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Answers (10)

AAdvantage Miles for CATHAY to VIETNAM

AAdvantage Miles for CATHAY to VIETNAM

  1. StevenNYC New Member

    So I’m a total newbie when it comes to Miles Redemption. Please bear with me. So I’ve been saving seven years for a dream trip to Vietnam. I intend to use my American Airlines miles to fly Cathay Pacific. I want to experience first class for the very first time and I believe I need 250,000 miles to get an award trip to Vietnam. I’m not sure about this because the miles chart for Advantage is so darn confusing.

    In any event, I’ve saved up 231,000 thousand miles. I am short some 20,000 miles, I believe. I’ve heard you could buy miles through brokers online. Then I read if you are discovered by the airline using this practice they can resend your ticket. Is this true?

    Should I bite the bullet and pay American Airlines exorbitant price for more miles? Or go through an online cheaper broker that will add them to my account to purchase a ticket? Any advice will help.

  2. David W Community Ambassador

    Assuming you’re traveling to/from NYC, it costs 110k miles each way when redeeming AAdvantage miles for travel on Cathay Pacific from the US to Vietnam. You have more than enough miles so you dont need extra. However, First Class space is hard to come by on CX. I recommend booking business class and then keep checking for CX F award space. When you see space available (nowadays usually within ~2-5 days of departure, sometimes even closer than that) call AA to change your award. As long as your origin & destination doesnt change, you can change the routing, date and class of service on awards. With the class of service changes, you just need to pay the difference in miles, plus any differences in the taxes and fees.

  3. StevenNYC New Member

    [QUOTE=”David W, post: 29709, member: 29″]Assuming you’re traveling to/from NYC, it costs 110k miles each way when redeeming AAdvantage miles for travel on Cathay Pacific from the US to Vietnam. You have more than enough miles so you dont need extra. However, First Class space is hard to come by on CX. I recommend booking business class and then keep checking for CX F award space. When you see space available (nowadays usually within ~2-5 days of departure, sometimes even closer than that) call AA to change your award. As long as your origin & destination doesnt change, you can change the routing, date and class of service on awards. With the class of service changes, you just need to pay the difference in miles, plus any differences in the taxes and fees.[/QUOTE]
    Thanks David you’re awesome Great advice.

  4. David W Community Ambassador

    I’ve flown CX F a few times from New York. They operate 5 daily flights between NYC-HKG. I dont believe the Newark flight has first class though that could have changed. One of the JFK flights stops in Vancouver. I generally avoid either of those flights – Newark is annoying for me to get to and I;m not a huge fan of having to stop in YVR in the middle of the night.

    Otherwise, I prefer CX 845 that departs after midnight and arrives early morning. Fantastically timed to help adjust for jetlag. CX 841’s morning departure means you can be awake to enjoy all the features of CX F.

    I recommend making HKG a long layover (AA does not allow stopovers but allows layovers up to 23 hours and 59 minutes) so that you can enjoy Cathay’s fantastic The Pier, First lounge.

  5. StevenNYC New Member

    Thanks again friend. One more quick question. Would I be able to fly from a New York City airport to Hanoi but return from DaNang to a New York City Airport?

    Basically: can I choose different departure cities in Vietnam? Would that be included using miles?

  6. David W Community Ambassador

    Yes, that’s totally fine. You could book the trip as two separate one way trips instead of a complete round trip as well, if you’d like. What wont be included is the flight between Da Nang and Hanoi.

    In both cases, you’ll want to tell the AAgent the CX flight number for JFK-HKG and the KA (Cathay Dragon) flight number for HKG-HAN on the outbound, and then the KA flight for DAD-HKG and the CX flight number for HKG-JFK

  7. StevenNYC New Member

    the perfect advice you are the best.

    Umm …do all this through the American Air agent or Cathay customers service all using the miles?

  8. David W Community Ambassador

    Since you have AAdvantage miles, you have to call and book thru AAdvantage. You do not need to work with Cathay Pacific agents at all.

    When you have a reservation, you’ll be provided the American Airlines’ confirmation number/record locator. Make sure you ask to get Cathay’s record locator as well so you can see your reservation on Cathay’s website.

  9. Gaurav Community Ambassador

    Just to address the crux of your original question in addition to the awesome advice David has already given, do NOT buy miles from a broker. As you have learned there are a lot of things that go wrong. If you need miles in the future and can wait till the airline puts miles on sale, or you can get them through credit card bonuses.

  10. StevenNYC New Member

    Gentlemen both TY!!

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