Wanting to purchase large amount of USDM for travel in Sept-Oct.

[serfty]

Do Starwood points always give a 5000 bonus (or is it a 25% bonus ?) when transferring to USDM or is this a limited/special offer ?
Thanks

It's been the case since at least 2005 ...

 

[anat0l]

Do Starwood points always give a 5000 bonus (or is it a 25% bonus ?) when transferring to USDM or is this a limited/special offer ?
Thanks

It's 5000 bonus points for every 20,000 points swept. (Due to the maximum of just under 100,000 points total per sweep, the most you can transfer and take advantage of this bonus in one transaction is 60,000, for a total of 75,000 airline miles resulting).

This works with US and AA, amongst a few others.

 

[Pierre10]

The OW fare has a fixed point cost, so just use the oneworld itinerary planner online to figure out the route then call the Qantas call centre to book. Then you can book the Y fare for your kids at the same time using same itinerary. Not the most cost efficient method but certainly the easiest for you with limited time.

Ok, I did that and made note of all legs, flight # options, then called Qantas and spent 90 mins on the phone, she was incredibly helpful, looking every which way for the 2 Business fares, and came up nil, save for 1 leg 1 passenger so no good. So then she explored the economy options for 4 of us and was eventually able to find a round the world, so 140k points x 4 plus taxes and charges approx. $6k. Trouble was trip back(via Tokyo) was convoluted and it involved having to come back a few days earlier and wife did not want to do. I'm not sure what to do. Firstly this will use up nearly all my points, I still have to pay $6k AND I'm in Economy for all of it. I did ask if I could use more point and upgrade for certain legs for 2 of us, but that was no good.
I have signed up the 4 of us to US DM, however still have 8 days before I can buy miles there and even then would be counting on a bonus to be available. I also signed all 4 of us to Starwood. I'm not sure if there is a waiting period before I can purchase miles there, and if I have to wait until the 12 days are up before I can transfer them to US DM.
Other options I have looked at involve just buying retail business class x2 & economy for the 2 kids and prices are out of reach, tried retail premium economy x2 and economy for the 2 kids and these are still very high.
Really trying to do this with at least some legs in business for 2 of us.
So sweating on something being available once the 12 days are up on US DM.
Are there any options I have not considered?

 

[Pierre10]

The reason why buying without any bonus is simply a cost perspective.

Take for example Australia (South Pacific) to Europe return in Business. That requires 120,000 US DM miles. Without any bonus on, it costs US$1750 for 50,000 points (maximum number you can purchase in one transaction), plus sales taxes. So for 120,000 points, that's US$4,200, plus sales taxes on points, plus taxes etc. for the applicable award.

Probably cheaper than a return Business ticket indeed, but most people still probably wouldn't jump at that.

The best bonuses have been 100% miles (e.g. you pay for 50,000, you receive 100,000); there has been 25%, 50%, 75% and pot luck before. There aren't any promotions on at the moment, unfortunately.

Europe to Europe return redemptions in Economy require 25,000 miles and 45,000 miles in Business. Personally, unless air fare prices were really prohibitive, I wouldn't bother using US DM miles for travel within Europe, and rather just stump up the cash.

I infer from your posts that you currently have 0 US DM miles overall? I'd say you might be too late for US DM, unless you really want to spend up from a standing start. Qantas doesn't participate in any points trading, so you can't convert your Qantas points to US DM points in any way.

If you have points in American Express Membership Rewards, you can transfer these to Starwood Preferred Guest then onto US DM. You'd still need a lot of Membership Rewards points to get what you need however.

If you are buying up all the points you need, keep in mind you can only buy them up to 50k miles lots at a time. So you will need multiple transactions, and as others have said, new US DM accounts must wait 12 days after opening their account before they can buy miles. Optimistically, if you started today, you could probably have enough points and make a booking by the end of the month, but as related already, this is likely not optimal.....

If you are a Qantas Platinum, you can try your hand at the Platinum desk to request award availability if you can't find it online. They may yield, they may not. Of course, given you only have about 660,000 points, that's only enough for two Business Class return tickets from Australia to Europe. You could do those two return tickets and buy the kids' fares in Economy.

