Questions and Answers

I want to book a flight from HKG to ZRH and in looking at nonstop flights, the best option seems to be Cathay (no surprise here). What would be the best way to book Cathay first/business for a RT flight?

I can be somewhat flexible, even though I don’t know if these points will help much:
Citi Thank you 77k
Starwood 105k
Amex MR 167k
Chase UR 110k

I did some homework and it appears that the Alaska mileage plan would be most points effective but I don’t know which one of the above I can transfer (or should based on the best use of points).

Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!

SPG you can transfer to Alaska which is the lowest if available. 42.5K in business and 70K for first. Your 105K SPG points would get you 125,000 Alaska points so you are good for business and would need to buy some for first. Or go one way in business and the other in first.

Citi/AMEX to Asia Miles (Cathay) 70K OW 120RT for Bus 105/180 RT. You’ll find the best availability here. Also fly Qatar on this route.

AMEX to Aeroplan for Swiss/Austrian/LH 75K OW Bus No first except LH and that is 2 weeks out.
Chase UR to United for same

Starwood to AA for Etihad 75KOW

Chase/AMEX/Starwood to BA for the Qatar (surcharges) and Cathay. 90K for business and 120K for first. With the current AMEX transfer special your 167K AMEX points gets you 200K Avios. But is BA has availability so will Alaska.

SPG is your best option. It just depends if you want to spend them on this. Given the Alaska HKG-Europe sweet spot of 42.5K in business of 70K in first you’re not going to do better. Look on BA.com for availability. Me I’d take first on CX if I could get it for 70K.

[QUOTE=”MarkS, post: 21592, member: 2121″]SPG you can transfer to Alaska which is the lowest if available. 42.5K in business and 70K for first. Your 105K SPG points would get you 125,000 Alaska points so you are good for business and would need to buy some for first. Or go one way in business and the other in first.

Citi/AMEX to Asia Miles (Cathay) 70K OW 120RT for Bus 105/180 RT. You’ll find the best availability here. Also fly Qatar on this route.

AMEX to Aeroplan for Swiss/Austrian/LH 75K OW Bus No first except LH and that is 2 weeks out.
Chase UR to United for same

Starwood to AA for Etihad 75KOW

Chase/AMEX/Starwood to BA for the Qatar (surcharges) and Cathay. 90K for business and 120K for first. With the current AMEX transfer special your 167K AMEX points gets you 200K Avios. But is BA has availability so will Alaska.

SPG is your best option. It just depends if you want to spend them on this. Given the Alaska HKG-Europe sweet spot of 42.5K in business of 70K in first you’re not going to do better. Look on BA.com for availability. Me I’d take first on CX if I could get it for 70K.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Mark. This was what I was afraid of. I didn’t want to use my SPG points but I may not have much choice here…

Have you considered buying AS or AA miles? There’s a sale on AA miles now and they can access all available CX award space whereas AS can only access a smaller subset of CX award space.

[USER=29]@David W[/USER] are you sure on the subset of CX space for AK rewards? It’s my experience that if its available to Oneworld then Alaska can get it. Asia Miles has full reward inventory for sure. But all Oneworld partners are treated equal as far as I know and I was told by AK that if it’s available with Oneworld then they can get it. Certain agents may fail to see the inventory but its there. I understand the articles recently posted suggest there is a difference but that may be technical or due to poor training. Which I’ve had with a few AA agents not finding Qatar or Etihad inventory.

Recently to secure a FC reward I grabbed it as soon as it was available with the desire to really get one 3 days later. Each day I called AK and got the next day. This gave me an opportunity to deal with 4 agents and I asked each one about CX. They all said that if OW has it then they have it. They said they book a ton of CX space and you really need to get it early. I did have one agent who screwed it up and had to call back, but the others were great.

Do you have experience where it’s available to Oneworld and not AK?

I dont have experience personally but was referring to this article by [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/09/11/alaska-cathay-awards/[/URL] and this one by [USER=4]@Lucky[/USER] [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/07/03/alaska-cathay-paicifc-awards-blocked/[/URL]

[USER=29]@David W[/USER] yes I’ve read the articles and I’m not diminishing the fact that if you are having difficulties booking an award that you think is available but they don’t it can be frustrating. But there isn’t any evidence that AK inventory is different that OW inventory, and that was my point.

One thing is for sure, anytime transferring points or buying points you should verify the space before you do it. We all can agree on that.

For First Class you should consider Swiss, their new First on the HKG – ZRH route is amazing.

I think you need to be a Miles&More member to book Swiss F, though a while back there was LX F bookable via Lifemiles/Aeroplan

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 21904, member: 29″]I think you need to be a Miles&More member to book Swiss F, though a while back there was LX F bookable via Lifemiles/Aeroplan[/QUOTE]

You need to be on senator or Hon circle level withh miles and more. But ordering my secretary for months to call the support team every day made them give me a First Class upgrade for the miles as only a “frequent flyer” It jsut took about one month I think.

[I][U]Ordering[/U][/I] your secretary to call every day made them give you first class?

[USER=9]@Mark[/USER] s, we’ve actually had a few reports here of people not being able to book space on AS that was available on OW partners.

[QUOTE=”MarkS, post: 21909, member: 2121″][I][U]Ordering[/U][/I] your secretary to call every day made them give you first class?[/QUOTE]

For 50k miles per Person from a Business Ticket, yes. It was meant as a very special gift for somebody.