AAward and owAAward

[Dave Noble]

Ok - just got a call from AA whilkst I was in the pub for lunch. They ahve realised that I dont meet the MCT for LAX on my HKG-LAX-JFK trip so they asked to rebook me to the HKG-JFK flight. I accepted without realising what was happening.

I now realise that the HKG-JFK is the next day at 4PM. In theory we could have a decent morning in HKG and break thr journey - but I am now concerned that I will be stung for additional miles as this is now a greater than 6 hours stopover

I wil call in the morning to check but am not as happy as I was an hour ago...

As long as you havent hit the 24hr mark then there is no reason to be concerned methunks. Of course , the main thing with any itinerary is what happens when it goes for ticketing

Dave

 

[simongr]

Gah - the HKG stop is being classed as a stopover for points calculation and there is no J availability out of HKG. At this point I am tempted to book as far as HKG and either book separate J seats back to SYD or book economy seats and try for an upgrade using QFF points (certainly a reason to get WP then).

EDIT

Cheapest J seats I could find on Zuji were HKD36K... and I would be half tempted to book those and upgrade to F

EDIT2

Thinking about this - I am now basically screwed due to the original flight to HKG being a stopover - even if I could get a flight to MEL in J that would put me over 25K miles

Looks I should be resigned to economy - now just need a booking class that is upgradeable...

EDIT3

Looks like Economy HKG-SYD goes for about $3600 on Expedia (for two pax) and $6000 for business - might be better to book business class then.

Another option might be a QF award as I dont have enough points on AA - 60K points for two pax in Economy - I could potentially keep an eye out closer to the date so see if any J/F seats opened up and cancel the QF Award flight and rebook a AAward in F/J and pay the 10K points penalty for reposting of points. I dont think a WP benefit is opening up of award seats in J/F - if it was then I would be even more tempted to go for WP.

I have some points to post to AA - about 25K and 90K in Amex - but I dont think I could get them to AA in time to pay for the AAward.

EDIT 4

Ok after a bit of rambling I think I have worked out my options - assuming that I can not get 80K miles to AA in 7 days.

1 - Buy QF upgradeable whY seat and try to use points to upgrade (would require WP status to improve chances) - A$3,600
2 - Buy QF J seat and try yo UG to F - A$6,000
3 - Buy another airline J seat - approx. $6,000
4 - Use QFF points for award flight HKG-SYD in whY and keep checking if availability in J/F and then rebook in J/F and using either QFF points or AA points - I will be back up to 200K by Christmas and probably up to 400K by July.

In relation to option 4 the interesting thing is that this is where QF might actually beat AA. For AA a oneway award uses round trip points so a J/F seat on AA HKG-SYD would cost 70/90K points. On QF it would be 60/90K points. I could dump 90K into QF today taking me up to 140K (I have 25K points allocated for an F upgraded at the moment - but 20K to spend on my next trip so comfortable on the points front).

 

[NM]

Why not see if you can get business class to KUL with either CX or JL and then get a JQ Star Class one-way from there back to SYD and put the SCs towards your QF WP renewal?

 

[simongr]

Well it is locked in:

AAward in J syd-hkg(onight)-jfk(week)-lhr(week)-lca(week)-lhr-hkg)onight)

300K miles and A$498 in taxes

QFF Award in whY hkg-syd - morning flight to Syd

60K points and I think A4250 in taxes+fuel surcharges

So the only problem now becomes seat selection on the HKG-SYD flight. I wont be WP as I am having to channel all points to AA to buy tix for sister to visit Oz.

I am on an A330-300 it says - any suggestions for seat selection/ Will my OWE status be better linked to the booking than QF?

We will decide closer to the day whether we seek other options - i.e. a paid J seat and I will be keeping my eye for J awards between now and then.

 

[Keith009]

Can;t help you with QF 333 seat selection, but I just wanted to send a big CONGRATS your way.

 

[simongr]

Thanks - I think I have done pretty well in 14 months of flying to accrue enough points for two RTW tickets in J (and technically it IS RTW as I am going hkg-usa-eur-hkg - that's a DONE3 ), two HKG-SYD in whY, 2 J returns for mrssimongr, 3 UG's to F and still have 60K QFF points.

If only I had stuck with QFF