Alternatively, consider the oneworld awards - a zone 10 Business Class ticket enables you to travel up to five stopovers for a total maximum trip mileage of 35,000 miles (i.e. your trip measured in miles must not exceed 35,000 miles). One of these cost 280,000 points; again, could consider Business for you and the significant other, and Economy for the kids. And, if the kids aren't too young, send them home early on Y tix whilst you make the most of your oneworld award with just you and the significant other....

Yes I have 0 US DM points , signed 4 of us up , however waiting for the 12 days to expire before being in a position to buy up miles, and hope there is a bonus around the same time!, also signed 4 of us up for Starwood. As you can see from my post above, I phoned Qantas and no Business available, just economy all the way, use of most of my points and still had the approx $6k in charges on top, so I guess that leaves me with the hope that something is available once the 12 days is up, and continue to search for a great deal retail.

 

[anat0l]

Ok, I did that and made note of all legs, flight # options, then called Qantas and spent 90 mins on the phone, she was incredibly helpful, looking every which way for the 2 Business fares, and came up nil, save for 1 leg 1 passenger so no good. So then she explored the economy options for 4 of us and was eventually able to find a round the world, so 140k points x 4 plus taxes and charges approx. $6k. Trouble was trip back(via Tokyo) was convoluted and it involved having to come back a few days earlier and wife did not want to do. I'm not sure what to do. Firstly this will use up nearly all my points, I still have to pay $6k AND I'm in Economy for all of it. I did ask if I could use more point and upgrade for certain legs for 2 of us, but that was no good.
I have signed up the 4 of us to US DM, however still have 8 days before I can buy miles there and even then would be counting on a bonus to be available. I also signed all 4 of us to Starwood. I'm not sure if there is a waiting period before I can purchase miles there, and if I have to wait until the 12 days are up before I can transfer them to US DM.
Other options I have looked at involve just buying retail business class x2 & economy for the 2 kids and prices are out of reach, tried retail premium economy x2 and economy for the 2 kids and these are still very high.
Really trying to do this with at least some legs in business for 2 of us.
So sweating on something being available once the 12 days are up on US DM.
Are there any options I have not considered?

You probably should've done most of the leg work first in locating where there was Business class availability on your flight legs before calling Qantas, which might have resulted in an overall better outcome. Then again, you are travelling mainly in one of the busiest seasons in the year, so as far as availability goes, that's probably not helping at all.

If you don't have the buy bonus on US DM, you still may be up for quite a bit. Note that buying through SPG then sweeping to US DM gives a slightly better rate than buying US DM without a sale alone, but not as good as US DM on sale, and you can only buy up to 20,000 SPG points per calendar year.

You have to realise that there's no elegant quick fix here. Whatever you do now is either making the best of what you've got, or is rather more expensive than normal. Either way, you can't shy away from the leg work that's required to pull this together. Also, be prepared to take indirect routings to where you want to go. Sometimes it's a case of a convoluted routing (through several hubs) or you go without.

One possible way to overcome your dilemma is to use a bit of a combined approach. For example, a US DM award for North Asia to Europe return in Business is 80k. North Asia includes Hong Kong, so you can either buy fares to Hong Kong and try for an upgrade on Qantas, or just redeem for Qantas awards (even PE) to Hong Kong (consider Classic-priced Any Seat Awards - which you'll need to call the special number for). From there, you can use a combination of US DM awards in J for yourself and maybe cash tickets in Y for the kids.

If you're lucky, you may be able to stretch your North Asia to Europe award to USA as well (you'd still pay the same as a North Asia to Europe award, since it's the more expensive one), with a stopover in Europe.

Overall, think creatively and be open minded (this applies to SWMBO too). Know where you want to go, consider other transport options (e.g. fly into another city then use a train?).

