Questions and Answers

Ben / Tiffany / Anyone….I need some guidance here.

I’m planning a 2017 trip to Thailand (HKT) from SEA. My wife and I currently have enough Alaska miles in our accounts (around 65K each) to get us one way between NA and SE Asia in J on CX, and will undoubtedly accrue more over the next 12 months. Currently, we both have B of A Alaska card, the Chase Freedom and the Sapphire Preferred. We only have a modest balance of about 20K UR points at present since cashing in for an 8 night stay at the PH Maldives in 2016 (thanks Ben!). Also, I just picked up the Citi Prestige this week (you’re welcome Ben!), and will be acquiring the Citi TY Premier card in the next few months. I should easily be able hit the minimum spend requirements between the two cards to put 100K bonus points in the bank. I’ll be limited to just the sign up bonuses and spend for my 2 cards, since the lady says no more credit cards for her…and especially not anything with a $450.00 annual fee. LAME! I’m really hoping she’ll change her mind after she gets the full EK A380 F and PH Maldives experience next May courtesy of miles and points though. 😀

How do you think I should position my strategy for the opposite one way award (in J or F)? Should I:

A) Just purchase additional Alaska miles during one of their quarterly bonus mile sales, book round trip CX flights and use the TY points for a Hilton property?

B) Accrue additional UR points through spend? I’m not thinking this option makes a lot of sense.

C) Accrue TY Points (bonus and spend)? If TY points, what airline transfer partner makes the most sense, and how many points should I plan on having available?

Sorry for the long winded question, and thanks in advance for any advice!
Brian

[USER=756]@BKT[/USER] Accruing Alaska miles seems like a pretty decent strategy especially since you can keep picking up additional BOA Alaska cards periodically and hopefully faster once the lady comes around. I wouldn’t transfer the TY points to Hilton unless you have to. There are plenty of Hilton cards from AmEx and Citi that you can include in your apps and quickly build up a balance.

I would keep your TY points and save them for flights. They might be a nice backup. For e.g. you could transfer them to SQ and use that to book seats on OZ for your return even thought it would be pricier at 195k for two J seats.