My new redemption challenge: PER-HKG and beyond

[StevePER]

It's time to plan our next holiday, and it seems more challenging than it should be. The plan is:

• 2 adults + a 1 year old
• Flying from Perth
• Business class wherever possible
• Visit Hong Kong plus either Korea or Taiwan
• Beach stopover on the way (this has been suggested by the wife)
• Flexible dates, somewhere around April 2010.

We have points with Qantas (~160k), bmi Diamond Club (~55k), Amex (~210k) and Velocity (~60k) but I don't want to blow the lot on this trip.

Theoretically we should be able to do something like PER-HKT-HKG (bmi award) and then TPE-SIN-PER (SQ award) but there never seems to be more than two seats on any TG flight. Having the boy on our lap would be OK for an hour or two, but not 6.5.

The best chance of success I can find is PER-DPS with Velocity, then DPS-HKG with QFF, then TPE-SIN-PER with bmi. This would be OK, but is on the upper limit of the points I want to burn. Even then, availability on SIN-PER looks a bit iffy (ANA shows 2 seats, Krisflyer shows 3).

Is there anything I've missed? I get the impression that flying out of PER takes away lots of options.

 

[wandering_fred]

In trying to figure out the absolute most economical (in pure $$ terms) method of working AA's DBLEQ promo (ie getting to NRT), I rapidly came to the conclusion that a LCC flight to SIN from PER would open up the award flight availability beyond all comprehension.........

especially Dec and Jan

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[NM]

I have found CX to offer quite good availability for premium cabin awards, especially if planning ahead. Locating multiple seats on the same flight in the premium cabins can be difficult on QF flights, so looks specifically for CX and BA options, and CX fits nicely into your HKG plans.

I suggest creating a CX Asia Miles account (free) and use that to locate CX award availability.

 

[StevePER]

In trying to figure out the absolute most economical (in pure $$ terms) method of working AA's DBLEQ promo (ie getting to NRT), I rapidly came to the conclusion that a LCC flight to SIN from PER would open up the award flight availability beyond all comprehension.........

Yes, this seems to be the case. I can't find any Star Alliance flights from Perth to Asia with more than two business class seats, and coming back it is only the SQ red-eye that has more availability. That's why we're thinking PER-DPS might be a good starting point.

I suggest creating a CX Asia Miles account (free) and use that to locate CX award availability.

Great idea, looks like there is plenty of CX availability. I wouldn't waste my QFF points with QF flights out of Perth, the way the zones are defined seems to place every destination just over a threshold. For example, PER-SIN is 20 miles into Zone 4, PER-HKG is 130 miles into Zone 5. The CX flights I'm looking at are comparatively good value.

I was looking at CX availability on DPS-HKG, and it seems good. When I check this route on QFF it doesn't find anything, but it also says that I would need to go to a Qantas office in Indonesia for credit card verification. So is it possible to redeem for flights out of Indonesia?

Cheers,
Steve

 

[StevePER]

I'm getting totally frustrated with this whole process. So far it's been impossible to get the flights I want. The CX flights are OK, but SQ are a nightmare. The availability on Krisflyer is different to what shows up on ANA, and different again to what BMI can see.

For example, on DPS-SIN Krisflyer shows 3 saver seats, ANA and BMI have none. On HKG-SIN-PER Krisflyer shows 2 or 3 saver seats, ANA always shows 2, and again BMI have none. :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[StevePER]

Success at last, I have PER-DPS ticketed (Velocity redemption on DJ), DPS-HKG-ICN ticketed (QF redemption on CX) and ICN-HKG-SIN-PER ticketed for two of us (BD redemption on OZ/SQ).

Almost done...

 

[StevePER]

All done...

3x PER-DPS (DJ - Velocity award)
3x DPS-HKG-ICN (CX - QF award)
2x ICN-HKG-SIN-PER (OZ/SQ - BD award)
1x ICN-HKG (OZ - BD award)
1x HKG-SIN-PER (SQ - Krisflyer standard award)

I never imagined it would turn out to be this difficult.