 

[Pierre10]

the cost for this will not be 25k pts. The cost is more likely to be 110k points for J and I dont think that you will be able to book the route that you have suggested. It's more likely to be MEL//EU (FRA/ZRH/MUC/ARN probably)-Stopover/NYC-Destination//MEL.

the LON and PAR trips would have to be side trips.

Now turning to the pts situation. As you have no USDM pts and you have bnot indicated that you have a USDM account, I would so the following.
1) sign up everyone who will be travelling to a USDM account.
2) Read everything you can on USDM, both here and FT (flyer talk)
3) wait 12 days until you purchase.
4) check to see if you have a bonus offer, if not, dont bother going any further.
5) check our routes and timings,
6) call US and place your routing on hold.
7) purchase points (only if you have a bonus and your accounts are more than 12 days old)
8) call USDM and pay for the booking.

A few other thoughts.

Unlikely that you will get 4 seats on the same plane, might be better as a 2+2 or try TG, they might be OK.

My personal opinion is that you are too late for Sept/Oct this year. You might be OK but to honest I havn't looked at it.

If you dont mind me saying so, I think that this might be a little too complicated at the moment, perhaps you are better just sucking up the QF costs of redeeming, or buying a cash fare.

I signed up everyone to US DM and are currently waiting for the 12 days to expire, also signed everyone up to Starwood. You mention check routes & timing then call US and place routing on hold, am I able to do this before the 12 days are up, or do I have to wait, then buy miles, then phone US? I have been looking on Awardtravlr, and there seems to be limited availability, however with no points as I look, it's not helping right now as I realise the availability is fluid- those flight could be gone by the time I can book.
See my posts above with how I went with Qantas. The cash fairs that involve business for the 2 of us and economy for the kids are working out far too high for us.

 

[Pierre10]

You probably should've done most of the leg work first in locating where there was Business class availability on your flight legs before calling Qantas, which might have resulted in an overall better outcome. Then again, you are travelling mainly in one of the busiest seasons in the year, so as far as availability goes, that's probably not helping at all.

If you don't have the buy bonus on US DM, you still may be up for quite a bit. Note that buying through SPG then sweeping to US DM gives a slightly better rate than buying US DM without a sale alone, but not as good as US DM on sale, and you can only buy up to 20,000 SPG points per calendar year.

You have to realise that there's no elegant quick fix here. Whatever you do now is either making the best of what you've got, or is rather more expensive than normal. Either way, you can't shy away from the leg work that's required to pull this together. Also, be prepared to take indirect routings to where you want to go. Sometimes it's a case of a convoluted routing (through several hubs) or you go without.

One possible way to overcome your dilemma is to use a bit of a combined approach. For example, a US DM award for North Asia to Europe return in Business is 80k. North Asia includes Hong Kong, so you can either buy fares to Hong Kong and try for an upgrade on Qantas, or just redeem for Qantas awards (even PE) to Hong Kong (consider Classic-priced Any Seat Awards - which you'll need to call the special number for). From there, you can use a combination of US DM awards in J for yourself and maybe cash tickets in Y for the kids.

If you're lucky, you may be able to stretch your North Asia to Europe award to USA as well (you'd still pay the same as a North Asia to Europe award, since it's the more expensive one), with a stopover in Europe.

Overall, think creatively and be open minded (this applies to SWMBO too). Know where you want to go, consider other transport options (e.g. fly into another city then use a train?).

Thanks, yes considering I'm not yet in a position to buy US DM , (8 days to go), and Starwood (13 days to go), I spent a fair amount of time in Awardtravelr looking to see what was available for OW flights and I cast the net fairly wide through the less obvious connections in Asia in trying to get to my destination in Europe. With no results there I thought I'd have a look at what was available at the other end of our trip, ie the NY to Melb leg, and looked at all the obvious US Departure points as well as going up though Canada and out of there, even acroSs to HKG and down to MEL. I did not look in Sth America though, as would not be able to convince the wife to go that far out of the way. All this came up with zero award flights for any of the segments. I'm not sure if there was a problem with the Awardtravelr site, it didn't say there was. That is how I found myself calling Qantas.

