*A RTW J award or a series of one-way J awards?

[Jack_OC]

Hi all,
wondering if anyone has any experience booking *A RTW awards in J via KrisFlyer? I've searched here and found a couple of threads, but little information in them.

My situation is this:

• I want to visit the US and Ireland on the same trip in Dec 15/Jan 16 with my family (4 of us in total) - starting out from MEL
• Not bothered about whether we go to Ireland first or the US first, but we want to be in Ireland for Christmas (potentially problematic wrt availability - I know)
• I want to do as much of the trip as possible in J, but I can live with Y on shorter legs if necessary. And we all want to be on the same flights throughout (another potential problem wrt availability).
• By the time seats are released for those dates (Jan/Feb 2015), I expect to have the following points amassed:
  • KrisFlyer: 160,000
  • Velocity: 400,000
  • Credit card points: equivalent to 350,000 KF or Velocity points
  • Plus approx 100,000 QF points
• I'm also prepared to pay up to $15k in cash (although clearly the less cash I have to pay the better!)

I was thinking of booking a series of one-way awards - some with KrisFlyer, some with Velocity, and maybe get some domestic flights in the US and/or transatlantic flights using QF points. I've looked at a lot of permutations, and in theory I could make it work, travelling J on all but the internal US flights, without having to pay more than about $12-14k in cash. However, I'm concerned about availability, especially since in at least some cases I want 4 J award seats on the same flights, and of course at a very busy time of year. I have prior experience of booking 4 J award seats from MEL to Europe with KrisFlyer, but not at Christmas, and I have no prior experience booking international J awards with Velocity, so no idea what my chances are there.

I've now thought of a different possibility, in light of the KrisFlyer/Velocity transfer arrangement. If I transferred all of my credit card points and Velocity points to KF, I'd end up with approx 805,000 KF points. 3 *A RTW J awards would cost 720,000 KF points, or 4 would cost 960,000. I could buy the extra points required for a 4th RTW award from KF at 4c per point for about $6k, or alternatively pay for one RTW fare in cash (and earn quite a few points back in doing so).

What I don't know though, is how much would I expect to pay in taxes/charges if I got a RTW J award ticket? And also, what is the situation with availability when using a *A RTW ticket - does it rely on award seats being available just like if I booked normal award fares?

It would be great if anyone has any prior experience of this, and/or comments about the probability of success with either option.

TIA.

 

[albatross710]

I'm going to launch in with a few thoughts...my gut feel.

Christmas is one of the hardest times to juggle for redemptions...but planning a year out is good.

Do you have flexibility on dates. I think you do, if you are also flexible on direction. So, really you just need to be in Europe a little before "Christmas". Is that the 25th or is a week either side going to be ok?

When I have pieced together my SQ J redemptions for our family of four I have secured the itinerary bit by bit. My experience is only with SQ. I usually have to cobble together the sectors and itinerary. Get 2 seats, waitlist 2, then another gets confirmed....while having waitlist options for other dates.

For your plans I'd try:

MEL >> NYC with a stopover in FRA. Book return Saver online with 15% discount and free stopover

From FRA do a side trip to Ireland. Use a VA partner from your 400K velocity miles? or use KF miles to for a *A redemption with LH.

Transfer miles into KF as needed.


For the RTW tax calculations I think you will need to call the KF call centre. It's free.

I'm sure others will have other strategies.

Alby

 

[Jack_OC]

Thanks Alby. Yes dates are flexible, except that we do want to be in Ireland for the 25th.

I hadn't thought of MEL-JFK with a stopover in FRA - it might be a great idea. However, I'm not sure if that will work, as SIN-FRA and FRA-JFK is technically all the same flight (SQ26). Any thoughts on whether that will scupper the stopover idea?

 

[Jack_OC]

I hadn't thought of MEL-JFK with a stopover in FRA - it might be a great idea. However, I'm not sure if that will work, as SIN-FRA and FRA-JFK is technically all the same flight (SQ26). Any thoughts on whether that will scupper the stopover idea?

Just did a dummy booking and you can indeed do a stopover in FRA on a MEL-JFK booking - very interesting indeed.

 

[albatross710]

Thanks Alby. Yes dates are flexible, except that we do want to be in Ireland for the 25th.

