Questions and Answers

What is the best airline to redeem awards to travel from Tampa to Tokyo? Planning a family trip in 2019 and want to maximize my points to offset as much airline tickets as possible. I have Sapphire Reserve and Delta Gold, but thinking it may be better to have a United credit card instead to maximize flexibility. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks

I’d probably focus on the Chase family of cards. Consider the Sapphire Freedom, Freedom Unlimited and Sapphire Reserve cards to boost the number of points you have. If you have any kind of small business, consider the Ink cards as well. The points do all combine and can be transferred to United or Korean to book awards. United will let you access Star Alliance awards and there are some good options there. Korean generally has a decent amount of premium cabin award space. With United you may be able to add a flight form Tampa to wherever your international flight departs from, if there is award space. With Korean, you have to buy a separate ticket from Tampa.

Consider having your spouse apply for the cards as well to get more points. 2019 is still quite far off but it’s good to have an idea and to plan for it.

And if “family trip” is parents and kids you should be fine. If it’s extended family I think Korean has some pretty strict rules about using your miles for non-immediate family members.