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Frequent Travelers - Using Points Question

S

Spooner

Lifer
So I'm trying to plan a 14 day stay in Hawaii for me and my wife for our honeymoon. Looking at possibly booking 3/25-4/8 as the dates.

I will be using Marriott, Delta, and AMEX points to pay. Marriott looks to be no problem and I've already looked at hotels for that time period that I can use the points.

My question is now down to flights. Ideally, we'd like to go first class the whole way (given that this is a honeymoon)

I have about 180k Delta points (currently Gold status) and about 95k AMEX points (platinum card). I was told that I can combine these points, so my first question is if that assumption is true?

Looked at a multi city flight option assuming we'd fly into Honolulu, island hop, and end up flying back to Boston from Maui

Pricing this out with miles looks like it'll cost 90,000pp for economy and 157,500 for first class.

Questions:
- Should I be able to do better than that? My dates are flexible
- If I use miles for economy flights, can I upgrade using miles to first class?
- If I book economy, what's the cost (in dollars) for first class upgrade?
- Any general tips/tricks I should consider when booking this travel?
 
I used miles to upgrade my flight. Paid for the economy seats and had guaranteed upgrades to first class from miles.
I had to call United to get it done and was hit with the $15 booking fee or whatever it was back then ('06) but it worked out fine.

I don't think you can book economy off miles and then pay money to upgrade.
 
Ok - confirmed that AMEX converts to Delta Sky Miles 1:1, so that's good but I still don't have the 315k miles it would take to book full first class both ways
 
Does Delta or Amex let you buy points? Some rewards cards do - although certain ones *cough* United *cough* rape you with the points per $
 
You should have enough miles for 2 business elite tickets at the saver level (85k/pp). Delta award search is notoriously bad at find availability / pricing awards. Try searching for partner availability on Alaska or Hawaiian or try calling and working through your itinerary with an agent.
 
I have found calling to always be the best option when using miles. The agents can get a lot more creative than you can online. Explain that it is your honeymoon and maybe the agent will be in a good mood and toss in some extra's for you (club passes, drink coupons, etc.).
 
For future reference, here is the best way to use flyer miles:

1) Get a Chase United Explorer card (gives you 30K flyer miles for signing up)
2) Get a Chase Sapphire Preffered card (gives you 40000 points for signing up) You can transfer points directly from the Sapphire card to your united flyer account.

Doing those two things gives you 70,000 flyer miles off the bat. United has cheap award travel if you use their "saver" awards. A round trip ticket to honolulu will run you 40,000 flyer miles per person. (looking at bing travel, it seems the cheapest ticket from where I live to honolulu would cost about $900/person from any carrier), so you are essentially getting a 2/1 value on your points. All you would need to do is spent another 10K and you would have enough points for two round trip tickets to honolulu. After your trip just cancel the cards (or have them switch you off the annual payment)

My wife and I are going round trip to Phuket on flyer miles I got this way. I've found that United has cheaper award travel than other carriers, but it isn't as convenient (you only have certain dates to choose from for the saver awards). So if you can stomach flying United you'll get the best value for your points.

Another perk of the Chase United card is you get double miles for flights booked with that card. I travel a good bit for work, so this really gets me alot of miles. One round trip ticket to the middle east gives me like 40,000 flyer miles.
 
Last edited:
thanks big, but i've already done all the tips/trips (including opening up credit cards) to accrue the points, now i'm looking to use them in the most efficient/useful way possible
 
Spooner said:
thanks big, but i've already done all the tips/trips (including opening up credit cards) to accrue the points, now i'm looking to use them in the most efficient/useful way possible
Click to expand...

Yeah. Mostly posted for other people. Delta is a much better carrier, but you can get award tickets on United for about half the miles.
 
You need to spend some time on FlyerTalk. Start reading this thread to get some ideas on searching Delta for award seats:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...tive-how-search-low-tier-business-awards.html

Keep an eye out for transfer bonus from Amex to Delta. They haven't had one in a while but you never know. In the past they have offered 50% or even 100% bonus, elite status, etc.

There is rumor of another transfer bonus from Amex to BA coming in December. You can use BA (Avios) to book flights on AA for ~22K miles (economy) from the west coast. You could split up your trip using Delta to get to LA and then BA to get to HNL.
 
Exterous said:
I have found them to easily be the cheapest among the Chase partners for international flights
Click to expand...

Who? United?

A quick comparison for United vs Delta for a trip to Phuket:

United: 65000 miles/person and it takes me all the way to phuket
Delta: 152000 miles/person and the closest I can get is bangkok
 
bignateyk said:
Who? United?

A quick comparison for United vs Delta for a trip to Phuket:

United: 65000 miles/person and it takes me all the way to phuket
Delta: 152000 miles/person and the closest I can get is bangkok
Click to expand...

Yep. United wanted 60000/person round trip to London or 125,000 round trip First Class. BA wanted ~140,000, Chase wanted ~125,000 for economy
 
I would look at just doing your main flight from the US mainland to Honolulu in 1st class and pay for the island hopper flights. You can fly business class to Europe for 100k miles so not sure why it is costing so many points unless it's the highest tier of award.
 
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