I hadn't thought of MEL-JFK with a stopover in FRA - it might be a great idea. However, I'm not sure if that will work, as SIN-FRA and FRA-JFK is technically all the same flight (SQ26). Any thoughts on whether that will scupper the stopover idea?

Yes, I was scoping this option for a trip I had to do earlier this year, inc ZRH & Washington. With my business needs with some time and practical constraints I couldn't get it to work. i'd either be missing a Saver leg at some point. That was with just the one person travelling, 4 pax will be harder but not impossible.

 

[VAG newbie]

Another possibility:

MEL-AUH-DUB on Etihad using VA points. You'll need another 100,000 VA points from your CC. (Hopefully it's one of those that participate in 15% bonus, which ends this weekend). Very little surcharge so you'll save a lot of cash (like, $1000-2000) and you get to go straight to Ireland. Award availability is also much better.

As you are willing to pay up to $15k, then you can also consider buying some miles from other FFP like AAdvantage USDM and Alaska (I think all of them are running promotion now) to help you cross the Atlantic Ocean. $15k will get you lots and lots of miles! Unfortunately Ireland is OW territory. So if will be hard to use KF miles.

Then with about 400000 KF miles remain, you can easily redeem any SQ flight from US back to MEL. (If you still have SQ miles left, you can easily redeem intra US J awards for only 20000 miles each)

BTW, if thinking of topping up KF miles, don't buy it from SQ. Buy SPG instead. They are also running a promotion now and is selling about $0.021/pt.

 

[Jack_OC]

Thanks for the suggestions. We actually changed our plans and have now booked flights. I came to the conclusion that using points for this kind of trip around Christmas just wasn't going to work out, and another nagging doubt we've always had is that December/January isn't a great time to visit the US. So we decided to bring the trip forward by a couple of months and booked with KrisFlyer on SQ to Europe and with Velocity on VA back from LA (all in J). Interestingly, there is literally no availability through Velocity for any of the other flights we want - not even a single seat in Y! And I don't have enough KF miles left to do the transatlantic sector in J, so it looks like we'll have to do that in Y.

At least it's a day time flight going in that direction. On the plus side, we can go F on our US transcontinental flight, since it's not much more expensive than Y. And I managed to book one sector for 32,000 QF points plus $30, which would otherwise have cost $3k!

 

[Jack_OC]

As you are willing to pay up to $15k, then you can also consider buying some miles from other FFP like AAdvantage USDM and Alaska (I think all of them are running promotion now) to help you cross the Atlantic Ocean. $15k will get you lots and lots of miles! Unfortunately Ireland is OW territory. So if will be hard to use KF miles.

Actually this might be worth looking into. BTW, it's not really true that Ireland is OW territory, especially not since Aer Lingus left OW. UA and Air Canada both fly direct from DUB to N America, while SAS and LH both fly DUB-US via their home bases. Also, UA codeshares with Aer Lingus. In any case, I don't have enough KF miles so it doesn't really matter. Incidentally, I do have enough QF points for 3 seats in Y on Aer Lingus (and the seats are available), but I don't really want to fly with Aer Lingus, especially in Y. Plus it would be a poor value use of points. However, if I could buy miles from another program to fly J, I might be interested. Is there a way to check reward availability first? Also, what about LifeMiles? I joined up for that ages ago but have never purchased any miles or looked into how it works.

 

[VAG newbie]

So we decided to bring the trip forward by a couple of months and booked with KrisFlyer on SQ to Europe and with Velocity on VA back from LA (all in J). Interestingly, there is literally no availability through Velocity for any of the other flights we want - not even a single seat in Y!

You mean you can't find a single seat in Dec 15/Jan 16 so you have to put forward your trip plan? I think it is too early to book Dec 15/Jan 16. The award inventory is usually 331 - 351 days out depending on FFP. But I would be very surprised that you can't find a single seat with VA. Of course if you are talking about Dec 14/ Jan 15, it's too late now.

Also, what about LifeMiles? I joined up for that ages ago but have never purchased any miles or looked into how it works.

You got Lifemiles account? Man! You got an ace card!:shock: LM is just running a 2x1 promotion now and that will be your best bet for Star Alliance redemption! One way J for LM from DUB to N. America is 63000 miles. At current promotion of $0.0165/mile, plus their miles and cash option, you are looking at around ~$1000 pp, and there is no fuel surcharge! The best part is that you can search and book the flights online. If you book early enough, you will have no problem finding a transatlantic in J! Save you KF miles for SQ suites, and for other Star Alliance redemption, LM is the way to go!

