American Express AU to Aeroplan?

[jonedwards80]

So I’ve got myself into a minor pickle…

I’m booking reward flights for Nov next year for my honeymoon in Japan. I’ve been booking the legs in one way due to wanting to nab availability when I can. I have Bris to Osaka done, and Tokyo to Singapore done. All legs in business class for my partner and I.

Now I’m stuck in Singapore and am short about 20k KF miles to get us home! It’s 135k KF miles via SA site. This will take me about 2 months to accumulate enough points on my Amex to transfer to KF.

I see Canada’s Aeroplan has seats available for 45k which I could book right now. But I can’t transfer to them from Amex AU. Seats.aero asp says I can transfer to United or Copa for this one.

Do I have any avenues to make this happen?

 

[piratematerial]

Via Marriott but the rate is 9:2 unless you transfer 60k Marriott points and get the 25% bonus.

How to Earn Aeroplan Points with Australian Credit Cards

There's no co-branded Aeroplan credit card in Australia, but you can transfer CommBank Awards or Star Alliance Points to Air Canada.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[jonedwards80]

hmm... seems like a uneconomical way to do this, even with the bonus. Thanks anyway

 

[N0mad]

you can buy velocity points to make up the difference and transfer to KF, they also have bonus points on purchases until tomorrow.

Buying Points

Are you almost ready to use your Points on a reward, but don’t quite have enough Points yet? Great news, you can buy the extra Points with Points Booster and get to your dream reward sooner. You can purchase as few as 1,000 Points or as many as 250,000 Points.

www.velocityfrequentflyer.com

 

[jonedwards80]

you can buy velocity points to make up the difference and transfer to KF, they also have bonus points on purchases until tomorrow.

Buying Points

Are you almost ready to use your Points on a reward, but don’t quite have enough Points yet? Great news, you can buy the extra Points with Points Booster and get to your dream reward sooner. You can purchase as few as 1,000 Points or as many as 250,000 Points.

www.velocityfrequentflyer.com

ok cool.

Does VFF have good availability for 2ppl in business from SIN to BNE? I cannot see anything beyond mid-Nov at this stage...

I could take a punt on VFF but I also don't want to do a transfer then realise I needed them directly into KF or QFF and cannot get them back. ...Oh the decisions lol

 

[N0mad]

unfortunately, VFF can only book 330 days out so you would need to wait. However, you can transfer VFF points to KF at a rate of 1.55:1 through the velocity website.

I think to would be about $558 factoring in 20% bonus points to get 31000 VFF points which transfers to 20000 KF points.

obviously if you are confident the seats are unlikely to be taken before coming available on VFF then it's better value to keep your points there. I have to fly during school holidays so are forced to transfer my points or would never get seats at those times.

 

[tassie6]

Like @N0mad said, if you really want those seats, these are the exact steps:

1. Calc out the max KF points you can get from your Amex points
2. Work out the exact balance you would need to transfer from VFF to KF at 1.55:1
   1. Buy those points from Velocity, taking into account the current bonus
   2. Link your KF account and transfer from VFF to KF
3. Transfer points from Amex to KF
4. Purchase seats via KF

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:44 AM

Of course, keep checking the seats you want are available all through this process. The reason I put Point 3 ahead of 2, is that if worse comes to worse and the seats you want are gone, you haven't yet transferred the bulk of your Amex points, plus this step is generally near enough to instant so can be done last

 

[jonedwards80]

Like @N0mad said, if you really want those seats, these are the exact steps:

1. Calc out the max KF points you can get from your Amex points
2. Work out the exact balance you would need to transfer from VFF to KF at 1.55:1
   1. Buy those points from Velocity, taking into account the current bonus
   2. Link your KF account and transfer from VFF to KF
3. Transfer points from Amex to KF
4. Purchase seats via KF

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:44 AM

Of course, keep checking the seats you want are available all through this process. The reason I put Point 3 ahead of 2, is that if worse comes to worse and the seats you want are gone, you haven't yet transferred the bulk of your Amex points, plus this step is generally near enough to instant so can be done last

Thanks so much. I dont mind spending $500 or so to get this done if I have to.

Okay here is where it stands:

• Amex has 342,986 Points
• Equates to 114,328 KF Points
• I need 135,000 KF Points to book
• Shortfall of 20,672 points
• My VFF has 2995 points in it at present

By my calculations I need 29,047 additional Virgin Frequent Flyer points to transfer to KrisFlyer and meet the shortfall of 20,672 KF points.

Does this ring true?

 

[tassie6]

Yeah looks good

Very minor difference, but Amex only lets you transfer in 3 point increments to KF, so you would actually transfer 342984 points but is the same number you had (114328). Something to keep in mind if ever did end up 1 point short somehow.

But yep I match the rest of your maths.

Need to buy Virgin points in 1000 point increments, so you would buy 30,000 points that is currently $629.60 including the bonus. Does give you a few spare points if any maths was slightly off

 

[N0mad]

Yeah looks good

Very minor difference, but Amex only lets you transfer in 3 point increments to KF, so you would actually transfer 342984 points but is the same number you had (114328). Something to keep in mind if ever did end up 1 point short somehow.

But yep I match the rest of your maths.

Need to buy Virgin points in 1000 point increments, so you would buy 30,000 points that is currently $629.60 including the bonus. Does give you a few spare points if any maths was slightly off

apologies jonedwards80, i didn't realise the points table already included the bonus which is why i underestimated the cost of the points.

 

[jonedwards80]

Thank you. We are all sorted and flying business class on SQ245 next year. Thanks so much for everyone’s help.