AAFrequentFlyer

Buenos Aires, Adelaide and Taipei are the stopovers.....

111op

Thanks, so no Paris I guess?



Maybe I should try to fly to Paris before end of the year. I think that I've about 135000 right now.

AAFrequentFlyer

You know that Buenos Aires is called "the Paris of Americas"

Including any part of Europe would boost the mileage price.

AA is having a great sale going on at the moment to European destinations. Visit Paris ASAP and it should give you enough miles to top of your account and have enough miles for a business class trip to 3 different continents next year.

(if not, you can buy miles on www.aa.com)

LAN and CX J is very nice
QF J is a notch above

Good luck!

111op

Great, thanks AA. I'll spend some time going over this soon. I'm leaving for Germany next Friday, so one trip at a time.

AAFrequentFlyer

If you have ANY idea of the dates, I would call AAdvantage reservations ASAP and see what you can get. AA will hold an award res for 2 weeks and is willing to extend it for 2 more weeks each time <b>as long as the same flights have award availibility</b>.

Good luck and let us know how this turns out.

Have a great trip to Germany!

111op

Thanks again.

By the way, is it really worth it to cash in all the miles this way? I've not checked how much the flights will be if I price them individually.

I did take a look a look at AA's webpage. There's a 2500 mile bonus for flights to London, Frankfurt and Zurich in the fall. But I'm not sure if the cheapest airfares will qualify. Anyway, if I get the bonus I should have about 8500-9000 miles from a trip to Europe. I'll still be 4-5K short of 150000, which I guess I can buy if necessary.

If I don't have enough miles now, will they let me book a business class award anyway?

AAFrequentFlyer

Is it worth it?

it costs 125K miles for a business class or 75K for economy class award NYC-ADL All partner award. One stopover allowed in US or Australia.

150K miles for visting Buenos Aires, Adelaine and Taipei in business class..(or 100K miles for economy class)

You make the decision..........


Yes, you can make a res and AA allows 2 weeks hold, as explained in my earlier post....

AAFrequentFlyer

sorry, it's 120K miles for the OneWorld award in economy, not 100K miles...

111op

Thanks. I priced a random NYC -&gt; Sydney ticket and the cheapest is $1310 for January 2007. Interestingly the stopover is in San Francisco (the airline is US Air).

I'll think more about it.

wally34949

Sounds like U.S. Air will put you on a United Flight. Qantas economy has individual television monitors at each seat and (about) 16 channels of uncut movies, which does make the flight go by faster. They also serve Australian wine free! United does NOT have the individual television monitors--so I have heard.

I spoke to an Australian who flew United this past summer. He normally flies Qantas, but since United was a little cheaper, he thought he would give it a try. He said it was terrible and was sorry he tried to save the extra money.

111op

There's a thread in the Europe board on UA right now. The poster's flight was cancelled. Sounds horrible.

Anyway, I asked for time off today even though I've not been invited to the wedding (yet). I expect to make this trip and will work on it after I come back from Germany.

Thanks!

111op

I received the wedding invitation over the weekend, but I still haven't planned the trip yet.

In the meantime, I'm thinking that making a stopover in Istanbul or Tel Aviv would be better. Wouldn't this make more sense than flying to S. America on this trip?

Would this make more sense? So I'll go to Taipei, Australia, and Istanbul (or Tel Aviv?). Ideally I'd like to stop in both Istanbul and Tel Aviv, but I can buy a r/t between the two if it's more convenient. I imagine that that must be easy to do.

Sorry if the plans keep changing -- but I'm trying to figure out what the best thing to do is.

Thanks!

111op

Well, maybe I should try to stick to S. America. I was thinking that maybe I could fly there over Thanksgiving, but prices and schedules look insane.

But if Istanbul/Tel Aviv offers a better routing, maybe I'll go with it.

111op

Ok, if anyone is still reading -- I'm getting ready to call AA. I've thought about the itinerary more. Since there're a lot of moving parameters -- and who knows if seats are actually available -- I'd appreciate some more advice.

1. I want to fly to JFK to EZE (Buenos Aires). I'll do this on a Friday night if seats are available.

Q: If I want to visit Iguacu Falls, is this leg included? I think I fly to IGU? Should I mention this to the agent, or will this make it too confusing? I can pay out of my pocket.

2. I plan to leave EZE on Monday or Tuesday. The wedding is near Adelaide. It seems like I'll have to connect in Sydney (and Santiago). If I fly on Tuesday I'll arrive on Thursday. The wedding is on Friday.

Q: I assume the &quot;stopover&quot; in Sydney is included? I plan to be here for a day or two.

