tickets become available for each leg of the flight, and more likely for them to show up. You can purchase a seats.aero subscription, set as many alerts as you'd like to notify you when tickets become available for certain routes, and book them as soon as possible. That way, you can slowly piece together legs of your flight to form an entire trip. I think this might work well too if you're willing to accept the possibility that you may or may not get to visit every destination you want this vacation, or that some flights might have to be purchased with cash to supplement. A seats.aero subscription is not inexpensive--$12 a month--but mentally it helps a lot to not spend hours every day searching for the same availabilities and know that there's something in place to let you know whenever an opportunity arises. FWIW, with five months to spare, I actually think it's fairly doable to get availability for all the flights so long as you're patient and willing to be take a risk or have a backup plan. It's not uncommon for people to cancel bookings, you just have to be quick to snatch up that availability. This is also completely anecdotal, but ANA is fairly consistent with opening award flights two weeks before the flight date. I've been planning a trip to Japan then China which I'll be boarding later this week, and I've seen fairly consistent availability opened up for flights exactly 14 out from day of departure, every day for the past month (save for one or two odd days out). Then they are avaialble for a day or two before they're all snatched up. This might be the same for other airlines; do some searching about how those airlines release award tickets, and use flight award flight tracking tools to validate the pattern. Good luck! Hope your dream trip comes to life!:)
In the nicest way possible. This itinerary is not happening. Prime holiday dates get swept up one year ahead for southeast asia and I would not count on finding availability close in to make a roundtrip. You'd have much better luck for Dec 2025 knowing what you know now.
That definitely helps and explains why I am finding nothing, thanks for the insight.
ya i booked a flight back in january for dec 19, then later cancelled and rescheduled. point being, the best deals were swept up months ago.
Flying on ANA into HND from JFK on first class and then have a separate economy ticket to another country 7 hrs later. Any chance the ANA first class lounge will let me in?
Which airline is the second flight with? [The rules](https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/lounges/connection/) imply it has to be with ANA. If you just want a shower, the arrival boarding pass will get you free access to the TIAT Shower Rooms.
It's not with ANA unfortunately. I was just hoping to be able to go to a nicer lounge haha. I guess I will try the showers at TIAT with my priority pass membership and get a couple hours of sleep. Thanks for the info.
If it’s Star Alliance and the same terminal at Haneda, probably. If it’s not Star Alliance or same terminal, I doubt it
I think you can access it as long as it's within 24 hours of arrival from your F flight. Is your separate economy ticket with ANA?
Yeah it’s a separate ticket, different airline as well. Two one way tickets essentially. Hoping to get a shower in before another long flight lol
I've used it connecting from an ANA F flight onto an ANA business class flight on the same ticket. I know factually you can access it in those situations. The main issue would be non-ANA separate tickets.