How would YOU structure this?

[freedomdeluxe]

Hey there nice to see you...

I'm a 31yo Male business owner in Melbourne with an office and 10 staff, in the marketing industry.

Next year i'll be running 11 events in 11 different countries. Each month i'll fly out to the country and fly back (7 days max per event).

So a LOT of flying.

I wish to fly business all the way for myself and do it in the best way possible (i.e. lowest cost / most miles earned etc).

I love qantas and prefer to go them over virgin as they have the direct A380 to LAX (where I do a lot of my business).

My question to the community is:

WHICH CREDIT CARDS WOULD YOU SIGN UP FOR?

Or how would you approach this situation?

I.e. Buying miles, etc.

I'm a complete newbie to this stuff.

Thanks for all the help and look forward to participating in the community.

Cheers!

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF.

Love to help, but your question and situation is way too broad to offer anything meaningful; it encompasses the AFF equivalent of Life, the Universe and Everything . Information such as the countries to be travelled to and whether you have any status with any airline would be useful. The initial part of your query implies revenue fares but toward the end you are veering into points flights territory.

 

[Mattg]

Welcome. You've come to the right place, though we're going to need to find out a little more about you, and specifically where you'll be travelling to in order to offer any meaningful advice.

I think you'll find that using a mixture of points and paid bookings is the best way to go. It can be extremely hard to get a reward seat to the USA using points due to limited award availability, so on SYD-LAX (for example) I suspect your best bet is to simply buy a business class fare, or book economy on off-peak flights and upgrade using points.

For flights to Asia and Europe, using miles (either bought or from credit cards) could be a great option for relatively low-cost business class. Availability is not as difficult to come by on these routes.

For domestic travel, award availability is generally pretty good.

As a starting point, make sure you sign up for the Alaska Airlines, United, Avianca and American AAdvantage frequent flyer programs. That way you'll be eligible to buy miles if a good promotion pops up.

You may also want to apply for one or two credit cards where you'll get bonus points. NAB and Bankwest both have some pretty good deals at the moment, but there are certainly others.

 

[Buzzard]

Welcome to AFF freedomdeluxe,

Check this thread for credit card offers Current Credit Card Promotions

 

[andye]

Nothing to do with credit cards, but if you know your dates well in advance you may well find 'nesting' different tickets works financially. To follow on from this OneWorld RTW fares might be useful to you too. Quite complicated though

 

[freedomdeluxe]

Welcome to AFF.

Love to help, but your question and situation is way too broad to offer anything meaningful; it encompasses the AFF equivalent of Life, the Universe and Everything . Information such as the countries to be travelled to and whether you have any status with any airline would be useful. The initial part of your query implies revenue fares but toward the end you are veering into points flights territory.

Thanks so much for the responses!

Haha I get it. Tough without enough information.

Here we go...

I will be flying business class and 2x of my team members will be flying economy (preferably on same flight).

So 3x return trip international flight bookings per month - each for 7 days.
and 3x hotel rooms for the 7 days as well (something to consider with SPG or some other reward program?)

Proposed dates are:
February: Los Angeles
March: New York
April: Chicago
May: Las Vegas
June: London
July: Amsterdam
August: Stockholm
September: Singapore
October: Dubai
November: Vancouver
December: Possibly London Again

Any thoughts around the best way to attack this?

I'm thinking i'll bank some miles after next year lol.

Cheers.

 

[Mattg]

Thanks for the extra info.

I suspect you may struggle to find award availability to the USA for the first four trips, so using points may not be the best strategy. I would compare the cost of purchasing return Australia-USA-Australia tickets to the cost of return USA-Australia-USA tickets. If the latter is cheaper, then purchase a return ticket to LAX departing in February and returning in May (coming back from Las Vegas). Then purchase three USA-Australia-USA tickets.

For the three Europe trips, I recommend a similar strategy. Purchase a return ticket flying into London in June then returning from Stockholm in August. Then buy two return tickets from Europe to Australia. BA often has some good Business class fares (~$5K) departing from Norway, and there are no doubt other deals. Also look at Business class fares departing from Prague and other secondary cities as these may be substantially cheaper.

For the return Austarlia-Europe booking, you may wish to again purchase separate tickets. Perhaps redeem points (bought or otherwise) to get to Bangkok, then book a return business ticekt from Bangkok to Europe on Qatar, Finnair, Vietnam Airlines or another carrier that offers return tickets to Europe for around $2,000 from Thailand.

