US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[lmere12]

So if I want to go with TG to EUR I have to ticket by 31/03 ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So if I want to go with TG to EUR I have to ticket by 31/03 ?

it seems that way. Or wait until 01/04 and book CX or QF

 

[FrankC]

Is there a equivalent to GUM from April?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Is there a equivalent to GUM from April?

Nope. AAdvantage rules are quite strict. There must (a) be a published airline fare on the route you want to take and (b) your itinerary must comply with various transit point restrictions (for example SWP-Europe is not permitted with a change of aircraft in the middle east, and various connections in Asia are also excluded on other itineraries)

(but on the plus side one-ways and date/route changes are permitted free of charge provided the origin and destination remain the same)

 

[shellthom]

I have 100,000 USDM and 100,000 QFF per person.
We are needing to go to GEG for a wedding end of june (but seems to have been pushed to july 5th or the next weekend now)
We are also taking a family trip (my parents, sister and her husband and us - there aren't any actual children coming) in June to CNS.
I haven't booked the SYD-CNS flights yet (will do with pricebeat) because I am trying to work out if we should start our USDM trip from CNS or Syd.
I wanted to go to EU as well as GEG.
If we did something like CNS-GUM-TPE-CDG-JFK-SYD would it meet the MPM for USDM? and then we would buy JFK-GEG-JFK separately.
Any Suggestions?

 

[bcworld]

I have 100,000 USDM and 100,000 QFF per person.
We are needing to go to GEG for a wedding end of june (but seems to have been pushed to july 5th or the next weekend now)
We are also taking a family trip (my parents, sister and her husband and us - there aren't any actual children coming) in June to CNS.
I haven't booked the SYD-CNS flights yet (will do with pricebeat) because I am trying to work out if we should start our USDM trip from CNS or Syd.
I wanted to go to EU as well as GEG.
If we did something like CNS-GUM-TPE-CDG-JFK-SYD would it meet the MPM for USDM? and then we would buy JFK-GEG-JFK separately.
Any Suggestions?

Great Circle Mapper = 13544mi

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.2 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: CNS-JFK/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      PA   12465   13088   13711   14334   14958   [B]15581[/B]

No MPM issues. You're not planning a stopover at CDG...correct? What about the BR TPE-JFK flight?

 

[anat0l]

I have 100,000 USDM and 100,000 QFF per person.
We are needing to go to GEG for a wedding end of june (but seems to have been pushed to july 5th or the next weekend now)
We are also taking a family trip (my parents, sister and her husband and us - there aren't any actual children coming) in June to CNS.
I haven't booked the SYD-CNS flights yet (will do with pricebeat) because I am trying to work out if we should start our USDM trip from CNS or Syd.
I wanted to go to EU as well as GEG.
If we did something like CNS-GUM-TPE-CDG-JFK-SYD would it meet the MPM for USDM? and then we would buy JFK-GEG-JFK separately.
Any Suggestions?

The JFK-SYD routing will be interesting (it may involve something like JFK-ORD-NRT-BKK-SYD or the like).

Note that starting in CNS and ending in SYD creates an open jaw which means you give up your en route stopover. You need to finish in CNS to keep your stopover. (Then find your way home from CNS to SYD). Now routing from JFK to CNS can be interesting! (Of course, you could route via GUM again).

 

[smit0847]

The JFK-SYD routing will be interesting (it may involve something like JFK-ORD-NRT-BKK-SYD or the like).

JFK-ICN-SYD on OZ?

Now routing from JFK to CNS can be interesting! (Of course, you could route via GUM again).

JFK-NRT/TPE-GUM-CNS.

 

[smit0847]

If we did something like CNS-GUM
Any Suggestions?

If only you knew how much effort we put into getting to GUM by avoiding the direct CNS-GUM flight!!

 

[anat0l]

JFK-ICN-SYD on OZ?

Forgot about OZ. Unless you have the OZ heebie jeebies (i.e. from the SFO incident)......

If only you knew how much effort we put into getting to GUM by avoiding the direct CNS-GUM flight!!

Yes, but this time this isn't an itinerary that involves the destination in GUM!

Notwithstanding the cost of positioning, starting from CNS has a nice advantage of bulking out the MPM!

