Sydney to East Coast USA - Best use of points

[Paul-SuryHills]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to get the best use of my 420,000 velocity rewards points to get to the East Coast of USA June / July next year. Ultimately we're trying to get to NY but SYD - NY return is 500,000 for 2 in business, 80,000 points short and more rewards seats get taken up each day. So I have been annoying the velocity rewards phone team each day to try to figure out how to maximise the use of the 420,000 points. We're happy to pay for internal USA flights if we have to, in order to get to NY, then we will pay for a flight to Miami.

So far:

SYD - NY biz return is 500,000 - which we don't have
SYD - LA biz return is 376,000 - which we can do, but to me a 13 hour flight for all those points just isn't worth it

Virgin Australia teams up with Delta / Virgin America so I looked at Delta's hubs, and Atlanta is far enough away from the east coast that it uses less points to get there; 440,000 return biz to Atlanta. We're still 20,000 points short. So apart from applying for a NAB credit card to get the points, or waiting for Virgin to offer their 25-50% bonus credit card point transfers is there another way to maximise what points we have? I am aware that the longer we wait the less likely we'll get a reward seat although we can alter the start of the trip by 7-10 days, but that's all we have to play with.

As mentioned we are happy to pay for some internal US flights but I really want to maximise the value / use of our 420,000 points.

Any suggestions or interesting flight choices to us get closer to NY truly welcome.

Many thanks

Paul

 

[williamsf1]

Will you be stopping in LA or just transfer ? This will make a big difference in the points cost

SYD to NYC would be 110 000 per person one way 220000 rtn so all your 440 000 points will be gone!

SYD LAX+ LAX NYC would be 94000 + 47800 = 141800 per person one way

above based on J all the way

 

[Paul-SuryHills]

Hi we just planned to transit in LA, not stop as it costs more points to stop in LA than carry on to NY. Otherwise the total would be 567,200 points using your above total of 141,800 pp each way or 283,600 pp return, so much much more.

When I called the Velocity Rewards team they advised it was 125,000 each way to NY, how did you get 110,000?

Ultimately the plan is Syd - NY - Miami - Syd or the reverse, but we have to incorporate the NY component with a small trip to Philadelphia on July 5, so we do have some room to move with start dates / locations. But maybe wishful thinking on my part in stretching what points we have!

 

[williamsf1]

opps correction ... my calculations were out .. from the website would be SYD LAX 7487 + LAX NYC 2475 total 9962miles.... so the 125000 to NYC is correct

 

[Paul-SuryHills]

opps correction ... my calculations were out .. from the website would be SYD LAX 7487 + LAX NYC 2475 total 9962miles.... so the 125000 to NYC is correct

Bugger - I was getting excited at the prospect of 110,000 to NYC.

 

[SQ421]

If you are going to spend 125k points per person to get to NYC anyways, might I suggest flying EY via AUH for the same number of points.

If you fly EY to JFK and return LAX-SYD on VA, it works out to 438k points for the flights to and from the US. Slightly more than what you currently have *but* one credit card sign up bonus could fix that.

 

[Johnno101]

I am doing Brisbane to New York in May returning 3 weeks later.
What we decided was best use of points was to buy PE saver (~$3200) and use 90k points to upgrade the PE to J on the long section of the trip. Gives me 320SC and around 21k points returned. For me that was best alternative.

 

[Paul-SuryHills]

Ok thanks for the input. Will investigate more options.

paul