Questions and Answers

Long time reader that has learned a bunch from this site — but now am stuck needing some help trying to efficiently redeem some points and get them to do what I want!

I need to get my family from South Africa back to the US this July. I have a few 100,000 points in Chase UR and more in my Citi TYP account. With a starting location in CPT and travelling eventually to IAD.

While it’s not necessarily on the way, I’d love a stop over in SEA if we can route to the east, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get started to see if that is even possible. All routes appear head to the west from South Africa.

Any quick suggestions on how to get started in my search? Which partners to target? Thanks for any help!

[USER=2746]@BenS[/USER] The only carrier that flies east to the US from South Africa is Cathay Pacific from Johannesburg. Alaska points could do this route from JNB-HKG-SEA on CX and SEA-IAD on Alaska IF available and IF you had Alaska points. You could potentially buy these points. Otherwise everything else is going across the Atlantic and you won’t get a backtrack to IAD from SEA. Good luck.

Hi [USER=2746]@BenS[/USER], and welcome!

[USER=2121]@MarkS[/USER] is spot-on as far as the stopover in Seattle. I might also suggest looking at paid fares on Emirates (you could use some Citi points) — they’ve been really inexpensive for one-ways out of South Africa lately.

What about United miles, transferred from Chase? If you build a multi-city award, it’s 80k for business, CPT-SEA via Europe (1-3 stops depending on the airline mix) and another 12.5k/25k for econ/biz for SEA-IAD.

Hi [USER=29]@David W[/USER]. [USER=2746]@BenS[/USER] said “get my family” and “100,000 points in Chase UR and more in Citi”. What came to mind is a single ticket and of course that would be economy at 40K each (Alaska miles on CX from SA to Seattle) with Alaska getting them to IAD. United is 40K from South American to Seattle too and you could get another ticket back to IAD, but not on the same ticket. Sure your suggestion works but with multiple tickets and he’s on a budget that needs a single award for multiple people. At a minimum you’re at 52.500 on United. That will work for two if that is his goal.

I read his balance as “a few hundred thousand” UR points. I think that’s probably what prompted [USER=29]@David W[/USER]’s suggestion.

excellent, apologies, glasses time