How do I maximise my QF FF and Amex points ?

[bcsfromsydney]

Hi there,
I'm after some guidance/help and possibly assistance in plotting an itinerary. I did post a note in December with regards a Xmas itinerary and thanks for the responses however, as most members pointed out, I was leaving my run a little late.
My circumstances are ;
- Long standing Qantas Platinum FF
- Current point balance is 215,000
- I also have 810,000 Amex points ready for transfer

What I want to achieve ;
- I want to fly my 2 sons (17 & 15) from Melbourne to Europe
- My partner and I are based in Manila and need to connect on a flight in Sing or HK, and travel to Europe with my boys
- We are looking for about 2.5 to 3 weeks away during the school holiday (flexible dates between 28 June to the 21st July 2014)
- Our arrival port is flexible, but we intend to visit London, Paris, Rome and Germany (Berlin or Munich) as a minimum
- I would like to maximise the use of my points for our 4 tickets - J Class is preferable, but probably optimistic.
- I prefer One World airlines for obvious privilege rooms (but this isn't a deal breaker)
- Understand that I may need to supplement with some cash to achieve these objectives.

If someone could please give me some advice and even assistance on navigating how to book this I would be indebted.
I'm more than happy to compensate with a few hundred AUD's of Myer vouchers for anyone that can help.

Thanks !

 

[dalereardon]

Hi,

At the moment I don't have the time to help out with a complex itinerary due to Uni work.

However a few different US travel and FF bloggers offer award flight booking services.

Personally I think J flights should be achievable with some effort. I haven't used any of the award booking services myself so perhaps others can recommend who is best or even ask on FT forum for more experiences. Costs are very reasonable I think.


I think I have the different services bookmarked somewhere here so can look them up if others don't recommend.

Dale.

 

[bcsfromsydney]

Thanks Dale,
Yes, I figured there must be a way to get some value from these points... I just don't have the knowledge so any guidance is greatly appreciated.
Brad

Hi,

At the moment I don't have the time to help out with a complex itinerary due to Uni work.

However a few different US travel and FF bloggers offer award flight booking services.

Personally I think J flights should be achievable with some effort. I haven't used any of the award booking services myself so perhaps others can recommend who is best or even ask on FT forum for more experiences. Costs are very reasonable I think.


I think I have the different services bookmarked somewhere here so can look them up if others don't recommend.

Dale.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Hi there,
I'm after some guidance/help and possibly assistance in plotting an itinerary.
< snip >
- I also have 810,000 Amex points ready for transfer

What I want to achieve ;
< snip>
- I would like to maximise the use of my points for our 4 tickets - J Class is preferable, but probably optimistic.
- I prefer One World airlines for obvious privilege rooms (but this isn't a deal breaker)

Getting 4 J award seats on one flight will be very difficult, especially at school holidays. 100's of other trying to do the same

Amex to SPG (Starwood) to AA (or another airline) may get more J travel with less cash outlay
The AA miles required for J awards are a lot less than the QF points required, and no cash YQ fuel surcharge (unless on BA/IB)

Membership Rewards
Starwood Preferred Guest - Hotel Offers and Loyalty Program spg.com


Example (from another thread).
LAX-SYD one way
Economy QF 48,000 - AA 37,500
P Ecxx_x QF 72,000 - AA n.a
Bus xx_x QF 96,000 - AA 62,500
First xx_ QF 144,000 - AA 72,500
Plus a lot of $$$ in fees / surcharges to QF

QF upgrades with points LAX-SYD
45,000 Discount economy to Prem Eco
18,000 Economy to PE
72,000 Discount economy to business (more than an AA bus award)
45,000 Economy to business
45,000 Prem Economy to business
45,000 Business to First

AA miles for first is about the same as QF points for PE
Even if you earn less AA miles than QF points, you get more for them
One difference is AA only have seats for sale / awards from 330 days compared QF 355 days (due to the different IT systems)

 

[aikman]

Malaysia Airlines is an Amex partner and they're quite good with availability in J for those who can't book 11.5 months ahead.

Their system is quoting me 102,000 points per person each way from MEL/MNL to LHR/CDG and vice versa on the dates you want.

 

[dalereardon]

Hi,

In no particular order here are the different award booking services that I know of. I haven't used any of the booking services myself so maybe others can chime in if they have any reviews. Purely based on the knowledge given in blog articles and on Twitter I would probably use Book Your Award (the first one) myself but most of them say you only pay if they find a satisfactory itinerary so you have little to lose it would seem:

Book Your Award

Award Booking Service


Award Booking Service | milevalue.com

Award Booking Service - Hack My Trip



Dale.

 

[JohnK]

Your Amex MR points should be enough to get 4 people to Europe in business class. You will probably need an entry point into Europe and an exit point and an exit point and use local LCCs for the sectors in Europe.

Availability is going to be your biggest issue as you have chosen the school holiday period which is <6 months away and people generally book up to 12 months in advance. You may also need to split up and travel separately on different carriers or even Alliances.

If you have already started searching for award availability this tool should assist. And from there you can decide where to transfer your Amex MR Points.

AwardTravelr

 

[legroom]

Could your AMEX points be transferred to Krisflyer or Asia Miles ?

If yes, that would give you more 'bang for the bucks' as the points required are lower e.g. MEL LHR rtn (175,000 on CX, 160,000 on SQ and 356,000 on QF).

No guarantee that SQ or CX will have the seats for you, of course.

 

[JohnK]

Could your AMEX points be transferred to Krisflyer or Asia Miles ?

Yes that should be possible.

 

[dalereardon]

Be very careful about relying on AwardTraveller for availability. I used it to check it out and it was telling me no availability when BA was returning seats as available. Either get a free BA exec club account or use a service like www.awardnexus.co

 

[craven morehead]

Your Amex MR points should be enough to get 4 people to Europe in business class. You will probably need an entry point into Europe and an exit point and an exit point and use local LCCs for the sectors in Europe.

Availability is going to be your biggest issue as you have chosen the school holiday period which is <6 months away and people generally book up to 12 months in advance. You may also need to split up and travel separately on different carriers or even Alliances.

If you have already started searching for award availability this tool should assist. And from there you can decide where to transfer your Amex MR Points.

AwardTravelr

JohnK just playing around with this tool , cannot get it to even find a basic BNE-HKG flight. Do you need to donate to this site to make it work ?? :mrgreen: Cheers CM

 

[dalereardon]

I have never been able to get that tool to work either.

Stick with AwardNexus or a free BA account.

Interestingly I signed up for an Enrich Malaysian account yesterday and using their cash plus points feature you seem to be able to get a seat on every single flight. So maybe transferring points to them and going that way will get you what you want.

They aren't the best business class but it is way better than any economy and their satay is amazing.

Dale.

 

[aikman]

Malaysia Airlines is an Amex partner and they're quite good with availability in J for those who can't book 11.5 months ahead.
Their system is quoting me 102,000 points per person each way from MEL/MNL to LHR/CDG and vice versa on the dates you want.

I just realised I quoted the wrong points amount in my earlier post. For the sake of accuracy, it is only 51,000 Enrich points per person each way in business class from Melbourne/Manila to/from Europe. That's 408,000 Amex points for your entire family. Plenty of availability. The fuel surcharge will be high but no way around it since the seats are not available to Oneworld partners.

 

[JohnK]

JohnK just playing around with this tool , cannot get it to even find a basic BNE-HKG flight. Do you need to donate to this site to make it work ?? :mrgreen: Cheers CM

You are right. Beats me what is wrong. I can't go past end of March and then not showing any flights on any date.