Newbie Question: No Status, How To Travel Mel-LAX in J?

[wintergirl]

Hello! This is such a helpful forum I spent all of last night reading the threads on LifeMiles, and have managed to sort out my future Asia/Europe travel (woohoo! )

The husband and I never travel to the US, but we have an upcoming (flexible) flight vaguely planned in three to six/seven months' time. Would love to do it in style
We fly out of Mel, probably into LAX and then to Las Vegas (and maybe somewhere else nearby/domestic).

Any suggestions for how to do this? Links/suggestions to reading material would also be greatly appreciated.

To add to my cluelessness, I'm *G, but never bothered with OneWorld and their points. Hence, no status on OW and not much knowledge

I don't have miles accumulated (although I could transfer some 40k or so from my cc), so would have to get the purchase the miles through something like USDM/AA... and then I have no status on Qantas, so wouldn't get access to many award seats anyhoo.

I'm kind of overwhelmed by all this. It seems like maybe the easiest would be to buy the J tickets outright? (and accumulate the miles/status... to use for another trip down the line?) Or maybe use LM to fly to an asian hub and then pay for J?

 

[opusman]

No status, no miles - basically, you have no option except to pay for J outright.

 

[wintergirl]

Thanks opusman

I guess what I was hoping for was an Avianca-like program for US travel where I could purchase miles and then redeem them for award tickets. LM seems to have a *lot* of award availability.

vs OW airlines which don't seem to release award tickets to non-status fliers despite all the miles-purchasing programs

 

[casanovawa]

To use award miles or points it usually best to have quite a bit of time to either wait for the good sales or to have the widest choice of seats left on flights, the closer to the date the more likely all the award seats are taken....

Its probably doable but you might need to settle on one idea and work it through...

Buying J tickets is probably the simplest but most expensive option...

if looking to fly in 3-4 months time, so close to Xmas/new years means even more likely that many award seats might have been snapped up, still maybe not impossible, but another hurdle as well...

 

[wintergirl]

Thanks casanovawa

Hmm.... I've updated my post to reflect the xmas/ny timing, because I just realized that. I would ideally like to have completed the travel before or after that period, so will definitely avoid dec/jan in booking...

This will probably take some more thought on my part. But I guess I might just have to accept it and pay upfront - in which case, of course, I'd probably try to grab a *Alliance flight....