EatSleepDive

This gal is trying to put together a solo scuba diving trip using AA points. Any tips will be appreciated on best way to route etc.

Flying from San Antonio, Texas to Labuan Bajo, Indonesia.... hopefully on AA points:

~ Departure:
SAT > DFW
(early am flight)
DFW > HKG
(long layover? So spend nite in HKG?)
_________________________________
HKG > DPS
(spend nite in DPS)
____________________________________
DPS > LBJ (Garuda Air, cash)
************************************************** ****

~ Return: LBJ > DPS > HKG (overnite) > DFW > SAT

About how many days will it take to get to/from destination?

Kathie

That will leave you almost no time to do any diving.

Leaving DFW on an early morning flight will get you to Hong Kong the following day in the afternoon/evening. Is there any way you an fly onward to Denpasar that same day? That would save you a day in transit. You can then fly onward the next day to Labuan Bajo. So you would arrive in Hong Kong on Sunday, fly to DPS on Sunday as well. I don't know the flight schedule to Labuan Bajo, but you would get there sometime on Monday. If you take a long layover in Hong Kong, you would get to your destination on either late Monday or Tuesday, depending on whether you could get a flight from Denpasar the same day or not. So it will take two or three days to get there.

Your return takes less time, as you would regain your lost day on your flight from Hong Kong to DFW. So if you fly out of Labuan Bajo on a Friday and are able to get to Hong Kong the same day, you will arrive in DFW on Saturday. If you choose to overnight in Hong Kong on your return, you would have to leave Labuan Bajo a day earlier to get home on Saturday. So if you opt to layover, you would have to leave Labuan Bajo on Thursday. If you can time it right, it will only take two days on your return.

As you can see, choosing to layover in Hong Kong adds a whole day each way to your trip. Also, Hong Kong is the most expensive city in Asia for hotel rooms, so the layover would cost you dollars as well as time.

EatSleepDive

After I arrive in LBJ I will be diving on a liveaboard for about 8-9 days before returning home.

The flights arriving at HKG didn't seem to leave enough transit time to catch a later one to DPS. But yes, I would like to proceed onward as I would rather spend extra time in Bali rather than HKG. Perhaps I could look at an earlier flight out of DFW to avoid the HKG overnite.

Is there a reliable airline other than Garuda for the LBJ flights?

marmot

What time does your flight land in Hong Kong? There are 4 or 5 non-stop flights between Hong Kong and Bali. During the high tourist season in July and August more flights are added. It appears that there's a Garuda flight at 3:45 PM and a Hong Kong Airlines flight at 7:20 PM (but you need to reconfirm this).

Garuda has several non-stop flights between Bali and Labuan Bajo every day. The first flight is at 7:30 AM and the last at around 3:00 PM. There are also 3 budget airlines that make this route; however, I'd recommend that you try to fly Garuda as it will be more dependable.

Even on Garuda, flights in this part of the world often get delayed and canceled so don't cut your arrival and departure times too closely.

When does your boat leave from and return to Labuan Bajo? Bear in mind that you should wait at least 12 hours between diving and flying.

EatSleepDive

Thank you for your help....I appreciate your insights.

It's been a lot to consider when trying to get there on One World points.

The Hong Kong flight arrives at 4:10 pm and I wasn't able to find an award flight leaving late enough that same evening for me to catch.

I had wondered if I would be better off trying to get a trans-Atlantic flight from DFW connecting in Doha instead. Maybe I could get into Bali from Doha early enough to catch the afternoon flight on Garuda and save one overnight hotel (not cheap in Doha either!)

I could handle a long connection time of 6-8 hours but it would be very tiring for longer than that.

I'm planning to spend a full day in Bali to allow my luggage to catch up and to rest a bit after the long haul from US.

CaliforniaLady

Here is a One World map that I find helpful for award travel:

http://onw.innosked.com/(S(e4thbgbhv....aspx?show=MAP

There are strict routing rules for each type of award. I could be wrong, but the Asia awards, which I redeem often, do not allow travel through Doha.The best way to get to Bali is to take Cathay via Hong Kong, and then on to Bali. You can stop up to 24 hours in Hong Kong. Malaysia Air is also a possibility, but no as nice as Cathay. With Malaysia, you could fly into Kuala Lumpar, and get to Bali easily from there.

Sometimes it helps to just call AA. All the agents used to be fabulous, but since they merged with US Air, it's hit or miss. At least they can tell you if your proposed routing is allowed. I sometimes call a few times aver a couple of days until I get some intelligent life.

marmot

If your flight arrives in Hong Kong at 4:10 PM you'd have plenty of time to connect to the 7:20 PM Hong Kong Airlines Flight to Bali Denpasar, but of course that wouldn't be an award flight.

You might also look at connecting through Tokyo on JAL and Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian. If the MH flights from KL to Bali aren't convenient, you could also look at AirAsia. AirAsia has several nonstops from KL to Bali each day and fares are very low.

Qatar has two nonstops from Doha to Bali, at 3:15 AM and at 8:30 AM., but as CaliforniaLady says that may not be allowed under award rules.