Questions and Answers

Hello Fellow travelers

Been trying to accumulate points/miles as much as I can with work and personal travel. I was hoping and waiting to make use of these for an award trip with my wife to celebrate our 5th anniversary year. I am not sure if I have enough, Anyways presenting my case to you for critique and advice or to tell me to stop dreaming and just spend the money 🙂

I am planning a trip to Indonesia and then heading to Bangalore from JFK. This is my tentative itinerary of the travel route.

JFK – DPS
DPS – BLR
BLR – JFK

I have the following membership/miles/points etc
Amex – 220K
AA – 95K
Delta – 65K

I am hoping to get some award points at least on one leg of the trip ( preferably the JFK-DPS or BLR-JFK route)

so based on these can someone provide some information on which options to use and is it best to utilize my Amex points to transfer to airline partners etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Praveen

Well, you can use AA miles to fly on Cathay Pacific from JFK-HKG-DPS. You can also use it on the return on either Cathay or Etihad, BLR-HKG/AUH-JFK. Any of these options requires just 70k AA miles for Business class.

You can use 25k AA miles to fly DPS-HKG-BLR in economy if you wish. You can also use 35k Delta miles for DPS-BLR but itineraries do connect in China and is on both China Eastern and Jet Airways.

For the other direction, you can transfer Amex points to several airline partners for a ticket. Aeroplan and KrisFlyer are good options and you can route thru Singapore or Bangkok back to the US on a StarAlliance carrier.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 30884, member: 29″]Well, you can use AA miles to fly on Cathay Pacific from JFK-HKG-DPS. You can also use it on the return on either Cathay or Etihad, BLR-HKG/AUH-JFK. Any of these options requires just 70k AA miles for Business class.

You can use 25k AA miles to fly DPS-HKG-BLR in economy if you wish. You can also use 35k Delta miles for DPS-BLR but itineraries do connect in China and is on both China Eastern and Jet Airways.

For the other direction, you can transfer Amex points to several airline partners for a ticket. Aeroplan and KrisFlyer are good options and you can route thru Singapore or Bangkok back to the US on a StarAlliance carrier.[/QUOTE]

Thank you very much David. I will look for these options you have mentioned. Based on your advise i have a few questions if you don’t mind answering

1.I will have to book each leg separately. Is that advisable in terms of delays and luggage constraints etc? or it is worth the hassle?

2. [I]’You can use 25k AA miles to fly DPS-HKG-BLR in economy if you wish’ [/I]could you tell me which airlines this would be? or will this be available in the redeem miles option at aa.com

appreciate your inputs !

Thanks
Praveen

What you do mean separately? Your first ticket can be booked as JFK-HKG-BLR. HKG will just be a connection and at HKG, your bags are automatically transferred. It’s not a hassle at all.

DPS-HKG-BLR is on Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon, also as one ticket and bags are transferred for you in HKG.

For both these itineraries, you can find award space using British Airway’s website and then call American Airlines to book. Ignore whatever pricing you see on BA since that does not apply.

So after a few weeks of constant monitoring. I have managed to book the return leg BLR-JFK in Etihad Business through AA( had to buy a few miles but I guess it will be worth it). I am stuck with my onward journey. JFK-DPS (DPS-BLR – I will use a cash ticket).

For the JFK-DPS I have a few options. Would like your opinion on this
1. Aeroplan ( 155k miles) – JFK-IST-SIN-DPS ( on TK and SQ)
2. Delta ( 190 Skymiles) – JFK-CAN-DPS( on CZ – not sure about this airline I heard about them only a few weeks back)
3. Waitlisted on an SQ flight ( 184K miles) JFK-FRA-SIN-DPS – Is it realistic to use this as an option at all?
4. Looked at Cathay – no availability only waitlist option. BA has flights from JFK-HKG but no booking option from HKG onwards
5- Are there any other routes that I can look at to have 2 separate tickets but possibly with the same airline/partner

Much appreciated

1 – Not bad but why is the cost so high? Two award tickets?
2 – CZ is fine, nothing special. Price is high for business class though. It should like, half that.
3 – You can call SQ and ask to have a “chaser” try and get you cleared. Quite high though. JFK-FRA-SIN is only 120k in Suites. Is business class available?

Thanks for the quick response David. Yes, it’s for 2 tickets. Are there any other options I can look into? also What is a ‘chaser’? 🙂 I don’t see an option for suites would love that even if it’s only till SIN I can get a cash ticket from SIN-DPS it should be a short flight. The waitlist is for business class

184k for SQ business class is kind of ridiculous. A chaser is what SQ calls some of their staff who keep tabs on waitlists and can sometimes lead to a higher chance of being able to confirm flights.

It may also depend on [I]when[/I] youre traveling to determine what kind of awards are available. I dont think youre really doing anything wrong, just keep checking.