Award ticket redemption

[Shadowfactor]

Since you guys seem to have this award routing and redemption thing down pat.

I need some advice since I’m new to the world of award tickets.

My fiancé and I would like to fly to Indonesia or SW Asia for our honeymoon.
We might also consider the Greek Islands as well.

Flying from the Midwest so we would most likely have to fly to a major hub first.

What airline is best for award availability and or award ticket cost.

We would like to fly business class or maybe first class if the required miles for first weren’t a ridiculous amount over business.

I’m trying to figure out what credit card miles I need to be focusing on. We are still 2 years away but we would like to focusing on which credit cards to use to accumulate the most miles for a picticular airline if necessary.

I have Amex MR, Chase UR and Citi TY points and cards that earn those reward currencies

Points already accumulated
Amex : 150K
Chase : 64K
Citi : 66K
Delta : 65K
USB : 110K

I plan on using USB points for the hotel

[wasCB14]

ANA is an MR partner and seems to have some of the cheaper awards to southeast Asia.

I can't speak to the complexity of booking, though.

AwardHacker may be useful.

[signaturecardmember]

I would start out by looking up which airlines participate with which programs then looking up award charts to get an idea of how many of which point you would need to stock up on and start planning accordingly. Average business class to asia is about 70k miles per ticket one way, first class is about 100k but again look up the charts. UR are the best followed by MR but you can sneak some AA awards in there and they are easy to build up points wise. Hope this helps!

[Shadowfactor]

I’ve never even heard of award hacker before so I will have to check it out.

I didn’t even know where to start to look for overseas airlines. I know the value of delta flights domestically and that’s about it.

I have looked at the common airlines for all 3 programs and Singapore Airlines is the airline that stands out for all 3 programs.
I keep reading about Singapore airlines on TPG but it seems like if there’s that much interest in that airline it would be impossible to book.

Is Delta(partner airlines) a good choice for Indonesia or the Greek islands.
If I transferred my MR’s to Delta. I would have roughly 210K mikes at this point.

Would I be better off looking for ANA, Singapore or other Asian airlines to book through ?

We are still a year out from booking the trip so it gives me some time adjust my card use to get us another 70K -100K in miles without adding any new cards

[wasCB14]

What's your home airport? I know a connection or two may be necessary, but knowing that would help a lot. Ideally, you could book a reservation within a single alliance.

[Anonymous]

---

@Shadowfactor wrote:
I’ve never even heard of award hacker before so I will have to check it out.

I didn’t even know where to start to look for overseas airlines. I know the value of delta flights domestically and that’s about it.

I have looked at the common airlines for all 3 programs and Singapore Airlines is the airline that stands out for all 3 programs.
I keep reading about Singapore airlines on TPG but it seems like if there’s that much interest in that airline it would be impossible to book.

Is Delta(partner airlines) a good choice for Indonesia or the Greek islands.
If I transferred my MR’s to Delta. I would have roughly 210K mikes at this point.

Would I be better off looking for ANA, Singapore or other Asian airlines to book through ?

We are still a year out from booking the trip so it gives me some time adjust my card use to get us another 70K -100K in miles without adding any new cards

---

Singapore and Virgin Atlantic are  transfer partners of MR,UR and TYP. MR has a bonus on Virgin transfers. I do not know Virgin's routes but, something to consider. 

[Shadowfactor]

My home airport is CLE but I would be willing to drive to CMH or CVG if needed.

[K-in-Boston]

Would you be willing to drive to DTW?  That's a Delta hub.  Virgin Atlantic offers incredible value on Delta front cabins, and a LOT of Asia routes are going out of DTW now with some of the best Delta One availability.  The problem with booking through VS if you are not leaving from a major hub is that the points for a domestic leg can add up quick.  Also certainly worth checking out the awkward Air France / KLM awards, could be 50k in J or 300k in Y, who knows where it'll be?  Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic are transfer partners of just about everyone.

[Shadowfactor]

I don’t necessarily need to fly out of my home airport on an award ticket.

I wouldn’t have a problem paying for a domestic flight to get me to a major hub and then using the miles if it made sense.

I plan on calculating all of that stuff when I actually go to book the tickets.

Right now I’m trying to get a general idea of the best credit card program to use for those two destinations so I can make sure I accumulate more points towards it.

If it ends up costing cash on top of the award mileage. I’m completely fine with that as I have been saving up towards this for quite a while.

[wasCB14]

Without a specific city in Asia as a destination, I'm leaning towards ANA. Among UR and MR partners, ANA seems to combine flexibility with slightly cheaper awards.

But that could definitely change if you decide on a particular destination city.