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 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.
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.