Questions and Answers

Hi all,

Three of us are planning a trip over Christmas/New Year’s from either TPA or MCO to either AUH or DXB on December 17 and returning after the new year on January 6 from DEL.

Is there a chance to use points for any of this for any of us for business class or are we dreaming? We have Amex membership rewards, American Airlines AAdvantage, and Chase Ultimate Rewards.

We could also split up, one traveling from TPA and two from Orlando.

Help! 🙂

Could you list out how many points/miles each of you have with each program? That’d make it easier to make suggestions.

Off the top of my head, I’d say maybe AA miles for TPA/MCO-IAD/JFK-AUH on AA & EY for 70k miles each. Another option would be TPA/MCO-PHL/JFK/BOS-DOH-DXB/AUH on QR for the same number of points.

AA charges 17.5k/30k miles one way for econ/bus between Middle East and India.

For the return from Delhi, you can pick between EY/QR/CX to get back stateside, also 70k miles in business. I think AA has a discounted points sale going on if you needed to purchase points.

You could also transfer Chase UR and Amex MR points to other airlines for travel, if you had more points there.

I have about 400,000 in each points currency as well as about 250,000 Delta miles

I’d use your AA and DL miles first, since Chase and Amex points are more valuable.

Based on costs listed above, 2 awards for each person in Business Class from US-ME-India will be 100k. I would check space for the transatlantic legs first.

For the return, you could do a mix of AA and DL awards to fly on their partners back to the US

Sadly the Etihad space US has almost completely disappeared except for very short-term redemptions. Qatar might be a good option though it may require an extra flight.

Even Etihad Business? I haven’t looked at space in a while actually

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 16424, member: 29″]Even Etihad Business? I haven’t looked at space in a while actually[/QUOTE]
Sadly, yes. Though with Etihad one can never be sure as they seem to release an awesome amount of award when the mood strikes. But right now…nothing.

is it possible to upgrade any Emirates flights using any of the points or miles?

You’d have to transfer Amex points to EK and upgrade a purchase ticket. I remember [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] saying that’s a better use of EK points instead of booking awards directly.

Do you set up an EK points account just to purchase the ticket? I have never done that before with a ticket, I’ve only used points in accounts I already have

yes, create an EK skywards account so you can transfer points over. I’d also check EK for upgrade space before transferring points over becuase you cant transfer them back if there isnt space or if it doesnt work out

Buying and upgrading might be better option than a straight points redemption just because of the time of year. That is peak season for Indian diaspora to be traveling to India so award space becomes hard to find. I was able to use UR points through UA to book Air India last year so it’s possible although you might need to spend some time monitoring availability and it may not be the fanciest redemption.