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Help me get back from Sydney


epixx
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We would like to cruise Celebrity Solstice from Auckland to Sydney (Dec 10-23), but the airfare costs more than the cruise (!), and yes, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek. I know, I know... we should book a suite so that the cruise costs more than the airfare. Barring that, we ask you to come up with some creative ways to get from the Washington area there and back.

 

(1) We have a supply of Aadvantage miles that we could use for MileSaaver awards (2) to get to AKL around 1 Dec, but we cannot find any MileSaaver awards for the return from SYD from 23 to 31 Dec. Yes; I understand that this is the holiday period, so that we are unlikely to find any of these for SYD to mainland USA. Are there any creative routes that might be more likely to have MileSaaver award availability?

 

(2) We priced a one way flight from SYD to WAS on the Air2Sea, but (gee whiz) the flight costs more than the cruise (tongue once again planted in cheek).

 

(3) Flights are now on sale from Chicago (multicity) for less than $1100 (still more than the cruise...), but this seems like a very good price, as flights from WAS are around $1700. Would you take the chance of buying the flights from Chicago and adding on a separate ticket for round trip WAS to CHI? We're not so concerned about the time of travel, just the risk of separate flights. How long a time interval would you think is reasonable between arriving on the WAS to CHI flight and then departing on the following flight to AKL?

 

 

If you have any other creative solutions, please feel free to provide them. Our budget for flights would be a maximum of $1400.

Thank you for considering.

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I don't know a lot about the AA program, but on United I would be looking at flying SYD to PEK, SIN, HKG, ICN or TYO on allied airlines, then catching a flight to WAS on UA or allied airlines. Might work. Did similar research a few years ago for SFO-SYD-SFO flights.

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Without a lot of deep dive, several thoughts.

 

1) Look to partner availability. Tools such as KVS and ExpertFlyer can search for award availability on various airlines. Perhaps you will find it worth the cost to subscribe to one or both (research to see what can meet your need).

 

2) Look for availability for the most difficult segment of the journey first. That would be the TPAC segments. Especially since award seats to Australia & NZ are some of the toughest to find in the FF world. Consider paid tickets to get to award gateways.

 

3) Be flexible in your routing. What you want to find is ANY seat to/from North America. Not just to/from IAD or DCA. Research what all the oneWorld partners are that fly TPAC/Asia routes and look at their gateways. Cathay, Qantas, JAL, and Malaysia all come to mind. So even though routing SYD-HKG-YVR-JFK seems like a lot of flying, if it enables you to snag an award, take it.

 

4) Be flexible in your timing. Yes, you need to be in AKL by a certain date and can't leave SYD until another certain date. But keep your eyes open to flights that aren't right around those days. Plus, it will give you time to enjoy Australia and NZ more than just a "get there, on ship, off ship, fly home" trip. You're going a LONG way. Might as well maximize your travel flight time.

 

5) Check the AAdvantage fare rules for stopovers. Let's say that you can get seats from SYD to HKG on one day, but can't leave there for three days. Will AA allow you to have that stopover at the same redemption rate? (I can't speak to AA rules, since I don't redeem on them). Stopovers give you much more flexibility, plus you can spend time in other cities along the way.

 

6) Know that on international itineraries, your time window for "connections" (as opposed to "stopovers") is a full 24 hours, not the four hours for domestic flights. And that can include an overnight along the way (with hotel at your own expense, of course). Again, much more flexibility.

 

7) If you aren't up for the research and investment of your time, know that there are several quite reputable companies/individuals who will research and book your award travel. These are fee based services, but you may decide they are worth it for you.

 

8) Unfortunately, I can't give you much more advice with AAdvantage redemptions, so my thoughts are pretty generic for all award programs. Maybe Zach, who is an AA elite, will have additional insights.

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(3) Flights are now on sale from Chicago (multicity) for less than $1100 (still more than the cruise...), but this seems like a very good price, as flights from WAS are around $1700. ...

 

If you have any other creative solutions, please feel free to provide them. Our budget for flights would be a maximum of $1400.

I did a quick and dirty search on ITA for flights and saw some flights from the WAS area below $1,400 if you fly to AKL on 6 December and fly back from SYD on 24 December; if flying to AKL on 7 December and flying back from SYD on 23 December, flights can be had for $1,526. If those are bookable, would that be close enough?
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The problem with using AAdvantage miles for travel to/from Oz/NZ at that time of year is that Qantas is the principal partner serving the transpacific routes. Not only is this the peak of peaks for travel in the region (it's summer school holidays in addition to Christmas/New Years) but the problem is compounded by the fact that Qantas releases frequent flyer seats to its frequent flyers a full month earlier than they can be ticketed by AA or other partners, who use a shorter booking window than Qantas does. And while Qantas, like other airlines, use something of a dynamic allocation model in making seats available for mileage redemption, the odds of getting multiple seats on Qantas-operated flights diminishes as more people decide to purchase seats for money instead.

 

The few AA-operated flights on those routes also fill up fast, and AA's reluctance to release seats into award inventory on these routes is well known. So bottom line, I think you need to look for revenue tickets.

 

Would you take the chance of buying the flights from Chicago and adding on a separate ticket for round trip WAS to CHI?
Well, a quick check on ITA just now showed flights from WAS to AKL, back from SYD on days that I assume would work will cost $1600 give or take, while the ORD alternative was $1190, and a round trip from WAS to ORD was $307, so the total savings are around a hundred bucks a head, for which you add a hotel night at ORD and whatever weather or operational risks you'd encounter in the dead of winter going and coming. Not my risk v. reward picture, but YMMV.
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I just hit the jackpot! I got 4 (yes four!) MileSaaver award tickets from SYD to BWI via DFW on 12/25. Coach, but who's complaining?
Before you get totally locked in to this, it is worth calculating whether this is actually a good use of miles. I'm not sure how the cash element is charged on these tickets, but if you are paying a large cash element on top of the miles used then it can make it a very poor use of miles. This can be very pronounced when redeeming for economy tickets on certain airlines.
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Before you get totally locked in to this, it is worth calculating whether this is actually a good use of miles. I'm not sure how the cash element is charged on these tickets, but if you are paying a large cash element on top of the miles used then it can make it a very poor use of miles. This can be very pronounced when redeeming for economy tickets on certain airlines.

 

Thank you for the caveat. Cash payment is $92.01 per ticket plus 40K miles for SYD to BWI. Interestingly, I have on hold economy tickets from BWI to CHC in which cash payment is $27.80 per ticket plus 40K miles. Although I don't doubt that business/first tickets would be more cost-effective, I am still satisfied with the use of the miles in economy, particularly since business/first tickets are not available (nor are likely to become available per Gardyloo).

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We had the same issue two years ago.

 

We bought a ticket on Qantas' low cost carrier, Jetstar, from Sydney to Honolulu. The fare was less than $500 AUD. What surprised us was that we were on a Qantas/Jetstar code share flight. The same ticket, same seat, same flight booked on Qantas was substantially more money.

 

Once we got to Honolulu we were able to take advantage of a much more competitive one way flight market to North America. We spent two days and one night in Honolulu. It was a pleasant break from an otherwise long flight. The savings more than paid for our brief stop in HNL.

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