With all 4 of us on Starwood, when the 14 days are up, I will be able to buy 80k points and with the 5k bonus per transaction, that will give us 100k to sweep across to US DM, and then hope that I can take advantage of a bonus at US DM SOON.

The combined approach you suggest sounds quite good, choose one of the options you suggest to get from Mel to HKG, and then concentrate my time on finding an award from HKG on. I suspect I am going to have the same problem when I get to the west cost of USA, and may have to buy 1 way fares from there home and look at similar options as for the MEL HKG leg. Not sure of what that's going to cost. It really seems that the greater difficulty is flying out of and back into Aust, after that the options open up it seems.

As far as train, I've pretty much decided to make it easier and cut out air travel from London - Paris and do that on the train, and therefore giving us just the one stopover in Europe. If I can't stretch my Nth Asia to Europe award to the USA, would I then look for a separate award that gets me from Paris to New York? Could that also get us across the USA to the west coast with NY being the stop over?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

At this stage of the game because your trip is only 8 weeks away you're going to have to be creative with your options & think outside the circle. Rather than hope to get all your travel booked under the one program why not break the trip up into smaller bites & do a mixture of QF Partner Awared/AAdvantage Miles Saver award (purchasing points)/paid commercial airfare on FJ as detailed below:

Ticket one Qantas Classic/Partner Award - MEL CX HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR (economy class)

Booked on www.qantas.com.au using multi city tool & ticking the box "select Classic Awards only". No J class award availability however if you take a day flight MEL QF HKG & have 1 or 2 nights in HKG then day flights HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR it's manageable as you're not trying to sleep on overnight flights in whY.

Wed 11 Sep QF029 MEL/HKG 0935/1710 (4 economy seats available both days) 30,000 points each
Thu 12 Sep

Fri 13 Sep AY062 HKG/HEL 0930/1510 (4 economy seats available)
Fri 13 Sep AY833 HEL/LHR 1600/1710 (4 economy seats available) 50,000 points each

Total cost for ticket 1 is 80,000 QF ff points plus AUD432.02 pp person (QF credit card fee is extra)


Ticket 2 AA Miles Saver Award ticket CDG AB x/TXL AB JFK // LGA AA DFW AA HNL (econ/Business/First/First)

Booked on www.aa.com selecting AAdvantage Award tab then multi sector itinerary. You may even be able to do the booking & put it on hold while you purchase the points or call them & see if they can book it in one pnr & deduct the points from each of the 4 accounts. I don't know what dates you want but I checked early October & availability wasn't a problem. Another alternative trans-Atlantic on the Miles Saver Award is AY CDG x/HEL JFK as it's very difficult to get J awards on the AA non-stops CDG/JFK even 331 days in advance. The CDG/HNL allows one stopover which would be NYC in your case.

You'd be in economy CDG/TXL then Business TXL/JFK then the Miles Saver J fare books into F domestically in the US as long as it's a 2 class cabin & J if a 3 class cabin. Why not take advantage of the buy AA bonus miles offer until 31 July 2013. Purchasing 40,000 points gives you a bonus 10,000 so the total cost to buy the 50,000 needed for this trip would be USD1,100.00 per person plus taxes USD67.50 totalling USD1,217.50.

Total cost of ticket 2 is AUD1,467.00 pp (USD1,150.00 plus tax = USD1,217.50 to purchase miles plus taxes of USD130.50 per person on the ticket - total USD1,348.00)


Ticket 3 Fiji Airways Special fare HNL/NAN (via CXI) NAN/MEL economy class (needs overnight in NAN)

Book through www.fijiairways.com travel is economy as Business was four times the price! The stopover in Christmas Island in Kiribati helps break up the journey. Not sure how long this Special fare is on sale for so I would book it asap along with the other tickets if your dates are confirmed but don't forget to take out travel insurance before you pay to make sure you're covered for cancellation penalties due to unforeseen circumstances.

Tue 08 Oct HNL/NAN FJ823 1200/1935+1 (via CXI)
overnight NAN 09Oct
Thu 10 Oct NAN/MEL FJ931 1840/2330

Total cost of ticket 3 is approx AUD652.00 pp (Airfare USD475.00 taxes USD124.42 Total USD599.42)

All up approx cost for airfares & taxes for 4 pax is AUD10,204.08.