3. I'll leave Adelaide and fly to Asia after the wedding. I assume if I fly Cathay Pacific, I'll need to connect in Hong Kong.

I thought about going to China (there're no direct, scheduled flights between Taipei and China), but since I was there last year, I thought that maybe I should try Japan instead.

I've been to Tokyo, but I've never been to Kyoto. So it seems like that's worth a try. After searching the Asia forum, it looks like Kansai (KIX) is the closest airport.

I must stop in Taipei, so that part of the itinerary can't be changed.

Q: How best to route this part of the trip? Perhaps fly from Australia to Japan directly? Then from Japan to Taipei and from Taipei back home? I guess I could also fly to Taipei first and then fly home from Japan.

The time frame for this trip is Dec. 29 (Friday) to Jan. 15 (Monday).

Thanks again!

Gardyloo

Me again.

Time for a wee reality check.

This is about the busiest time of year for travel to/from the southern hemisphere, especially Oz/NZ as it's summer break for kids, not to mention Christmas/New Years etc. If you're thinking of using miles for awards in this period, the pickings will be virtually nil by this point.

Ordinarily a &quot;Circle Pacific&quot; ticket would work, using Lan's Chile - Oz service, but those flights are fully booked almost throughout the month of January, so you'd have to return to the US and then continue to Oz. That negates the Circle fare, so you'd be left needing to pay the going rate, which for a JFK-EZE-SYD-NRT-JFK itinerary is at least US$5000, considerably more with additional stops. In coach. If you skip the S America portion the Circle would probably work, around $3500.

If you're up for that, go for it. Move quick, though - there really are some pretty full planes in that period.

111op

I guess I'll call AA and get disappointed about the awards first. Then I'll think about paying.

But $5000 sounds like a lot. JFK to Asia r/t is about $1000+. JFK to S. America is about $1000+. I've no experience with tickets to Australia though.

I can skip S. America and go a different time. But even $3500 sounds like a lot. Maybe I should think about paying for a ticket for Asia and then buying a ticket between Australia and Asia separately?

111op

Yes, Gardyloo, you're correct. I called and there's just nothing available. I tried Dec. 29 for EZE, and I can't leave until Dec. 31. But from there I can't find seats for Australia even if I'm willing to go two days late.

I tried Dec. 29 for Australia and Taipei (think I'll reverse the itinerary). Nothing either.

Is there something else I can try? Perhaps fly to London first or something like that?

I guess I need to think about paying for a ticket.

111op

As gardyloo says, Dec-Jan is high season for Australia, according to this page:

http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn...ls/webDeals217

It looks like I'll have to pay at least 2000. Scary.

I wonder where those sub-1500 fares went. But maybe I didn't put in the right dates when I was randomly checking a month ago.

111op

Ok, I spent the whole day figuring out how to book this, and I can't quite manage yet.

On China Airlines website I can book JFK to TPE r/t for about 1100.

On Singapore Airlines website I can book JFK to SIN r/t for about 1200.

Separately TPE to SYD r/t and SIN to SYD r/t are both about 1100.

So I can do the trip for about 2200-2300 (excluding all the extra stops).

Because TPE is an obligatory stop, I probably have to fly China Airlines. I'm not that excited about it. Of course I'd rather fly Singapore Airlines or Qantas.

Then I started wondering if I can combine this with a trip to Europe. After wasting a lot of time on Orbitz, I found a routing that was promising:

NYC to LHR, LHR to SYD, HKG to NYC for about 1700.

If I price NYC to LHR, LHR to HKG, HKG to NYC the airfare is down to 1500 or so. (So the extra cost for HKG to SYD is only about 200.)

But I find it really odd that if I add in a segment from SYD to HKG, the fare jumps to about 2500.

The same thing happens if I use SIN as a stopover. I can't understand why this is the case. The HKG to JFK leg comes up as Qantas, so you'd think that throwing in SYD to HKG shouldn't affect the airfare by much. But that's not the case.

Having TPE in Orbitz is always prohibitively expensive. So separately I'd have to buy tickets for TPE.

Anyway, if you guys have any more ideas, please let me know. Thanks!

Gardyloo

Y'know, if you want help with this you're going to have to put in dates. Prices will fluctuate all over the map depending on fare class availability from one day to the next. On some of your routes there aren't daily flights; on others there are only a couple of planes daily and the cheap seats have long been bought by people who planned farther in advance. You can't really have cake and eat it too with what amounts to near last-minute bookings.

A cheap round trip to London, then an economy RTW ticket starting there that allows travel to Australia is <i>probably</i> going to be the cheapest alternative to get you to both Sydney and Taipei, but timing is everything.