AA BUY miles promo

[QF WP]

No, because we'll bring it back on topic now

 

[gizzard]

I'm completely new to this and trying to get my head around it. I'd like to go through an example to see if my understanding is correct.
Say I want to fly one-way with QF from Aus to Europe (eg QF1 or QF9) in Business.

According to this AA table I would need 60k points.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/aadvantageAllPartnerChart.jsp

A similar ticket with QF as a Classic Award would be 128k points.

I can currently buy 52k points (40k + 30% bonus) for US$1100 (plus charges) but that's all that I can buy in a calendar year.

With QF I could top-up points, 20k for A$557.50.

So, AA for the 60k I'd need to get the ticket would be about US$1270 plus taxes
whereas for QF, if I purchased all of the points, it would cost about $3570 and taxes on top.

The problem once the points have been purchased is then to find an available seat.

Am I missing something?

 

[kempvet]

I don't think so, I think that in general the AA mile flies your dollar further, as many posters on this forum have already said. I think that it is 72k miles AA LAX-SYD in F and 144k miles QF in F. I guess the only drawback would be the availability of seats, but from the posts of others on this forum, if it is available in the Qantas system, then they are likely to also be available in the AA system, but I could be wrong, waiting for other comments.

 

[QF WP]

gizzard, you've got the thinking right. In order to get those additional 8K AA points, you may need to use a Starwood account, buy the additional points in there, that once transferred, give you 8K AA points. So your overall cost will be a little higher, but still WELL below the QF point purchase method.

The biggest negative is finding the seats. QFF'ers have access to the seats 355 days prior to flight, whereas AA members only get availability from 335 days - so a lot of the premium seats can have already been taken by QFF mmbers. However, with a bit of flexibility, you can get from A to B, sometimes via places that may not have been your first option.

 

[kempvet]

could be a case of swings and roundabouts, read somewhere else in this forum that perhaps EXP AA are able to access good CX seats before WP, don't know if this is true or not.

 

[gizzard]

I have no knowledge of the history of these offers. Just how good is the current one with the 30% bonus? Is this worth jumping on or is there likely to be a better one during the year?

 

[kempvet]

I have no knowledge of the history of these offers. Just how good is the current one with the 30% bonus? Is this worth jumping on or is there likely to be a better one during the year?

These offers come and go, but the one that you mentioned already appears to be one of the standard ones, another thing that AA will often do, is extend the limit from 40,000 miles to 60,000 miles which you can claim (within the one year) through these offers towards the end of the year.

I don't think that you can go wrong with the current offer, eventually you get 52,000 miles (I think) which allows you to claim three flights in J from anywhere in Australia to anywhere else in AUS and also NZ, eg. 3 x PER-WEL in J for about 400 dollars or something like that, or if you are more adventurous LAX-HEL in J is 50,000 AA miles whereas QF is 92,000 miles