Questions and Answers

My family is in final stages of a possible adoption in Shanghai. I have been trying to rack up points to take my family over, and would like to treat them to at least business class flights over there. I am looking for best suggestions to do this as high end as I can, most likely some time in September. We are originating from chicago and have 4 total travelers. My wife, 2 daughters(7&4) and myself.
Current CC points look like this..
Dad, 155k Amex membership rewards Platinum business and personal and 180k chase ultimate
Mom, 310 AMEX MR Plat Business and personal. 120k chase ultimate.

Looking for the best way to transfer or use these mainly for flights, as hotels are not nearly as expensive.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome [USER=3234]@NAF[/USER] – you might actually have enough points to go business each way, if that’s what you want.

Thanks to the [URL=’https://www.travelcodex.com/award-maximizer/’]Award Maximizer[/URL] tool created by Scott of Travel Codex, here’s a quick summary of airlines you can transfer points to using your Membership Rewards (MR) and Ultimate Rewards (UR) points:

Prices are each way unless specified

United (MR)
UA flights – 35K in economy/70K in business
Partner flights – 35K/80K

Delta (MR) (there is a fee to transfer MRs to Delta)

Level 1 award – 35K/80K
Partner – 40K/95K

British Airways (both)

50K/150K + fuel surcharges

Singapore Airlines (both)

45K/87.5K

Aeroplan (MR)

37.5K/75K

Flying Blue (both)

40K/100K

ANA (MR) – round trip required

30K/47.5K

Korean (UR)

Korean flights – 35K/62.5K
Partner flights – 45K/77.5K

So ANA looks like a winner as far as price goes since it is only a little more expensive than one-way business awards on other airlines. Of course you don’t want to transfer points anywhere until you find seats. Use the United and/or Aeroplan tools to search for space (though Aeroplan may only be able to see the legs that depart/originate in the US or Canada).

But I think the real trick may be finding 4 seats on the same flight. Your best bet may be to find the space and then we can figure out where to transfer your miles to make the most sense. It may turn out you can get two award seats and use the rest of the points to help offset the cost of cash tickets. It will all depend on availability.

And keep in mind that there will be fees for your lap infant on the way back and that those fees can be 10-15% of an adult ticket so it can be quite expensive if you’re in a premium cabin. Fees vary so you’ll want to do your research. You can also check out [URL=’http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/09/10/flying-lap-children/’]Travis’ post about lap children[/URL] from a couple of years ago.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask or this may be a situation where you want to hire an award booking service.

Congrats on the new baby!

How much to hire someone to work all my points out?

Click on the Award Help link at the top of the page and see the pricing for Lucky’s team at Points Pros. There are also numerous other such services.

Thanks so much… We did a good job getting some points racked up, but I still have no idea how to use them.