Points gurus - how would you spend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

The play is finding saver business awards, but finding 4 roundtrip is going to be very very difficult. And the prices to those locations are around 100-120k/each way. I just booked 2 Singapore Airlines biz awards to Tokyo for 125k/person each way. But only 2 were available at that price point.

I'm not opposed to kids being in coach. They are 16 and 13 now and this would be next summer so 17 and 14. They should be fine.

[Anonymous]

I’d use them for multiple trips, planned far in advance. Example: We are flying fr W Coast to Johannesburg for 3 weeks. 75,000 miles pp on United going there in business, then 75,000 pp on BA returning. We went to Chile last year and it was 30,000 pp with American points for premium economy. I keep balances in as many airlines and credit cards as I can so, like a bank account, I have options when I’m planning travel. I try to have some hotel points too but we’re not so interested in luxury so I’d rather use most of my points to get to places I want to go in comfort.

And I agree with an earlier poster - check Pointsyeah and other sites that see what points flights are available and go from there. I just saw that the Johannesburg to Lusaka, Zambia flights that are listed for $300pp each way can be booked for 7,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points pp, so I’m going to move points from Amex to Aeroplan and we’ve just saved a few thousand $.

[Anonymous]

We spent a bulk of ours for 3 lay flat seats RT with JAL. You have to plan in advance and jump on them pretty much as soon as they become available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

The play is finding saver business awards, but finding 4 roundtrip is going to be very very difficult. And the prices to those locations are around 100-120k/each way. I just booked 2 Singapore Airlines biz awards to Tokyo for 125k/person each way. But only 2 were available at that price point.

I'm not opposed to kids being in coach. They are 16 and 13 now and this would be next summer so 17 and 14. They should be fine.

If you are flexible with location and time you can absolutely find 2 business class seats at saver award levels to those locations (although Australia can be hard).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

The play is finding saver business awards, but finding 4 roundtrip is going to be very very difficult. And the prices to those locations are around 100-120k/each way. I just booked 2 Singapore Airlines biz awards to Tokyo for 125k/person each way. But only 2 were available at that price point.

I'm not opposed to kids being in coach. They are 16 and 13 now and this would be next summer so 17 and 14. They should be fine.

Go to Pointsyeah and look at their explorer. Set it to US to Japan. Set banks to American Express, check just business and first, and then set premium cabin to 100%. Then just look at a few months and see what the options are. It’ll show you availability from all major US cities. For something like Japan you will likely need to be open to repositioning to another major city. Then flip to Japan to US and reverse course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

With more and more airlines moving to dynamic pricing, you should be able to get four business class seats.

[Anonymous]

awesome. Thanks OP for starting this thread and letting me join.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.


NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

You can search business class tickets. Once you try it, you see that there are multiple ways to book the same trip, using a variety of credit card or other points. Its a membership fee--can't remember how much--that allows you to search a year out. But you can test it out for free I think . So right now, the same business class United flight that is 200k points on united shows ms 88k chase ultimate reward points. You can select to search only amex points, etc, etc. I am guessing that pointsyeah is a similar thing. I never really understood the whole points/credit card thing until I realized these sites exist. They also alert you when there are really great deals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d use them for multiple trips, planned far in advance. Example: We are flying fr W Coast to Johannesburg for 3 weeks. 75,000 miles pp on United going there in business, then 75,000 pp on BA returning. We went to Chile last year and it was 30,000 pp with American points for premium economy. I keep balances in as many airlines and credit cards as I can so, like a bank account, I have options when I’m planning travel. I try to have some hotel points too but we’re not so interested in luxury so I’d rather use most of my points to get to places I want to go in comfort.

And I agree with an earlier poster - check Pointsyeah and other sites that see what points flights are available and go from there. I just saw that the Johannesburg to Lusaka, Zambia flights that are listed for $300pp each way can be booked for 7,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points pp, so I’m going to move points from Amex to Aeroplan and we’ve just saved a few thousand $.

Zambia is our next safari stop now that we’ve done SA and Bots. Good to know re Aeroplan points!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

Please share how you got london tickets for 12000 points. I'm okay with a work around

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

Please share how you got london tickets for 12000 points. I'm okay with a work around

I'm guessing the work around was transferring the points to Virgin instead of booking through Chase directly, or transferring to the bigger US partners like United. But 12000 points to London would've had a hefty cash co-pay, possibly approaching the price of the ticket if you paid entirely with cash.

[Anonymous]

We got Virgin tickets IAD to LHR for 10k points and about $150 in fees last summer (one way.) We flew home from Paris on AirFrance for 20k and similar taxes.

So about $300 and 30k chase points per person. Not the best redemption but we are happier than paying $1200+ for summer tickets to Europe. We got to fly NS to and from the exact cities we wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.

Please share how you got london tickets for 12000 points. I'm okay with a work around

I'm guessing the work around was transferring the points to Virgin instead of booking through Chase directly, or transferring to the bigger US partners like United. But 12000 points to London would've had a hefty cash co-pay, possibly approaching the price of the ticket if you paid entirely with cash.

That's not the workaround, that's the proper way to book. Never use the portal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got Virgin tickets IAD to LHR for 10k points and about $150 in fees last summer (one way.) We flew home from Paris on AirFrance for 20k and similar taxes.

So about $300 and 30k chase points per person. Not the best redemption but we are happier than paying $1200+ for summer tickets to Europe. We got to fly NS to and from the exact cities we wanted.

Great awards, unfortunately both airlines have hiked their surcharges in the last year, I think it would be $200 more/person this year. Still a good deal at those points prices, but not especially good if you are paying more than 25k/each way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
definitely use one of the points websites--I like point.me. I recently got flights to london non stop for about 12k points each way by doing a kind of work around, instead of using points directly on the airline or credit card sites where it was like 40k points. I search them for business class deals as well--last year DH and I went to the dolonites, business there and economy plus back for 100k points total, non stop to venice, in july.

as to how i would spend? We have a list of places to go. I kind of search for the time period and places I'm interested in and see what's available. We have a lot of places on our list, japan, turkey, argentina, vietnam/thailand, etc. I would use the points to fly business long haul.


NP here. I have $1M amex points! Not kidding. I want to use for long haul flights/upgrades. Kids want to go to Australia, Japan, Thailand, ect. I'm in! But we are 4. So do you get regular flights with points and then upgrades with cash?

You can search business class tickets. Once you try it, you see that there are multiple ways to book the same trip, using a variety of credit card or other points. Its a membership fee--can't remember how much--that allows you to search a year out. But you can test it out for free I think . So right now, the same business class United flight that is 200k points on united shows ms 88k chase ultimate reward points. You can select to search only amex points, etc, etc. I am guessing that pointsyeah is a similar thing. I never really understood the whole points/credit card thing until I realized these sites exist. They also alert you when there are really great deals.

So do you have a general idea of what you want to do or go eg safari or Europe or Asia and then you monitor for the flights and work the trip and lodging around that?

We do a lot of safaris and travel to see family in Europe regularly and I’ve never been able to get the award flight availability to match up with lodge / family availability.