Questions and Answers

Hey Lucky,

I have a bunch of United, BA and Delta miles plus Chase points. I’d like to make a business class or first class trip to IST on miles in March – any recommendations on best point deals for that trip?

Thx!

Ted

Ted, where are you based?

[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 11119, member: 79″]Ted, where are you based?[/QUOTE]
Hi Gaurav,

I’m based in San Fran and need to be on the east coast for work travel and am looking at taking a quick jump across the pond to Istanbul. Ideally using points either for round trip business class (upgrade or full). Trying to get recommendation on best option; most of my miles are United or Delta along with Chade points. Thanks!

Want to give us a ballpark of how many points have you have in your three stashes?

[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 11142, member: 79″]Want to give us a ballpark of how many points have you have in your three stashes?[/QUOTE]

Sure – 200k in United, 100k in Delta and 300k in chase points.

From JFK you may be able use United miles to book a non-stop in Turkish business class. I’ve flown that and wouldn’t hesitate to fly them again. Unfortunately the IST-ATL non-stop flight doesn’t begin until May so you’d either have to connect to somewhere that has the TK flight or fly another airline. TK doesn’t offer a first class cabin. However, looking at the UA website you’ll have to look at each day to see if there is award space on the non-stop. This close to travel time there might not be any. If you can wait until closer to travel time you may be able to use the UA miles to book on Lufthansa.

Delta doesn’t offer first class and doesn’t allow you to use their miles to book first class on partner airlines either but you could still look for space on Air France/KLM though who knows how much it will cost.

[USER=1331]@TeddyB[/USER] — Welcome!

With the miles you have, your best options are really going to be business class for this trip. First class using United miles limits you to UA (yuck) or LH (but only within 14 days of departure, for a ton of miles). No reasonable first class options using Chase points other than transferring to SQ, but you’d have to organize the FRA-IST segment separately to get any value there.

So, I’d look at business class, and let availability dictate your miles preference. Using Delta miles on the outbound could be good, though you’ll likely need to connect in Rome or Paris. Avoid using Delta miles for the return, as there are high fees ex-Europe.

Otherwise Turkish through United is a great choice, or Austrian, which generally has good close-in availability.