Have point in qantas, velocity and Amex MR.
Which airlines should I target for
Australia to Hawaii.
Calgary or Vancouver to NYC.
NYC to LA (or maybe Vegas, San Francisco instead).
And then home to Australia from any of the above.
Cheers
Redemption Flights in US / Canada. Who to Use?
tunzafun001 on 17/03/2019 - 11:42
Comments
Yeah, Cheers. But keeping the J280 for another time as we don't have time to go through Europe etc.
Just not sure the best redemption search engines to use for the US/ Canada.
Delta / American Airlines?
If you tick the "Use points - Classic Flight Rewards only" box on Qantas and do a multi-city, it should display all of their partners' options.
Cheers.
Hoping for an Open Jaw return, say Melbourne to HNL, Then LA to ADL will work out with Qantas.
@tunzafun001: MEL to HNL is a tricky route. Not impossible, but are you aiming for J or Y class? Velocity is useful to book HA awards. Easy to book over the phone once you find awards available. Search for HA awards using aa.com (SYD/BNE/AKL) and then match up with a velocity positioning flight to SYD/BNE/AKL.
Vancouver to NYC - I'd target a CX award via QF as CX fly direct.
NYC - East Coast - never done this, but search for AA award via QF?
East Coast - home. Depending on availability, it might be easier to find SQ Award via Singapore, or a QF Award flying JL via NRT or CX via HKG?
Provided you can find availabililty, that'd make use of VF, QF & MR points.
@donbot: Thanks tizey, very informative. Much appreciated.
So…
Hawaian airlines via aa.com engine (using Qantas points?), with a Virgin domestic flight to dept port, ie Sydney etc.
Vancouver - Via Qantas search engine? (Qantas points again), or Asia Miles for CX flight (assume there is a CX search engine, or is Qantas the same?).
New York to LA (QF search/ AA.com). To be honest, now looking at NYC straight back home.
If we do go eastern states it could be QF / KF/ Asia Miles (CX).
Cheers
@tunzafun001: Search for hawaiian via aa.com, but book using velocity. Should be able to book it as an ADL-SYD-HNL type situation with VF & HA flights. Cant use Qantas points for HA.
Vancouver - New York via Qantas Engine. CX Engine might give you better availability, but may not be bookable using QF (could use Asia Miles via MR though?)
NYC straight home - look at Qantas Engine (flying QF, EK, CX or JL), SQ Engine.
Hopefully you're not trying around school holidays.
@donbot: A few weeks just after hols :) hoping this will be a down time. Will find out tonight when I get home.
Thanks for your help. Exactly what I was after.
@tunzafun001: Not sure if I'm doing it wrong but SYD - HNL for the 28th April, HA flights show up as 37.5k/ 64k J on AA.com, but are 100K+ velocity points + taxes via Virgin. Qantas are 37k points + $230 taxes. So will likely just book a cash flight with Jetstar (around $450) from ADL to HNL.
Looks like we are going to RV it to Calgary, then fly from there to NYC. Haven't looked at flights from Calgary yet.
NYC to home, there are no J flights on Qantas engine the whole month, but 29k + $300 taxes for Economy (good enough). Cash price is around $950, return flights $80 more :(
I swear I used to use a nice Delta search engine for virgin availability, but the delta page is now rubbish.
Haven't looked at CX or KF yet.I normally use the award.flights chrome extension as it finds more availability, but it is coming up with nothing (bad timing). Anyone else finding this?
@donbot: Hmmm, just seen we could also do a multi city via Fiji (with Fiji airways) to break up the flight
This is the best value you will get if you have enough Qantas points, a little flexibility and book well in advance.
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/qantas-round-the-world-classic…
The Australian Frequent Flyer forum has a huge thread on it that's worth a look at if you decide to go that path.