*A RTW Redemption in F(/R) using KF

[daft009]

Late Jan is still school holidays so that adds to the pressure.
Yeah I'd take the 1x advantage too as recommended above.

OR
go over in J and see if you can get F for the return... end the trip in style

I went to Frankfurt in June in J and came back in suites all the way

 

[MathNerd]

Look at it this way...... 150k+80k divided by two to average the points required per person... I've had to do this - get one saver and one advantage to be on the same flight...

Oh wow really? So you've been in a similar situation before? When was your "turning point" moment when you gave up on the waitlist?

 

[MathNerd]

Thanks daft

Late Jan is still school holidays so that adds to the pressure.
Yeah I'd take the 1x advantage too as recommended above.

OR
go over in J and see if you can get F for the return... end the trip in style

I went to Frankfurt in June in J and came back in suites all the way

Thanks mate, good advice. Will go for the Advantage level then, if all my calling for chasers and explaining the situation doesn't work out.
Do you know if a CSR can somehow connect you to a seat controller or similar?

 

[daft009]

I've only ever dealt with the CSR. Though never been successful with wait lists coming through so try and avoid them

 

[MathNerd]

I've only ever dealt with the CSR. Though never been successful with wait lists coming through so try and avoid them

Ah I see! So your waitlist experience has been cough so far, I see why you're recommending to go for the Advantage one.
If I do go Advantage I'll have to transfer the top up points from my MR account to the missus' KF account (as her account is the one with the 80,000 KF in there ready to burn). Damn, so complicated!

 

[KitKat]

Yes...... just do it. I have bet and lost, hoping for a WL clearance....... screws up your plans to go away together on the same flight......now that's not priceless!
Advantage availability may disappear as well.... my turning point now is when I book the first saver I book the other advantage as well if that's the day we need to travel. It's only points.....yes hard earned but to go away together..... that's up to you how you value it

 

[MathNerd]

Yes...... just do it. I have bet and lost, hoping for a WL clearance....... screws up your plans to go away together on the same flight......now that's not priceless!
Advantage availability may disappear as well.... my turning point now is when I book the first saver I book the other advantage as well if that's the day we need to travel. It's only points.....yes hard earned but to go away together..... that's up to you how you value it

Thanks! Very wise words. Looks like this is the go then. Will report back on the final scenario and how it all panned out.
Thanks again everyone for the kind suggestions and support.
Cheers

 

[daft009]

Ah I see! So your waitlist experience has been cough so far, I see why you're recommending to go for the Advantage one.
If I do go Advantage I'll have to transfer the top up points from my MR account to the missus' KF account (as her account is the one with the 80,000 KF in there ready to burn). Damn, so complicated!

Normally can't transfer from your Amex account to your partner's KF account. Who's points did your use to book the saver so far? . Can add each other as a nominee and then get csr to link the tix

 

[MathNerd]

Who's points did your use to book the saver so far?

I used my partner's account to book the saver, as she had ~27,000 KF in there of which a few were expiring at the end of this month! I only had ~8,000 KF in mine. Therefore I transferred the requisite points from her MR account to top up her KF to exactly 160,000, and then after waitlisting for 2 savers in the one booking, which I eventually cancelled and just booked the one confirmed saver, I used up half of that and now there's 80,000 sitting in her account!

Can add each other as a nominee and then get csr to link the tix

Fortunately we added each other as redemption nominees on each other's accounts years ago, so no problems there. My waitlist PNR appears in her KF account as well as her confirmed PNR.

I guess this is the problem that's now happened, I've thought all will work out and we'll have 2 F savers which clears out her account to a nice clean 0. She doesn't have enough MR in her AmEx account to top up her KF account to 150,000 for the Advantage, but I have the points in my MR account. Makes for a tricky situation that's for sure!

 

[Lemon_Party]

I used my partner's account to book the saver, as she had ~27,000 KF in there of which a few were expiring at the end of this month! I only had ~8,000 KF in mine. Therefore I transferred the requisite points from her MR account to top up her KF to exactly 160,000, and then after waitlisting for 2 savers in the one booking, which I eventually cancelled and just booked the one confirmed saver, I used up half of that and now there's 80,000 sitting in her account!


Fortunately we added each other as redemption nominees on each other's accounts years ago, so no problems there. My waitlist PNR appears in her KF account as well as her confirmed PNR.

I guess this is the problem that's now happened, I've thought all will work out and we'll have 2 F savers which clears out her account to a nice clean 0. She doesn't have enough MR in her AmEx account to top up her KF account to 150,000 for the Advantage, but I have the points in my MR account. Makes for a tricky situation that's for sure!

When I was a little short I transferred wife’s MR points to her velocity which pooled to my velocity and could transfer to SQ. Obviously you lose on transfer rate VA to SQ, but can be useful if you are short in one account.

 

[potm]

Hi Mathnerd,

I agree with others in taking the advantage redemption asap. The risk reward scenario just isn't worth it here. The probability of getting that waitlist cleared is not high, and even if it was, you're risking not flying together with your wife on your honeymoon.

Another way to look at it is you only have to pay another 70k and you guarantee an awesome experience for your honeymoon.