 

[carwashhair]

Wow ozbeachbabe, that kind of research/legwork is worthy of a flight search assistance- type gratuity! What a great solution!!

 

[Nizar]

Wow ozbeachbabe, that kind of research/legwork is worthy of a flight search assistance- type gratuity! What a great solution!!

+1 I'm sure that post is appreciated by many not just the OP, thanks for taking the time ozbeachbabe

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Wow ozbeachbabe, that kind of research/legwork is worthy of a flight search assistance- type gratuity! What a great solution!!

+1 I'm sure that post is appreciated by many not just the OP, thanks for taking the time ozbeachbabe

No worries, the exercise has actually given me a few ideas for travel in the future. Just recycling info that I've learned on past AFF threads.

Also for those people with Velocity ff points in the bank you could do a partner award flying back HNL/SYD or HNL/BNE on HA for 32,500 points plus US37.00 taxes. Look for 'T' class availability on www.expertflyer.com but there seems to be some availability in early October.

 

[Pierre10]

At this stage of the game because your trip is only 8 weeks away you're going to have to be creative with your options & think outside the circle. Rather than hope to get all your travel booked under the one program why not break the trip up into smaller bites & do a mixture of QF Partner Awared/AAdvantage Miles Saver award (purchasing points)/paid commercial airfare on FJ as detailed below:

Ticket one Qantas Classic/Partner Award - MEL CX HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR (economy class)

Booked on www.qantas.com.au using multi city tool & ticking the box "select Classic Awards only". No J class award availability however if you take a day flight MEL QF HKG & have 1 or 2 nights in HKG then day flights HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR it's manageable as you're not trying to sleep on overnight flights in whY.

Wed 11 Sep QF029 MEL/HKG 0935/1710 (4 economy seats available both days) 30,000 points each
Thu 12 Sep

Fri 13 Sep AY062 HKG/HEL 0930/1510 (4 economy seats available)
Fri 13 Sep AY833 HEL/LHR 1600/1710 (4 economy seats available) 50,000 points each

Total cost for ticket 1 is 80,000 QF ff points plus AUD432.02 pp person (QF credit card fee is extra)


Ticket 2 AA Miles Saver Award ticket CDG AB x/TXL AB JFK // LGA AA DFW AA HNL (econ/Business/First/First)

Booked on www.aa.com selecting AAdvantage Award tab then multi sector itinerary. You may even be able to do the booking & put it on hold while you purchase the points or call them & see if they can book it in one pnr & deduct the points from each of the 4 accounts. I don't know what dates you want but I checked early October & availability wasn't a problem. Another alternative trans-Atlantic on the Miles Saver Award is AY CDG x/HEL JFK as it's very difficult to get J awards on the AA non-stops CDG/JFK even 331 days in advance. The CDG/HNL allows one stopover which would be NYC in your case.

You'd be in economy CDG/TXL then Business TXL/JFK then the Miles Saver J fare books into F domestically in the US as long as it's a 2 class cabin & J if a 3 class cabin. Why not take advantage of the buy AA bonus miles offer until 31 July 2013. Purchasing 40,000 points gives you a bonus 10,000 so the total cost to buy the 50,000 needed for this trip would be USD1,100.00 per person plus taxes USD67.50 totalling USD1,217.50.

Total cost of ticket 2 is AUD1,467.00 pp (USD1,150.00 plus tax = USD1,217.50 to purchase miles plus taxes of USD130.50 per person on the ticket - total USD1,348.00)


Ticket 3 Fiji Airways Special fare HNL/NAN (via CXI) NAN/MEL economy class (needs overnight in NAN)

Book through www.fijiairways.com travel is economy as Business was four times the price! The stopover in Christmas Island in Kiribati helps break up the journey. Not sure how long this Special fare is on sale for so I would book it asap along with the other tickets if your dates are confirmed but don't forget to take out travel insurance before you pay to make sure you're covered for cancellation penalties due to unforeseen circumstances.

