Miles on Sale

[tinkybelle]

It's a 30% discount in cost and applied at points purchase. I do not think it is an additional 30% in bonus miles.

correct 40k for under $US800 total.

 

[JohnK]

From experience is the current offer, buy 40,000 and get 10,000 bonus, the best we are likely to see this year?

I will look at the details later but can a person redeem an award flight for family? What is the catch? Can the credit card used to make payment belong to either person?

 

[drron]

From experience is the current offer, buy 40,000 and get 10,000 bonus, the best we are likely to see this year?

I will look at the details later but can a person redeem an award flight for family? What is the catch? Can the credit card used to make payment belong to either person?

Probably is going to be.Recently had a 30% bonus but that was for 30th anniversary of Aadvantage.
Definitely can redeem an award for family.
Certainly can use other person's CC.
We have done both of these.
No catch as far as I am aware.

 

[lmere12]

I was hoping to see the 40k plus 20k bonus again, maybe it was a one off. Just looked through and that out in Nov '10.

 

[NM]

From experience is the current offer, buy 40,000 and get 10,000 bonus, the best we are likely to see this year?

I will look at the details later but can a person redeem an award flight for family? What is the catch? Can the credit card used to make payment belong to either person?

While this 25% bonus is fairly common, I would expect we are unlikely to see anything better in the near future.

I redeemed an AAdvantage award flight for my Sister-on-law just last night. Took all of 5 mins on the phone to AA in USA. Used 20,000 miles for PER-SYD-PER plus US$49.60 (US$25 telephone ticketing service + 24.60 Tax/Fee/Charge).

Unlike QFF, AAdvantage does not limit awards to eligible family members. You can redeem an award for anyone - just need to have their details available when booking.

 

[JohnK]

Redeeming awards for non-family members is more in line with FF programs such as KrisFlyer and Royal Orchid Plus. Good to see that it is a feature of AAdvantage as well.

 

[be22er]

My partner and I are looking at a RTW trip in June next year and i wondered if this would be a good option for us? For $2k we could get 100k miles between us which seems like a great deal but I'm wondering how to make the best use of them? Would I be able to combine these with QFF miles when trying to book the RTW tickets?
Ideally I'd like all of the flights booked ahead of the trip (to aid budgeting) but if the reasons are compelling I'd be happy to go a little more ad hoc and reactive.

I'm new to all this so apologies in advance for the newb questions but any suggestions welcome.

thanks

Steve

 

[JohnK]

Unfortunately you cannot combine AA miles with QFF points but you can do a RTW award on AA miles and another RTW award on QFF points and have the bookings linked together although there is no guarantee you will be seated together.

I think it costs 90,000 AA miles for a very basic RTW award in economy and 143,500 QFF points for a Oneworld award up to 35,000 miles.

 

[ossi]

Do point redemptions on US Airways include or exclude taxes?

I assume that they exclude taxes but a redemption on a SQ flight would have the same taxes as a SQ booking

 

[grussellt]

Well I bought 45000 AA miles for $US930 with the intention of flying CDG-SYD next year (probably October). Even with the booking fee it should be cheaper than QF/BA from LHR (around $A1050), and much cheaper than from CDG (around $A1384) unless there is a big reduction in one-way fares. Hopefully I will be able to book by phone with AA in the US and use free calls on Google phone. If all goes according to plan that will be a RTW ( outward SYD -CDG via the US) for 64000 QFF points and about $A1200 in cash. That's fine by me!

 

[Pumbaa]

It was quite an interesting read of this entire thread on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Perth.
Can I just ask a few questions to see if I understand everything I read correctly.

I can buy 50 000 AA miles currently for $1030US dollars (bargain with the current exchange rate)

Then I can redeem a 1 way Sydney - Hong Kong flying First Class for 45 000 miles?
This will give me access to the famous Qantas First Class Lounge?

