How to use Marriot package

[Gary. Wang]

I am going to redeem the Marriot Package which would give me 132,000 UA miles or 85,000 Asia Miles of CX. I don't know what to do now. Please someone help me.

All I have now is either 160,000 UA miles or 14,0000 Asia Miles of CX.

I wanna travel to United States from HongKong. (round trip）New York、Orlando、Los Angeles、Vegas are the places that I wanna visit.

Which program should I get? UA or Asia Miles.
Business class would be better. Is it even enough?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I am going to redeem the Marriot Package which would give me 132,000 UA miles or 85,000 Asia Miles of CX. I don't know what to do now. Please someone help me.

All I have now is either 160,000 UA miles or 14,0000 Asia Miles of CX.

I wanna travel to United States from HongKong. (round trip）New York、Orlando、Los Angeles、Vegas are the places that I wanna visit.

Which program should I get? UA or Asia Miles.
Business class would be better. Is it even enough?

You can go directly to United(.com) and do sample bookings on their home page. Make sure the 'award travel' box is ticked. You will be looking for 'saver' award availability. The results will give you the miles and range of options.

CX availability, as with a lot of OW availability, can be patchy. Again, you can use AA(.com) to search for limited OW availability, or use Qantas or CX's sites to check availability and number of miles required.

In general UA (star alliance) is going to have more availability. IIRC it is 120K UA miles to fly 'the long way' from HKG to the USA one way in Star first class. So you could choose Lufthansa for this provided you wait to book until 14 days prior to departure (that sucks, but LH F is one of the best, and usually opens up pretty well unless you are in ultra peak periods).

 

[Gary. Wang]

You can go directly to United(.com) and do sample bookings on their home page. Make sure the 'award travel' box is ticked. You will be looking for 'saver' award availability. The results will give you the miles and range of options.

CX availability, as with a lot of OW availability, can be patchy. Again, you can use AA(.com) to search for limited OW availability, or use Qantas or CX's sites to check availability and number of miles required.

In general UA (star alliance) is going to have more availability. IIRC it is 120K UA miles to fly 'the long way' from HKG to the USA one way in Star first class. So you could choose Lufthansa for this provided you wait to book until 14 days prior to departure (that sucks, but LH F is one of the best, and usually opens up pretty well unless you are in ultra peak periods).

Thank you very much.
About the UA, I was told that there are much saver domestic in United States. Business class will be enough for me. How many stopover and openjaw can UA have?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you very much.
About the UA, I was told that there are much saver domestic in United States. Business class will be enough for me. How many stopover and openjaw can UA have?

Saver availability domestic can be an issue with UA, but equally AA. There were many dates in July/August last year that had zero availability, or required multiple connections for relatively straight-forward city pairs (looking at both business and economy).

AFAIK UA doesn't do RTW awards anymore. You'll need to stick with CX asia miles for that.

 

[Gary. Wang]

Saver availability domestic can be an issue with UA, but equally AA. There were many dates in July/August last year that had zero availability, or required multiple connections for relatively straight-forward city pairs (looking at both business and economy).

AFAIK UA doesn't do RTW awards anymore. You'll need to stick with CX asia miles for that.

Thank you for sharing. I will travel at September. Can I add stopover and open jaws to Alaska Airline? How much would it cost?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you for sharing. I will travel at September. Can I add stopover and open jaws to Alaska Airline? How much would it cost?

AA = American Airlines in my post.

I don't use RTW awards so I'm not the best person to advise. But there are plenty of threads elsewhere with advice and complications. It would be worth having a look at those. I think the Asia Miles RTW award is fairly ok. A friend of mine used one earlier this year and it took them a while to put together, but they ended up with something reasonable. Something like 5 stopovers and two transits allowed.

 

[Gary. Wang]

AA = American Airlines in my post.

I don't use RTW awards so I'm not the best person to advise. But there are plenty of threads elsewhere with advice and complications. It would be worth having a look at those. I think the Asia Miles RTW award is fairly ok. A friend of mine used one earlier this year and it took them a while to put together, but they ended up with something reasonable. Something like 5 stopovers and two transits allowed.

What do you mean by" it took them a while to put together"?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

What do you mean by" it took them a while to put together"?

They found a series of flights, but Asia miles couldn't always see the same availability, or didn't necessarily agree with the proposed routing, or the definition of 'transits' v 'stopover'. So a number of attempts had to be made, going back to the drawing board, to find flights that AM found acceptable. In the end Aisa Miles still disagree with on transit/stopover, so the RTW had to terminate in another city and a separate ticket purchased to get back to the point of origin.

You need to do your reading, know the rules, and be prepared to put your case forward regarding the rules or flights you may have found but Asia Miles 'can't see'. If you don't do your homework and just accept everything an AM agent might tell you, you could end up with an itinerary that doesn't optimally meet your requirements.

 

[Gary. Wang]

Thanks a lot. I was told Air China gold status can easily get Asia Mile "HKG to Europe first class with Phoenix Miles".
But this time I will use Asia Miles instead. I am a air china gold, I will try to match a Asia mile silver to see if I can get any more availability. I am trying to find the answers with the one who had done it before. If it works well I will post it here.

They found a series of flights, but Asia miles couldn't always see the same availability, or didn't necessarily agree with the proposed routing, or the definition of 'transits' v 'stopover'. So a number of attempts had to be made, going back to the drawing board, to find flights that AM found acceptable. In the end Aisa Miles still disagree with on transit/stopover, so the RTW had to terminate in another city and a separate ticket purchased to get back to the point of origin.

You need to do your reading, know the rules, and be prepared to put your case forward regarding the rules or flights you may have found but Asia Miles 'can't see'. If you don't do your homework and just accept everything an AM agent might tell you, you could end up with an itinerary that doesn't optimally meet your requirements.

han