Tue 08 Oct HNL/NAN FJ823 1200/1935+1 (via CXI)
overnight NAN 09Oct
Thu 10 Oct NAN/MEL FJ931 1840/2330

Total cost of ticket 3 is approx AUD652.00 pp (Airfare USD475.00 taxes USD124.42 Total USD599.42)

All up approx cost for airfares & taxes for 4 pax is AUD10,204.08.

Thanks Ozbeachbabe, I will not be able to go with this schedule, mainly SWMBO issues, particularly with the convoluted trip back and she is very nervous pass, flatly will not go on some of the less obvious airlines, however you have a done a lot of legwork for this, so you will be receiving an international gratuity from me regardless.
I know you have mentioned because of only 8 wks to Dep my options are limited. Problems I face with this schedule are as follows; I need to leave on Fri 13/9,unable to leave earlier, and looking to leave New York for MEL on Thursday 10/10 to come home.
As of today I have 2 days before I am in a position to purchase USDM, however maybe even then there may be no available award seats to suit our dates. My wife is getting toey, and has a price from well known flight retailer for $1900+ taxes economy & $6500 + taxes for business. With the economy fare it does not permit an upgrade to business on any of the legs. Compared to the fares on other sites the economy fares look OK, however the business fares if 2 of us were to fly business and kids in economy take us to $20k if we include the taxes, that's at least $6k over our budget. Increasing, it is looking like it is going to be all of us in Economy via a retail fare such as the one above which is a shame as I really wanted to get at least a long leg or 2 in business for 2 of us, the night time ones, unless I get lucky with USDM and there is availability and a decent bonus available. I did also make an enquiry with AFG after I saw their ad on here, and they have responded via email with an extremely cheap J Fare which lifted my spirits, however I have since read various opinions and if it was just me traveling I might take the risk, however not going to high risk with the family holiday.

 

[Alanslegal]

Getting four long haul award tickets in any premium cabin on the same flight is going to be a big ask especially only two months out. It is definitely possible with USDM as my flight next month on TG sees four of us together in F If you are still keen on award tickets, then you have to be quite flexbile with these bookings, the family might even have to split up and at best fly in different cabins but same planes, or even fly on different flights. Just say parent 1 + teenager 1 on flight A, and parent 2 + teenager 2 on flight A+1.

However with 660K QF points, that could get you to where you need to go for 140K points each in Y.

 

[Pierre10]

Getting four long haul award tickets in any premium cabin on the same flight is going to be a big ask especially only two months out. It is definitely possible with USDM as my flight next month on TG sees four of us together in F If you are still keen on award tickets, then you have to be quite flexbile with these bookings, the family might even have to split up and at best fly in different cabins but same planes, or even fly on different flights. Just say parent 1 + teenager 1 on flight A, and parent 2 + teenager 2 on flight A+1.

However with 660K QF points, that could get you to where you need to go for 140K points each in Y.

4 of you together in F, now that is definitely something to smile about!

In our case we're definitely ok about splitting up in different cabins on the same plane, However splitting up on different flights will only work if the flights land in the same place and within hours of each other. Significant other is not a seasoned traveller, in fact has never been further than Asia, so just her and 1 of the kids in tow, gates, teminals, taxis etc, just isn't going to work, kids have never been out of the country either so they won't be any help to her!

In terms of finding out if there are any USDM award seats available on our preferred dates, is Awardtravlr still the best method to check for these?

Also, if I call Qantas in regards to using my points, what is best approach, ie what do I ask for terminology wise?

Do I just ask for a OW RTW fare in Y which is 140k per person and resign myself to the fact our whole trip is in Y and I blew most of my points just so I could could sit in Y, or could I ask for RTW ASA OR JASA for the 2 of us and hope that there are a couple of seats available on a leg or two in J, and then just do the kids as OW 140K X 2? Also, BTW do I earn points on either of the above?

