best way for family to use 500K points ?

[wendlle]

I have around 500,000 velocity points saved up.
We are a family of 4, 2 Adults and 2 Kids.

what would be the best way for us to use them??
We usually prefer to fly international rather than domesic trips, I'd like to get the best value that I can out of them.

I know points charts change all the time but in your opinions what would you do with them?
We will need to fly economy.

 

[henrus]

We will need to fly economy.

You don’t get the best value out of points flying economy.

The best way to look at is that you have 125k points per person or 62.5k points per person per direction. Even on the new award charts this is enough to get you each person ~7000 miles so most of Asia is possible.

 

[wendlle]

You don’t get the best value out of points flying economy.

The best way to look at is that you have 125k points per person or 62.5k points per person per direction. Even on the new award charts this is enough to get you each person ~7000 miles so most of Asia is possible.

Thanks, Yes I know economy isn't the "best value" but I'm more looking for the best value for my situation - which is what I should have stated.

 

[Scr77]

How about searching for 2 business/premium and paying for 2 economy? Depending on kids ages, maybe 1A 1C in business/premium and then swap for the return.

 

[wendlle]

How about searching for 2 business/premium and paying for 2 economy? Depending on kids ages, maybe 1A 1C in business/premium and then swap for the return.

Kids are 9 and 6

 

[Tiki]

That's enough for 4 x RT to the USA if you want to take the kids to Disneyland, maybe rent a car and drive to Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Of course the exchange rate isn't the greatest these days but you didn't say when you want to go. Japan is popular these days, you could even get to Europe but in Y class.

 

[Rich]

I second a USA trip. A great place to take the kids and a great use of 500000 points. We have been on QF points - 125k each from memory for a trip to JFK and returning from DFW.

 

[wendlle]

We go to the USA every year or two so was looking for somewhere different. We are headed there in May again. We are a "theme park" family so do Disneyland quite often along with WDW, Tokyo disney etc.

I'm thinking maybe Canada?? Or we could do Fiji and have plenty left over for another trip

 

[ben95]

Yes I know economy isn't the "best value" but I'm more looking for the best value for my situation - which is what I should have stated.

It's hard because we don't know your personal preferences, financial situations and future plans.

What I will say is do your own math. Look into destinations you want to go, how much it costs to purchase that ticket with cash and how much it costs with points (minus any cash surchare and tax), then calcualte a cents per point value based on that. It'll be easy to see what value you are getting from your points and go from there.

I personally don't go into my redemption exercise with the goal of "maximising points value" and then tailor my travel plan for that specific goal. I always start off with a few locations I wanted to visit and then start looking at redemption options - I want to have an enjoyable trip to a location I wanted to visit, not redeem points for the sake of redeemping points. cpp is a gague I use in this process to decide whether I should use my points or just pay cash.

 

[wendlle]

It's hard because we don't know your personal preferences, financial situations and future plans.

What I will say is do your own math. Look into destinations you want to go, how much it costs to purchase that ticket with cash and how much it costs with points (minus any cash surchare and tax), then calcualte a cents per point value based on that. It'll be easy to see what value you are getting from your points and go from there.

I personally don't go into my redemption exercise with the goal of "maximising points value" and then tailor my travel plan for that specific goal. I want to have an enjoyable trip to a location I wanted to visit, not redeem points for the sake of redeemping points.

yes this is true. I guess we will just look at where we want to go and just do it and not worry about how many points it uses.

 

[im.daniel]

I personally don't go into my redemption exercise with the goal of "maximising points value" and then tailor my travel plan for that specific goal. I always start off with a few locations I wanted to visit and then start looking at redemption options - I want to have an enjoyable trip to a location I wanted to visit, not redeem points for the sake of redeemping points. cpp is a gague I use in this process to decide whether I should use my points or just pay cash.

This is precisely it. Your points are only worth however much you were willing to pay for a revenue ticket in the first place.

I see people posting they got some obscene cpp per redemption. Aspirational redemptions in a premium cabin are great but how many of them were willing to drop 25k on a flight in the first place for a one way fully-flexible J/F ticket?

You should however probably be aiming for at LEAST 1.2-1.5cpm per redemption regardless of class of travel, otherwise it makes more sense to pay with cash.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I have around 500,000 velocity points saved up.
We are a family of 4, 2 Adults and 2 Kids.

what would be the best way for us to use them??

Best way will be to enable you to travel to enjoy a destination that all four of you will enjoy. That will include it being destination where as a family will be able to do and share in the types of activities that you can enjoy together.

So that will be personal to your family.

What things do you as family enjoy doing together? The age of your kids will have a significant impact.

There is no point just getting a good redemption redemption, if the land experience will not be good for the four of you. So think about what you may like, what you might like to try, and what you know that you do not like



PS. My first big family redemption, was also 500,000 points. We redeemed 500,000 Ansett Airlines points (Well timed too as it turned out as Ansett went into administration two weeks later!) to fly return to Cairo and had an amazing time backpacking with our 3 daughters then aged 5, 8 and 11 through Egypt , Jordan, Israel and finishing with island hopping in Southern Thailand. Mind you 9/11 also happened after we had redeemed and so we could not get our points back if we did not fly, but SQ still honoured the redemption. For us though it was exceptionally good as Egypt, Jordan and Israel were all extremely light on for travellers/tourists. So no queues for us, and all land costs were extremely cheap.

Eldest daughter was stoked to go to Egypt, as at that time she was fascinated by Egyptian History, and that was key reason for us selecting the Middle East as a family holiday destination. Youngest daughter though chose not to go into the Mummy Room as a 5 year she was convinced that based on the cartoons that she had watched that the Mummy's would wake up and chase her!

And as our first really long flights (Three there!) we were somewhat apprehensive in advance of how we would manage to keep all three girls entertained. It turned at that was easy as we did not have gaming consoles at home whereas Singapore Airlines had just introduced gaming as part of the onboard entertainment and so we hardly heard a peep out of all three as they entertained themselves.

It was truly amazing family bonding experience which all five of us still look back on fondly.