@ezdoesit wrote:
@mongstradamus wrote:
@-NewGuy- wrote:
@mongstradamus wrote:
@ezdoesit wrote:Next year I plan to fly to Ireland to visit my wife's family in Ireland. i have been trying to figure out the best way to fly there and do so using either MR points or UR points I have about 130k and 80k points respectively I expect to have a lot more accumulated by next year.
The scenario below is using the premise that I have enought points with MR or UR points for 4 of us to fly.
The question or issue I have encountered is if I were to fly using MR and UR combined I could fly Virgin Atlantic or BA (I know that neither fly directly to Ireland but to London I will transfer from there). Flying VA would be about 3800 dollars.and if I am correct would require 280k miles for the 4 of us. Which works to like 1.3 cents that doesn't include the additional 2k i have to pay in fuel charges. So in the end it will cost me 280k plus 2k dollars using VA and BA is similar in price and Fuel surcharge.
Now if I fly United is it would be like 4100 dollars and it requires 240k miles so that works out to like 1.75 cent the fuel surcharge doesn't really come into play because it seems as though the American based airlines don't have huge fuel surcharges tacked on.
Am I missing somthing maybe some of the seasoned reward flyers on here can enlightened me on what I might be overlooking.
From what i noticed if you are flying to Europe , going thru BA or VA you will pay an lot of fuel surcharges. So if you can avoid it. What an popular thing to do is to go thru aer lingus i think they fly direct to ireland and they don't have as many fuel surcharges. I am definately not an travel guru. Usually when you want to get more than 2 or 3 points per cent, its when you redeem for business or first class from what i can tell .
This is the way to go. You can get some fantastic deals by transferring to Avios and then booking via Aer Lingus. All of the examples I've seen were departing from the East Coast, though, so I don't know what exactly you would expect. However, this is a great way to redeem for Ireland flight travel.
I forget that not everybody is an east coast guy :-) I think I remember reading somewhere that flying from boston is best option on aer lingus, but don't quote me on that. If you have UR account i think both UA and BA can transfer to aer lingus. For MR BA and Asia Miles can transfer to aer lingus so you have some options if you want to use aer lingus to flying to dublin.
I am an east coast guy in Long Island I would be flying from JFK I also have the choice of LGA but travel to and from LGA is awful. Thanks everyone for the reply I knew you could transfer UR and MR points to BA but I didn't know you can then transfer them again to Aerlingus. I will definitely look into that. Aerlingus is usually the cheapest option when I DW fly there.
I have heard to get more than 2 to 3 per cent is when you redeem for business or first class but that is not what is typical for me so I wouldn't do that just to get that return plus for the four of us it would probably require like 480k points. Right now I have about 130k MR and I will have 90k points in the next month when my 40k CSP gets added.
Yep, Aer Lingus for the win. And honestly, don't kill yourself over the value stuff too much. Yes, to technically get the most cents per point "value" you would have to redeem for premium cabin international travel. However, this takes a lot of points and many people don't want to spend their points that way. Just do research like you're doing and find the best way for you, and then redeem guilt free. My .02.