Also, still no sign of any USDM bonus available and with D approaching, I need to take action whatever way that may end up being.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Thanks Ozbeachbabe, I will not be able to go with this schedule, mainly SWMBO issues, particularly with the convoluted trip back and she is very nervous pass, flatly will not go on some of the less obvious airlines, however you have a done a lot of legwork for this, so you will be receiving an international gratuity from me regardless.

I know you have mentioned because of only 8 wks to Dep my options are limited. Problems I face with this schedule are as follows; I need to leave on Fri 13/9,unable to leave earlier, and looking to leave New York for MEL on Thursday 10/10 to come home.

As of today I have 2 days before I am in a position to purchase USDM, however maybe even then there may be no available award seats to suit our dates. My wife is getting toey, and has a price from well known flight retailer for $1900+ taxes economy & $6500 + taxes for business. With the economy fare it does not permit an upgrade to business on any of the legs. Compared to the fares on other sites the economy fares look OK, however the business fares if 2 of us were to fly business and kids in economy take us to $20k if we include the taxes, that's at least $6k over our budget.

Increasing, it is looking like it is going to be all of us in Economy via a retail fare such as the one above which is a shame as I really wanted to get at least a long leg or 2 in business for 2 of us, the night time ones, unless I get lucky with USDM and there is availability and a decent bonus available. I did also make an enquiry with AFG after I saw their ad on here, and they have responded via email with an extremely cheap J Fare which lifted my spirits, however I have since read various opinions and if it was just me traveling I might take the risk, however not going to high risk with the family holiday.

Just before you make the purchase of the US DM for everyone have you consider what airlines you'd be flying with if doing the award travel on Star Alliance carriers.

If SWMBO is a nervous flyer how would she react if you buy the USDM then tell her you're flying on Egypt Air or Asiana? I'd find out the airlines she won't fly on first before making the purchase.

Definitely have a look at what flights are available using USDM as you don't want to make the purchase only to find out she's not happy with the options & then wants to pay retail plus all the associated taxes as that will blow the budget.

 

[Pierre10]

Just before you make the purchase of the US DM for everyone have you consider what airlines you'd be flying with if doing the award travel on Star Alliance carriers.

If SWMBO is a nervous flyer how would she react if you buy the USDM then tell her you're flying on Egypt Air or Asiana? I'd find out the airlines she won't fly on first before making the purchase.

Definitely have a look at what flights are available using USDM as you don't want to make the purchase only to find out she's not happy with the options & then wants to pay retail plus all the associated taxes as that will blow the budget.

Yes SWMBO would have to be considered, however it's all a moot point anyway now, as without a bonus on USDM the cost of buying miles will just add up to not much below what I'd pay retail. I bought 5000 USDM to see if that may trigger a targeted bonus, none so far and it might in the future, but by then it will be too late for this trip.

So my 2 options right now are find the best RTW deal retail, which will be all of us in Y
or do the OW RTW 140K.

I have two questions in relation to the above options.

Do I just ask for a OW RTW fare in Y which is 140k per person,and be done with it, or could I ask for RTW ASA OR JASA for the 2 of us and hope that there are a couple of seats available on a leg or two in J,i'm not really sure how this works and then just do the kids as OW 140K X 2?


And on the retail side, because we can't stretch to 2 of us in J, could I do 1 of us in J, and the other three in Y and then during flight the adults could swap on various legs so we each get time in J. Do they let you do that in the air?

Also, BTW do I earn points on either of the above?

 

[Nizar]

Also, BTW do I earn points on either of the above?

ASA/JASA - yes
OW 140k award - no

 

[markis10]

I would buy a little bit of miles this month, it often can be bait for bonus offers in the months after.

 

[Pierre10]

ASA/JASA - yes
OW 140k award - no

OK thanks for clearing that up me.

 

[Pierre10]

I would buy a little bit of miles this month, it often can be bait for bonus offers in the months after.

yes, I bought 5000 as bait earlier, lets see if that works anytime soon. I'm wondering if I should buy some on each of the family memberships as bait to increase our chances, and see if any of us receive a bonus offer and the other not. interesting.