Melbourne to Cairo/ Damascus to Melbourne (Amex and Velocity Points)

[kmcgreg]

Well this is my first post. I am taking my family (wife and two teenage kids) to Egypt Jordan and Syria this Xmas (around Dec 16th and Returning Jan 17th)
We need to fly Hobart to Melbourne (or Sydney) then on to Cairo.
On the way back we will be leaving Damascus to Melbourne and on to Hobart.

So the deal is I have about 500,000 Amex points and about 100,000 Velocity points.
So I either want to put this towards flying on this holiday or find an airline that I can add points to my Velocity account for flying on this trip. We will be flying to Nepal late 2011 so could use all the points then. Main aim is to maximise flying points and the points I have.
Any ideas? It is very hard to get much info from Velocity apart from that there are no reward seats over this time to Cairo. The do have reward seats to Dubai but that really doesn't help much.
Anyone have any idea how Emirates miles relate to velocity points?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dajop]

Welcome to AFF

So the deal is I have about 500,000 Amex points and about 100,000 Velocity points.

This being the case, one suggestion may be to actually try and use Velocity points to get to either Melbourne or Sydney, and use your Amex points on Singapore Airlines(SQ) to get to Cairo and back and find another way of get from there to Syria and back. From MEL/SYD to Cairo you will need 306,000 SQ pts in economy, if booked online (normally 1:1 but with the bonus 10% on offer at the moment for transfers that would only need 278,000. Or in business class out of ADL or BNE (best chance) for 493,000 SQ pts (448,200).

Of course THE big problem with any of this is the time of travel. Mid December and mid january are peak times for Asian students travelling out of and then back to Australia, getting seats through any part of Asia can be exceedingly difficult, for paid fares let alone award bookings during the middle of December.

If you want to get a little creative you could look at using VAustralia to get to coughet using velocity points and then using Singapore Airlines points to get to Cairo, or even buying a fare to Bangkok and trying to use Emirates from there using velocity points (or star alliance points from Bangkok to Cairo on Egypt Air). Lots of options but all very difficult to access at that time of the year.

Anyone have any idea how Emirates miles relate to velocity points?

No relation whatsoever. Emirates miles can be earnt flying on Emirates or Virgin Blue. Velocity points can be earnt flying on Emirates or Virgin Blue. But you can't earn on both at the same time or transfer between them.

Oh if you can get a reasonable priced fare on a middle eastern carrier, you could just pay for that (Emirates now offer fares ex-HBA I believe using Virgin Blue) and save the points for Nepal. You can use the Amex points on Singapore Airlines/Silk Air to get from MEL/SYD to Kathmandu.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Ok..

I just had a look flying Singapore Airlines MEL-CAIRO return on about the dates you mentioned.

You can get 5 Saver flights back on Dec 17 (thoughly oddly you have to search on Dec 16 otherwise if you search on Dec 17 it does not show!!!!).

However going over I can only see 2 per flight and so you might have to travel on different days...or maybe from MEL and SYD made as seperate bookings may still work.

Flights are 90,000 -15% online discount and so you have enough points.

With the 10% Amex promo bonus at present your 500,000 points will arrive at SQ as 550,000

Note that a J Saver one way is 72500 less 15% online discount.

I can see availability for 2 J coming back. So you could consider that too. Cannot see availabity in Dec though.

Note with SQ you can redeem one way.

5 Y returns are 382500.
2 J saver one way = 123250

 

[kmcgreg]

Thanks for the help. That all gives me some food for thought. The December period seems cough for rewards seats. Might try and accumulate more points and buy the fares to the Middle East and use all points for a trip to Kathmandu next year.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Thanks for the help. That all gives me some food for thought. The December period seems cough for rewards seats. .

The dates you gave coincide with school holidays (which is why I assume that you nominated them). In addition Dec16 is just after many school finish. As such they are very popular and people book them well out.


ie I booked my July School Holiday to Europe in J for 4 at the earliest possible time as I knew the dates would be very popular.

Y is a lot easier to get than J though.

If you can travel outside of school holidays, and in particular on the days when people most want them you will find availability much easier.