I Have A Dream: FF Points used. America in 1st Class - 2015 onwards!

[coles525]

My dream trip is as follows:

All one way trips, unless better value to somehow make as one booking (cheaper in points / SC still earnt). We would be travelling from:

- By Plane: Melb - Las Vegas
- By Car: Las Vegas - Chicago (Route 66?)
- By Plane: Chicago - NY (JFK)
- By Plane: NY (LA Guardia) - Melb

Planning to spend many weeks in each destination, as well as a day or few driving to Chicago. I chose 2 different LA airports to make things different then normal, if it's much cheaper to just use 1 airport, I would choose it.

Facts I do know:

- Can book (Qantas) up to 355 days in advance
- Option booking 1: Award Classic Booking
- Option booking 2: Points + Pay / any seat award

I really really wish to earn status credits on the entire booking, but on the current "points + pay" quote I did for between Nov 2013/ Feb 2014, it would cost us over 7 MILLION points! This doesn't really include the local flight between Chicago & New York, as it needs to be booked via AA (ie: Qantas website(s) don't have that option).


Your thoughts please, "Tell him his dreamin'"?

Will be looking for many points offers that show up / emails / cc's, as well as topics of interest. We will only have around 100k in points by may/june at the bare minimum!

 

[mannej]

Isn't points plus pay different to ASA's?

I.e there will be a different cost for both.

 

[Skyring]

If you are only going to have 100K points, then it's a long shot indeed.

May I suggest an AONE4 from South Africa? It'll cost about $10 000 a seat, you'll have to get to Johannesburg, but from there on it's all first class, you'll earn a bazillion points, and see a whole bunch of other places.

If you want to do it on points, a round the world ticket in first is about 500K points each.

I'm not too sure about "many weeks" in Las Vegas. I'd suggest spending a week in each of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, if you are in that area. Hire a car - there are some awesome drives around there.

Thoroughly approve of Route 66. I did it two years back and had an awesome time. Hire a Mustang and do it in style. (As opposed to my Chrysler Town and Country family van, which was comfortable, but lacking in street cred. Like me, i guess.) It takes three weeks to do the drive properly - there's a lot to see, and if you try to do it in less than a week you'll be spending a lot of time on the Interstates.

Chicago is worth at least a week. It's a fabulous place.

New York, more so. The AA flight from Chicago comes into JFK, and Qantas flies from there to LAX and onto OZ.

 

[anat0l]

Isn't points plus pay different to ASA's?

I.e there will be a different cost for both.

Quite different costs. In theory both end up being an Any Seat Award, but the "Any Seat Award" obtained through a Points+Pay booking will be (on the whole) much more expensive than one obtained by going through the Awards Booking portal.

So to search for Any Seat Awards, you should go through the Awards Booking feature (i.e. you must log into your QFF Account first).

My dream trip is as follows:

All one way trips, unless better value to somehow make as one booking (cheaper in points / SC still earnt). We would be travelling from:

- By Plane: Melb - Las Vegas
- By Car: Las Vegas - Chicago (Route 66?)
- By Plane: Chicago - NY (JFK)
- By Plane: NY (LA Guardia) - Melb

...

I really really wish to earn status credits on the entire booking, but on the current "points + pay" quote I did for between Nov 2013/ Feb 2014, it would cost us over 7 MILLION points! This doesn't really include the local flight between Chicago & New York, as it needs to be booked via AA (ie: Qantas website(s) don't have that option).


Your thoughts please, "Tell him his dreamin'"?

Will be looking for many points offers that show up / emails / cc's, as well as topics of interest. We will only have around 100k in points by may/june at the bare minimum!

7 million points - for sure, take the hint (i.e. don't buy it, unless you're completely awash with more points than you know what to do with). You'd be better off blowing that on a couple of First Class oneworld Zone 10 Award tickets, even though this won't earn points and status credits.


Note that Any Seat Awards, especially in First Class, at the Classic Award level will be very rare. If you search on the Any Seat Award Booking engine, if you notice the price of the ticket is something like 700k or over 1 million points, you know there are no Classic Award priced First Class Any Seat Award seats on that day.

Release is at 355 days out, but that doesn't mean that a seat will necessarily be released at that date (one may not be released at all, or at a later date). I notice you use the word "we", i.e. more than one person will be travelling. So now your task of finding two seats on the same flight in First Class - that's more than twice as hard (probably 3-4 times as difficult).


If you really, really want First Class seats, you may be better off forgetting about the points and status credits, and just trying for Classic Awards (if you are a Platinum member, you can call Qantas to request Classic Award seats, which they may or may not release, but will give you a better chance if online shows no availability, even if you have to pay a telephone assistance fee).

My advice would be to book Melbourne to the USA flights (on Qantas) using your points for a First Class Award. This will be Melbourne to LA on the way there, or onward to Las Vegas if you are doing this without a stop in LA.

For Chicago - New York, I'd pay that flight in cash. Even if just to slum it in Economy. It's a short, 2 hour flight anyway. You can pay the AA Instant Upgrade fare if you want to get the First Class on this route.

For returning home from New York, do note that AA do not have a flight from La Guardia (LGA) to Los Angeles; only to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). Your options then are:

• Fly from JFK instead of LGA, which allows you to fly to LAX
• Fly to DFW, then take the QF flight from DFW to Sydney (via Brisbane). Note that this QF service does not have First Class.
• Fly to DFW, then onto LAX, then onto Melbourne.

That all said, I don't think the QF online portal will necessarily allow you to book an award flight from La Guardia (only JFK), so you may be forced in that way unless you wish to book on AA instead.

 

[Isochronous]

First fares on AA on US domestic routes are best paid for with cash - you'll be surprised how reasonable they can be. Then just try for a FASA MEL-LAX return (or can you use points to buy a Circle Pacific fare in F/J?)

 

[casanovawa]

Are you desperate to fly QF or would you consider *A if a better deal could be found??

Even flying QF, apart from the difficulty of finding two F seats on the same flight, its sounds like you would be saving yourself a truck load of money just to take advantage of the current AA 50% promo and buy a couple of lots of points... Me personally, i'd take the much cheaper options on either USDM or AA to get the F flights over and back and then if you think the SCs so important do a couple of cheap status runs while over in the US... The FF points are neither here or there if you are going to pay several thousands of dollars extra to earn a few as there will be practically no value in them anyway???

But good luck, drive sounds good, i am thinking of taking 2-3 weeks sometimes to drive from West to East coast over there cutting down through the middle...

 

[whatmeworry]

With only 100K in points, you would only get one JASA to LAX at 96K points plus a co pay. You need at least 144K to even consider one FASA with co pay.

 

[coles525]

In regards to the current points of 100k, that's referring to May this year. I wouldn't be planning anything dates wise until May 2014, for the trip planned when my LSL kicks in from July 2015.

9 weeks or so from leaving Oz, with around 3 weeks in each destination.

 

[love_the_life]

In regards to the current points of 100k, that's referring to May this year. I wouldn't be planning anything dates wise until May 2014, for the trip planned when my LSL kicks in from July 2015.

9 weeks or so from leabing Oz, with around 3 weeks in each destination.

Yes, but if you book flights using points you will need to have the points to pay for them at the time. You said in your OP you would only be looking at about 100K points, or have I misread?
My advice is to use your own points for the longest leg you can and pay for the rest. Be careful of international one-way prices though. Also you will need to book as early as you can if using points as classic awards are snapped up quickly (with resultant increase in ASA points).