Can You Redeem Miles To Cuba?

Great timing! I was actually looking into this only a couple of days ago.

Don't you underestimate TAAG Angola. They operate 3-class 77Ws with full-flat beds in F and angled lie-flat in J. (and yes, I did understand this was just humor)

I have 10,500 Sir Turtle Miles from Cayman Airways. I think I can redeem those. Don't discount the smaller (funnier) named airline programs. Will be flying to Havana sometime this spring via GCM

@ Eric -- Not gonna lie, I'm kind of jealous. Would love to throw a temper tantrum at an airport and start it with "but I'm a Sir Turtle Club member!" 😀

I'm partial to the Moscow-Havana flight on Aeroflot; There has to be a name for that run.

@ Lucky, hahaha. I've been following Brian (TPG) on his visit to Cuba. There are chartered AA flights, but it seems like a hassle. Sir Turtle Points to the rescue!!! 😛

I think that you could theoretically book an award through Flying Blue, although the website isn't currently set up to price the routing.

Delta flight to Mexico (probably MEX) -> Aeromexico to Cuba (HAV)

I haven't called to try and ticket it as I'm with Ben - I'll probably just wait until there are AA flights from Miami that I can book on Avios. But I figured if there are any readers who are really excited to get to Cuba ASAP this might be worth giving a shot...

Aeroplan doesn't allow redemptions to Cuba.

I'd like to remind readers that travel to Cuba for the sole purpose of tourism remains illegal for US citizens - regardless of your routing into that country. Here's an article via Huffington Post concerning the hoops you have to go through - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/17/how-to-travel-to-cuba_n_6489024.html - Caveat Emptor.

Havana's been a huge vacation spot for Canadians for years and there are billboards for it all over Montreal and Toronto. Plenty of discount flights.

AA has had regular "chartered" service for years.

Cancun has cheap fares and awards on most airlines and is very close to Havana.

I'm actually going to Cuba in early March and I remember looking up for award space on Flying Blue last December to fly both my parents in from CDG. As it turned out there was plenty of availability on AM via MEX. It was around 60 000 miles return with less than €100 in tax.

Though I've never done it myself (nor been to Cuba), the hack I devised in my mind from Southern California would be to drive to the San Ysidro border and cab it to the Tijuana Airport, and just book a round-trip journey on Aeromexico via MEX. In more forbidden days, I'd heard that customs agents at the airports were trained to sniff out US citizen visitors to Cuba who were coming back via flights from the Caribbean or Cancun, but this always seemed to avoid that risk since border agents at land crossings are unlikely to think that you went to Cuba on your little jaunt to T.J.

(And to tassojunior's point above, that would of course be equally possible for Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle and Albany residents to drive up to the Toronto, Windsor, Vancouver or Montreal airports.)

Lucky - I'm not sure you would want to fly TAAG... unless you want to file it under the "strange, out-of-the-way airlines that I've tried" 😉

Why burn miles? Can u just swim there from key west?

Lucky, you're going to redeem 4,500 Avios for Economy?

I see a high speed ferry in the future from Key West. Similar to the one that runs from ft Myers Beach to Key West.

Can u legally travel to Cuba with your German passport?

@ Francisco C -- My understanding is that up until now the restriction has been on spending money in Cuba. So you still need one of the "approved" reasons to travel, though up until now with a German passport I could have technically gone, but couldn't have spent money there. At least that's my understanding.

@ Mr_Tudball -- Hah, might do business, but on a 40 minute flight doesn't matter all that much.

I still haven't done any detailed research but, on the legal front, it would seem that the Treasury Department's licensing-in-advance scheme -- thou shalt not spend money in Cuba without first getting a license to do so -- has been replaced by a traveler "self-certification" scheme. The "ok to spend money" categories are still there, but now it's sort of on the honor system like, yeah, I really am going as a journalist or a musician or a scholar or whatever. Strictly sun-and-fun tourism trips are still verboten. Technically. Wink.

One last serious point. Despite the above, I most assuredly and definitely would NOT try to get too cute with self-certification. You could easily find yourself in a situation where losing Global Entry is the least of your problems!

Before it loses it's "charm"?. You want to visit a Communist hellhole, where the mandated wage, (not average, but mandated) is $3 a day? Where local women prostitute themselves not for money, since the stores have nothing to buy, but simply for a dinner at a "tourist restaurant", where they can actually get a chance to eat meat?

Besides, European tourists have been visiting the Potemkin tourist villages for years, so its too late for that "unspoiled charm". Nowadays for genuine "unspoiled Communist charm" you need to go to North Korea.

For those searching their local Barnes and Noble in vain for a travel guide may I recommend you Goggle this:

Michael J. Totten: An eyewitness account of Cuba’s shocking wretchedness

“Outside its small tourist sector, the rest of the city looks as though it suffered a catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the Indonesian tsunami.

Roofs have collapsed. Walls are splitting apart. Window glass is missing. Paint has long vanished. It’s eerily dark at night, almost entirely free of automobile traffic.

I walked for miles through an enormous swath of destruction without seeing a single tourist. Most foreigners don’t know that this other Havana exists, though it makes up most of the city — tourist buses avoid it, as do taxis arriving from the airport. It is filled with people struggling to eke out a life in the ruins.”

Before you make your travel plans I recommend you read the entire article.

Thankfully never been subject to the restrictions which US passport holders have been under, and managed to fly on TACA (before it merged with Avianca) via San Salvador (SAL).

If you can, go before the American influence commercialises it. It's probably the last example of a place which hasn't been coated with McDonalds, Starbucks etc...

How do you get the little world maps with the routing (red lines) on it. It's so cool!

If TPG's logic holds, Lucky is okay to travel since he's a travel journalist 🙂

@ Sarah -- It's gcmap.com.

Last I checked out of HAV, AA flies to MIA, but that might just be for charter or something else.

@ W -- Correct, charter only.

Lonely Planet have a comprehensive up-to-date guide book on Cuba. I'm guessing US-types would need to order it online, as you might not find it on the shelves of B&N just yet!

@Lucky You can fly southwest IAD to HAV round trip for $255.91. Then add on the free buddy pass = equals a cheap trip to Cuba. 2 free bags each way. I saved a copy of it if you want to see it. Now if I only had someone to go with me!