In relation to your original question, when I was looking into RTW redemptions using Amex points, I came to the conclusion that Asia miles multi-carrier award up to 35k miles for 280k miles in F was a much better deal. A couple of things have changed since then though. The points cost has increased to 300k, which is still very good value. The availability of CX and QR flights is a lot more difficult to get now, which makes it a lot harder to piece together an all F itinerary.

 

[Gianni S]

Thanks Gianni, I really do hope it goes through. I'm hoping the fact that soon-to-be Mrs. MathNerd has a confirmed F Saver ticketed with seat selected etc will help my case, as I'll plead with them to let me go and sit (and/or lie down) next to her.
I keep checking every day, running a redeem search but Waitlist keeps appearing. I've heard that sometimes they release award inventory but Waitlisted pax don't get notified, so I'm running searches every now and then.
I also keep looking at the seatmap from the confirmed ticket, and only 4 seats are booked (plus the one we have that's confirmed). It might stay at this load all the way until the flight, it is a Wednesday morning red-eye after all.
Crossing my fingers that they can somehow link this waitlisted PNR to the confirmed PNR and the seat controller sees what's going on...




We've got one F Saver confirmed and ticketed, that redemption must've been the last seat they left "open" to redeem, so once we redeemed it then the next attempt was a Waitlist. Any way I could give them a "nudge" at all?

I'm not sue how set in concrete you are with your dates, but i have just had a look and if you are willing to fly 24th out of Sydney there are 2 x F Savers available on SQ222. The beauty of it you can trick the future wife into saying your just going to sydney! then once there, spring the surprise of your onward Journey.

 

[MathNerd]

I'm not sue how set in concrete you are with your dates, but i have just had a look and if you are willing to fly 24th out of Sydney there are 2 x F Savers available on SQ222. The beauty of it you can trick the future wife into saying your just going to sydney! then once there, spring the surprise of your onward Journey.

Thanks mate, that would have been an amazing redemption. Thanks for checking that up.
The surprise factor itself would have made the redemption a no-brainer! Haha, I can imagine the conversation:
"Hey, I've got something planned for us in SYD, let's catch the first flight out of MEL"
"Uh, okay"
Get to SYD, transfer terminals to the international, and keep walking all the way to SQ F check in counter.
*Mind blown*

Unfortunately, the fairytale wasn't meant to be! We need to be back in MEL on 27th Jan at the latest, and since we're going onwards to MLE for our honeymoon, leaving on the 24th would have meant having only 2 nights there before flying out on the 26th arriving in MEL on the 27th.

For our actual big honeymoon (2019 end) I'll do a SYD search as well if MEL comes up dry. Thanks mate.

PS: For those following along, all tix have been booked. Keep your eyes peeled for an update soon, for all will be revealed

 

[MathNerd]

For all those following along, a small update... (Sorry it took so long to get down to this, had to plan 2 weddings, a week apart, one in BLR and the other in MEL. Now that it's all over, AFF addiction can now resume...)

In summary:

• Got the MEL-SIN leg in R for Mrs. MathNerd at the 80,000 KF Saver rate.
• Waited for my waitlist for the same redemption, but on advice received here, decided to just book at the Advantage rate of 150,000. This required a transfer of the required 70,000 topup points (as her account only had 80,000 points there ready for a Saver booking), which I managed to do from my AmEx account. Was worried that the transfer would bounce (given that the AmEx account and KF account were under different names), but it actually went through and then I used the points rightaway.
• Had to then get SIN-MLE in Y on MI, using AmEx travel and my $400 Explorer travel credit.
• Hoping to get extra legroom seats on this second leg when we check-in for SQ218 in exactly a week's time.
• The flight back is MLE-CMB-MEL, just got that in Y on UL and paid for the extra legroom seats (very reasonable rates for a 10+ hr long flight).

In other news, booked the main honeymoon MEL-SIN-LHR for Dec 2019 (the 3 day stint coming up soon is only a "mini-moon"). Waitlisted for 2 F (R) Savers, with the same flights confirmed in J. Hoping that the WL clears so we can cancel the J tix and book into suites.
Waiting for a week now for the return flights to become available, trying to redeem 2 F (R) Savers ZRH-SIN-MEL (as this seems to give some level of availability as opposed to other EUR ports, as well as avoiding the dreaded APD ex-LHR).
Q: Is ZRH-SIN-MEL good for availability or would CDG, FRA or even LHR be better?

PS: Thanks to all for all advice given, it's been extremely helpful.

 

[potm]

ZRH is on new suites with only 6 seats so will not be good. LHR, CPH, CDG, FRA, ZRH, that would be my order of availabilities.

 

[Pele]

Was worried that the transfer would bounce (given that the AmEx account and KF account were under different names), but it actually went through and then I used the points rightaway.

This is very interesting and surprising.

Pele.

 

[daft009]

Was worried that the transfer would bounce (given that the AmEx account and KF account were under different names), but it actually went through and then I used the points rightaway.

careful with this. From what I've read audits are done here and there and they (SQ) might catch you out on this even down the track.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

This is very interesting and surprising.

Pele.

And people have been found out by SQ on this. So it may also end up being alarming.