 

[Jack_OC]

You mean you can't find a single seat in Dec 15/Jan 16 so you have to put forward your trip plan? I think it is too early to book Dec 15/Jan 16. The award inventory is usually 331 - 351 days out depending on FFP. But I would be very surprised that you can't find a single seat with VA. Of course if you are talking about Dec 14/ Jan 15, it's too late now.

No, I realise seats aren't available for Dec 15 yet. I just came to the conclusion that it was going to be too hard - getting 4 J award seats on the same flights is very hard at the best of times, and so I can only imagine around Christmas it's going to be harder than usual, if not impossible. Plus while researching options I realised that there was availability that worked well in Sept/Oct, so we decided to just book. My comments about no availability for the dates we now want (Sept/Oct) relate to partner awards via Velocity (mainly Delta), rather than VA. No availability whatsoever in any class, on any routes we wanted, even allowing +1/2 days flexibility either side.

You got Lifemiles account? Man! You got an ace card!:shock: LM is just running a 2x1 promotion now and that will be your best bet for Star Alliance redemption! One way J for LM from DUB to N. America is 63000 miles. At current promotion of $0.0165/mile, plus their miles and cash option, you are looking at around ~$1000 pp, and there is no fuel surcharge! The best part is that you can search and book the flights online. If you book early enough, you will have no problem finding a transatlantic in J! Save you KF miles for SQ suites, and for other Star Alliance redemption, LM is the way to go!

Ok, this sounds awesome in theory. However, I've just spent a while searching and there seems be no J award availability from DUB-NY in late Sept/early Oct (not even if I search for just one seat). And even in Y, the availability is only via convoluted indirect routes (E.g. via IST - 4 hours in the wrong direction!). Am I doing something wrong? I'm assuming it's not because my points balance is zero, as it is showing up those weird Y routing options.

 

[VAG newbie]

My comments about no availability for the dates we now want (Sept/Oct) relate to partner awards via Velocity (mainly Delta), rather than VA. No availability whatsoever in any class, on any routes we wanted, even allowing +1/2 days flexibility either side.

Did you use Virgin's search engine or you actually called? I find Virgin's search engine is close to useless. You can only search for flights that's VA operated or some VA codeshared (not all, eg. no SQ operated VA flights). They should have all inventory of DL and VX in US.

Ok, this sounds awesome in theory. However, I've just spent a while searching and there seems be no J award availability from DUB-NY in late Sept/early Oct (not even if I search for just one seat).

The biggest problem with LM is the no mix cabin rule. So when there is no direct flight (thus I said DUB is not a *A territory), you need to have both legs available in J. So the way around it is to look for a secondary port which you can get to it easily. I had a look at late Sept/Early Oct, and I found J seat available from Brussels to JFK on Sept 29. In this case you can probably try to fly to Brussels with a cheap 1 way ticket and spend a night in the city. But i guess with a family of 4 it may not be that simple.

Unfortunately LM has the same inventory as any *A partners (except they have access to more SQ seats), so whatever you see is whatever you can get with KF too. In fact, you can't fly LH from DUB-JFK with KF anyway as that is back tracking.

And even in Y, the availability is only via convoluted indirect routes (E.g. via IST - 4 hours in the wrong direction!). Am I doing something wrong? I'm assuming it's not because my points balance is zero, as it is showing up those weird Y routing options.

Yes, LM will sometimes give you crazy routings. But it is not all bad thing. FFP gurus use it to their advantage on the "hidden city" tricks!

 

[Jack_OC]

Did you use Virgin's search engine or you actually called? I find Virgin's search engine is close to useless. You can only search for flights that's VA operated or some VA codeshared (not all, eg. no SQ operated VA flights). They should have all inventory of DL and VX in US.

I called up. I spent a good 15 minutes going through different routes and as I said, the Velocity agent could not find a single seat in any class on any of the routes I wanted. There is no problem with award availability via Delta SkyMiles on any of these flights - there are even four J award seats available from DUB-JFK on my preferred date. It looks to me like Velocity just doesn't have access to any award seats on these flights (if they had some, it's highly unlikely that all would have been snapped up by now). I wonder if that's the case with Delta in general? I asked the agent but she didn't really answer - she just said they have no control over what award seats Delta release to them.