For Singapore and Dubai, I recommend using points. Dubai is an expensive destination to get to, though award availability is limited, so book early! You may also find that it's cheaper to book a trip from Australia to London, with a very (very) long stopover in Dubai - so that's something to keep in mind if you'll be going to London in December!

Hope that made some sense. Feel free to pick and choose from that advice.

 

[RooFlyer]

Good stuff, MattG! I would add my 'favourite' tip for travel to/in Europe. Finnair and Lufthansa sometimes have J deals where you can fly QF or SQ (respectively) to an Asian port, then onto HEL or FRA and then you get the next onwards leg in Europe to your destination for 'free'. I think you would have to go through a (good) TA to get these (I always do). Finnair J is really good.

AMEX have a great Platinum Charge card deal on at the moment - 120,000 of their points, using a referral, (which are roll-able into many airline programs) PLUS instant high status on a number of hotel programs. See this thread . There's another thread with links to referrals (the link-poster gets some gravy too!) but I can't find it right now. High annual fee, but when you include the benefits, very reasonable.

Also se threads on AFF on Citi and BankWest debit cards- low or no fee, very good FX rates for overseas purchases.

Edit: referral links here.

 

[freedomdeluxe]

Matt - you're a champion. Thanks for all that info!

I'll definitely update everyone on what I do and how I go about it.

Thanks for the extra info.

I suspect you may struggle to find award availability to the USA.....

 

[andye]

Another thing to think about is joining Aquire if you and you collegues are going to fly a lot of QF

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Matt has some good comments and on top of this I would echo that using points is not the best strategy.

Nesting fares, buying tickets out of different cities etc is a pure cost saving measure and is only useful for Premium Cabin bookings. You won't see much cost saving with your unfortunate staff in economy. Because of this - unless you are passionate about earning status/miles - you'll likely get frustrated with the process and end up booking each flight as it's own ex-Australia. There's nothing wrong with this if it saves you time and energy.

As you're a business owner with what I'm guessing to be a reasonable chunk of revenue passing through your books - be sure to ensure you're maximizing the benefits on your expenses by putting them on credit cards that will give you the most rewards. Personally I go with Citi Prestige for biz expenses because of no points capping and the highest Visa earn rates in the country - and there's no referral links to spam you with so you know it's a genuine referral ;-)

Additionally, I'm not a fan of using points for work travel as generally these are claimable flights. Save the points for a well deserved holiday at the end of next year - looks like you'll need it.

No doubt you're on top of this already, however some other considerations for you are the Austrade EMDG grant which effectively offers you 50% back on travel expenses (knocking that $5000 fare down to $2500). Additionally, if you'll want to ensure you have hotel status (Amex Plat Charge may come in handy for this and also for travel insurance).

Events for work is always fun and can be extremely rewarding. There are many people on this forum who do exactly the same thing you are about to embark on so be sure to share your experiences and tips too.

Happy Business Travels!

 

[freedomdeluxe]

Thanks so much for the advice.

Brilliant. Will be sure to keep updating in here and stay active/help myself.

Would be interested to chat to other members in a similar situation too!

T

Matt has some good comments and on top of this I would echo that using points is not the best strategy...
Happy Business Travels!

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF freedomdeluxe!

 

[cove]

Where are you based?
What class of travel are you hoping to achieve?
Welcome to AFF!
I agree with t-t-r that Citi Prestige cc (non Qantas) is a winner and we have both in our family.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Suggest you check out this thread for credit card options:

Current Credit Card Promotions

 

[freedomdeluxe]

Hey Cove,

I'm based in Melbourne.

My business does really well - however I find it hard to personally justify the cost of upgrading to first class and only just started travelling business class (so i'm not so wrecked when I land in the country i'm working in).

I think "damn I could spend that extra $xx_X on something else and just suck it up in economy" - but long term this is not the right way to go.

I love travel - so expect to do 5/6 trips a year. Plus my long time girlfriend is from the USA so hope to take her on business class/first class trips too.

I'm curious: why go the non-qantas card as opposed to just straight citi-reward?

Loving this community so far.

Where are you based?
What class of travel are you hoping to achieve?
Welcome to AFF!
I agree with t-t-r that Citi Prestige cc (non Qantas) is a winner and we have both in our family.

 

[cove]

Ok out of Melbourne you can go Qantas Premium Economy and apply for an upgrade to business class on points.
Dr Ralph is correct with credit card sign on bonuses.
Long time girlfriend may be good for US credit card sign ons. Read "One Mile at a Time" for credit card info in the US.
We use SQ for much international flying as there is availability on Kris Miles. That pick is better out of Perth for the US travels.

 

[BettyB]

Welcome