Are seats readily available, or are they pretty much the same as from the Qantas site?

I live in Perth, so I'm guessing if I want to fly F to Hong Kong, I'd have to arrange a flight from Perth - Sydney, then use miles for Sydney - Hong Kong?

 

[drron]

No.An Aaward from either Perth or Sydney in F would be 45000 miles.Of course you would have to slum it in J from PER-SYD.
Basically same availability.Would help having status on AA.As I have pointed out before I sometimes get awards in premium cabins on QF from AA that I cant access through QF.

 

[Pumbaa]

I don't think that would help very much as I am a lowly Qantas bronze. Mind you, owning an Amex Plat Charge, I might be lucky and get gold status with CX. Haven't received my invite yet, but others on this forum have, so I'm still hoping I might get one too! Would gold on CX help?

One last question, that might have been covered before, whats the deal with stopovers? Do they allow one stop-over per flight? Be nice to stay a few days in Sydney before I fly off to Hong Kong. It will also allow me to spend more time in the Qantas F lounge if I time it right!

 

[rcn]

No stopovers allowed, by transit stops (<24 hrs) are fine.
Yup domestic to international connections are the best way to get to the lounge early!

 

[laffer]

Am I correct in my understanding that if I purchase 40k miles now (plus the bonus) and then wait until 1 Jan 2012 and do the same I can pretty much get a return flight in J to Europe for about 2k? What am I missing?

 

[Hvr]

Am I correct in my understanding that if I purchase 40k miles now (plus the bonus) and then wait until 1 Jan 2012 and do the same I can pretty much get a return flight in J to Europe for about 2k? What am I missing?

Yes your understanding is correct.

What are you missing? Hopefully nothing because I am doing the same waiting for a ticket to the US next year.

 

[drron]

If you get the same bonus in January as you get now it would give you 100000 miles whereas return J would be 120000.
And to US would be 125000 miles return in J.

 

[laffer]

If you get the same bonus in January as you get now it would give you 100000 miles whereas return J would be 120000.

Yep fair point. Need to secure another 20k somehow. I have about 40k in Amex rewards but that would not be enough for me and SWMBO. If you are patient I suppose it is a great way to secure a reasonable fare.

There is no way to transfer points between family? I could just sign a few people up but I understand this is not allowed (or uncompetitive)

 

[openseat]

A few points about redemptions which may be helpful:

No stopovers allowed, by transit stops (<24 hrs) are fine.
Yup domestic to international connections are the best way to get to the lounge early!

You have to be careful with the transit stops. You actually only get 4 hours to change flights on domestic connections, unless of course the next scheduled flight is after this, in which case you must take that flight. If the next available flight (either domestic or international connection) is greater than 24 hours after your scheduled arrival then it is considered a stopover.

An exception to the no stopover rule:
If you are flying to/from North America then you can have a stopover at the gateway city (eg. flying PER-SYD-LAX-JFK, you could have a stopover at LAX.)

Routing:
On an all-partner award (which is the award that most of us here at AFF would be using), you must use the most direct routing. This is determined by either:
1. A published fare's explicitly approved routing (This is where EF or KVS comes to the rescue); or
2. MPM +25%. (MPM is 'maximum permitted mileage' which often appears in the routing part of a fare. The +25% is quite generous of AA, it's certainly helped me!)

Wholly within one region (Aus - NZ):
This is only possible on QF, so no LAN AKL-SYD flights are possible for redemption under the wholly within one region. LAN can be used but it then becomes a South Pacific to South Pacific award.

 

[drron]

61000 Amex points transferred to SPG will give you~20000 SPG points.Transferred to AA will then give you 25000 AA miles.Free to open an SPG acct.
Now later this year AA might increase the limit on miles that you can buy-they did last year to 100,000 so that would solve the problem.
You can transfer miles but the limit is transfers and purchases so if you have bought 40000 miles then no go.And AA charges for transferring so really not a good option.