The biggest problem with LM is the no mix cabin rule. So when there is no direct flight (thus I said DUB is not a *A territory), you need to have both legs available in J.

But there are direct *A flights from DUB-EWR (with UA). And there is plenty of award availability in both Y and J via United MileagePlus for that route (at least 4 seats available in either class on my preferred date). Also, as I said, Lifemiles is not even showing any availability in Y on any kind of sensible route. Additionally, although going via Toronto would be less than ideal, I searched for DUB-YYZ (a direct route with Air Canada), but Lifemiles has no availability in any class on that route either. I can only assume that LifeMiles has access to a much more limited award inventory than what is available via the operating airlines' FFPs (which wouldn't be surprising TBH).

So the way around it is to look for a secondary port which you can get to it easily. I had a look at late Sept/Early Oct, and I found J seat available from Brussels to JFK on Sept 29. In this case you can probably try to fly to Brussels with a cheap 1 way ticket and spend a night in the city. But i guess with a family of 4 it may not be that simple.

Thanks for doing that, but yeah, going to BRU first would probably be more hassle than it's worth. Going in Y isn't a big problem - it's a daytime flight and only 7 hours or so. Plus it will give the kids a taste of what air travel is like for most people!

 

[VAG newbie]

I called up. I spent a good 15 minutes going through different routes and as I said, the Velocity agent could not find a single seat in any class on any of the routes I wanted. There is no problem with award availability via Delta SkyMiles on any of these flights - there are even four J award seats available from DUB-JFK on my preferred date. It looks to me like Velocity just doesn't have access to any award seats on these flights (if they had some, it's highly unlikely that all would have been snapped up by now). I wonder if that's the case with Delta in general? I asked the agent but she didn't really answer - she just said they have no control over what award seats Delta release to them.




But there are direct *A flights from DUB-EWR (with UA). And there is plenty of award availability in both Y and J via United MileagePlus for that route (at least 4 seats available in either class on my preferred date). Also, as I said, Lifemiles is not even showing any availability in Y on any kind of sensible route. Additionally, although going via Toronto would be less than ideal, I searched for DUB-YYZ (a direct route with Air Canada), but Lifemiles has no availability in any class on that route either. I can only assume that LifeMiles has access to a much more limited award inventory than what is available via the operating airlines' FFPs (which wouldn't be surprising TBH).

Thanks for doing that, but yeah, going to BRU first would probably be more hassle than it's worth. Going in Y isn't a big problem - it's a daytime flight and only 7 hours or so. Plus it will give the kids a taste of what air travel is like for most people!

I know UA has extra award seats for their own members so unfortunately no other *A member has access to it. Otherwise with LM, whatever you can see on United saver award is available to LM (most of the time, as sometimes UA shows phantom space).

Not sure about arrangement VA with DL. But considering DL has all award access to VA I would expect the same in return. Perhaps you had a bad agent. I bumped onto those with VA recently. She kept telling me there was no availability for EY GRU-BNE. I told her I could see it on Etihad guest, she kept telling me that VA has different inventory than EY. In moments like this, what I did was simply HUACA! The next agent was much better, looked at each leg separately, she found it, but realized I needed more miles to complete the booking even tho she quoted me initially 125k. She spoke to her supervisor and I was given extra bonus 63000 points to complete the booking!

Anyway, looks like you are all set. Agree that you shouldn't spoil your kids too much

 

[Jack_OC]

Not sure about arrangement VA with DL. But considering DL has all award access to VA I would expect the same in return. Perhaps you had a bad agent. I bumped onto those with VA recently. She kept telling me there was no availability for EY GRU-BNE. I told her I could see it on Etihad guest, she kept telling me that VA has different inventory than EY. In moments like this, what I did was simply HUACA!

I just tried calling again - different agent but same result. I asked him if it's normally difficult to get award seats with Delta and he said yes it seems to be. Also, I found this thread in the VA forum, in which 2 other people reported similar experiences: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....yer/delta-reward-seat-availability-58727.html

And another thread where someone else had no luck http://www.australianfrequentflyer....es-redeeming-velocity-points-delta-57632.html

Unfortunately, I'm beginning to think that Velocity points are pretty much useless for redemptions with DL.

EDIT: I realise this is getting off topic for the SQ forum, so I started a new thread over on the VA forum: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....y/using-velocity-points-book-delta-64531.html