 

[casanovawa]

The 17.5k flights in business to NZ from Perth are probably a reasonable deal, maybe not quite as much for the Eastern Staters... And Easter Island is considered to be in SWP isn't it, so its 30k miles in J from Oz, not sure of the route you would have to take as never booked it, so might have to hop across the pacific islands rather than go to South America first... Also don't know if its lists it but whether its really bookable or not???

I think i have heard of others going to cities in Asia which have to transit through Europe first, and whether these are really available or not, but in general yes AA are going to be tougher than USDM...

 

[bcworld]

Forgot about OZ. Unless you have the OZ heebie jeebies (i.e. from the SFO incident)......

I have OZ heebie jeebies based on having flown them for the first time recently!

 

[casanovawa]

BC, would you happen to know the MPMs for PER to BOG or whatever Quitos letters are??

 

[anat0l]

The 17.5k flights in business to NZ from Perth are probably a reasonable deal, maybe not quite as much for the Eastern Staters... And Easter Island is considered to be in SWP isn't it, so its 30k miles in J from Oz, not sure of the route you would have to take as never booked it, so might have to hop across the pacific islands rather than go to South America first... Also don't know if its lists it but whether its really bookable or not???

I think i have heard of others going to cities in Asia which have to transit through Europe first, and whether these are really available or not, but in general yes AA are going to be tougher than USDM...

You're talking about AA here, right? (There's no *A carrier that flies to Easter Island)

Yes, for the eastern seaboard, redemptions to NZ on AA aren't all the best value.

Easter Island is part of South Pacific zone. If the strict rules of AA All-Partner awards are followed, then the only way to get there from Australia would be to go via AKL and PPT. Australia-AKL on QF, AKL-PPT on Air Tahiti Nui (a non-oneworld AA partner), then LA to Easter Island. And that's assuming you can do all of that with <24 hour transits.

On the other hand, you can get stopovers in SCL and IPC, plus a little bit more, for 130,000 points in J using the relevant oneworld Explorer award. Much more expensive than the intra-zone option, but you do get a couple of stopovers.

The above might be O/T for this thread should probably go in an AA thread somewhere......

I have OZ heebie jeebies based on having flown them for the first time recently!

Why? What's wrong? (Not saying it's bad or good, just curious)

 

[casanovawa]

Has anye flown Ethiopian airlines recently??? Not sure which route has the 787 on it but anyone got and good or bad stories about it??

 

[casanovawa]

Is there a equivalent to GUM from April?

Yes my response about Easter Island was in response to this in terms of are there any good deals once USDM becomes AA...

 

[bcworld]

BC, would you happen to know the MPMs for PER to BOG or whatever Quitos letters are??

Not off the top of my head, no...but I can ask KVS!

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.2 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: PER-UIO/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      PA   13730   14416   15103   15789   16476   17162     
MPM      PN   15666   16449   17232   18015   18799   19582

Whichever indicator you use it looks pretty generous!

 

[shellthom]

Great Circle Mapper = 13544mi

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.2 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: CNS-JFK/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      PA   12465   13088   13711   14334   14958   [B]15581[/B]

No MPM issues. You're not planning a stopover at CDG...correct? What about the BR TPE-JFK flight?

Oh I see yes I forgot the open jaw rule, I was planning stop over CDG and Destination (if I can sneak it in) as JFK other wise the reverse.
Will return to CNS to avoid Open Jaw.
I am aware of the GUM tricks, but actually GUM is somewhere I would like to go, at least enroute to ROR and given that I am not getting any status for the flights I don't mind getting there more directly.
Now when I need/want to go to TYO and MNL I will not be saying such things haha.

 

[casanovawa]

Not off the top of my head, no...but I can ask KVS!

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.2 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: PER-UIO/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      PA   13730   14416   15103   15789   16476   17162     
MPM      PN   15666   16449   17232   18015   18799   19582

Whichever indicator you use it looks pretty generous!

Hmmm, looks good, bit of room to play around with there... So would that be almost 40k miles return???

 

[bcworld]

Hmmm, looks good, bit of room to play around with there... So would that be almost 40k miles return???

I would do my planning on the basis that I had 17162 miles in each direction (MPM isn't based on return totals)...that way you'd be less likely to run into issues.