Please help me work out the best way to do this...

[scubabe]

Hi all,

I've been reading and learning as much as possible about FF programs and the like over the last two months and I'm still a little lost and would appreciate some direction.

• Myself and partner have (between us) 154k Velocity points.
• We have a trip to Miami booked for April 2016 (we're going on a cruise in the Bahamas) and flying BNE-LAX with Virgin & LAX-MIA with Delta. We will have gold status by then so will have lounge access, but the fares were super-cheap discount fares and are not upgrade-able so we can't get PE or J on the way home Would have been lovely, as OH is super tall and finds economy cramped, but oh well them's the breaks.
• I also have a KrisFlyer account (but zero points in it as I transferred them to Velocity earlier this year hoping we could have upgraded the Virgin flights, but oops we couldn't use them that way after all. But I can transfer our balance to KF if needed. Prefer to stick with Virgin though so we can keep working on retaining status.
• We'd also like to go to UK to visit his daughters in August 2016 and were thinking about perhaps buying a one-way economy ticket over (there's a sale on Singapore website right now and would cost us $1k each, one-way, vs a return which is $1800 each) and then perhaps using points we could get a business class redemption on the way home.
• Also happy to not fly in/out of LHR (we could do MAN and drive down to pick up the girls), or alternately someplace in western Europe (we'll holiday in Spain with the girls and OH is happy to take a cheapy EasyJet or Ryanair to pick them up and drop them off again at the end of our holiday with them and then re-position himself for our trip home)

So... we need more points. Virgin website indicates it's 175k Velocity points pp out of LHR on Singapore in J (ouch that's expensive! More than I was thinking it'd cost us). But only 125k on Ethiad (but we'd prefer not to fly via the middle east).

Not sure if we should try and hit up some more credit card bonuses (I just got 110k on Amex) to get points? Or would it be better to look at purchasing points through another airline and using them for a redemption? Have been looking a little at LifeMiles and AAdvantage but not sure what else is available? Or should we maybe get ourselves to somewhere in Asia via a cheap flight and then just use the points on the longer-haul leg? Don't feel so safe doing this as we can't link the bookings then, and should one connection be missed we're screwed...

Essentially, we're happy to get a couple of sign-up bonuses on credit cards, or to purchase points, but we'd REALLY like to use our 150k+ Velocity points on something luxurious... plus save a little money if possible. It's already going to be expensive to holiday in USA and Europe next year and maximising our spend is important. Neither of us travels for work so all travel is self-funded.

Can anyone suggest if it's worthwhile to stick with Velocity points, or to go another way with purchasing miles elsewhere?

 

[smit0847]

If you both apply for the nab amex itll give you another 60k VFF points each

 

[JohnK]

Another way to return from LHR is via LAX.

So you could go VS from LHR-LAX and then VA from LAX-BNE. For VS you would use Amex Membership rewards points and you have the VA points already.

 

[BillytheFIsh]

Given you seem nervous about connecting on different tickets, I'll limit this to single tickets each way.

Sign up for >65k more velocity bonuses. Family transfer to one VA account. You need about 220k VA total. Transfer over to KF, giving you >161,500 KF Points. Book one way BNE-SIN-Europe or the reverse. SQ does have high surcharges so check them.

For the other direction, the easiest and likely cheapest will be to buy a the one way Y ticket from SQ you mention.

If you want to fly J the other way, the cheapest way will be to buy AA points or Lifemiles as you've identified. If you're eligible for the current AA promotion, the 120,000 points you need will cost ~US$2,500. You can use AA points to book on Oneworld airlines plus EY. Off the top of my head, MH, CX or EY are likely to have the best availability. Check before you buy the points of course.

 

[scubabe]

Thanks so much for your input. Have decided to try for a couple more CC sign-on bonuses, and see where we go from there. Also going to try a few tricks I've read on here about getting QFF points via a special Bank West bank account so might have a look at that too, maybe we can use Virgin points out and Qantas points back... will see how we go!

Thanks all