Jump to content

American Express Oceania Cruises offer is back


Charles4515
 Share

Recommended Posts

Klm coach is best 21k each way. My guess that's a mix of coach outound and bc inbound. No miles earned plus 200 taxes. I just had one way coach klm ord to Goa and it was 21k off season one way award. I transferred thank you points for ticket so I'm not real familiar with their award chard but 63k round trip would be great in bc 

 

Aa is 57k one way bc to Europe with 5 taxes or so. Klm and air France which are together have high taxes in their awards.

 

Amex is all in and a mileage warning ticket. 

 

I have way over those points on amex 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

63K in business is one way.

Your quote of 188K was round trip?

I apologize for doing a lousy job explaining.

 

Amex is 1 cent per dollar. They have a special fare reduced from 3300 to 2900 round trip sfo to ams I think I chose some random dates like Feb 22 to match 3, do not remember.

 

2900 is actually 290k points but their iap program rebates 35 pct on all bc fares, hence net around 188k.

 

In old days iap program was buy one bc get one free but had to be full j which might be over 7k per ticket. New way is better 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Paulchili said:

In your example, do you have to have 290000 points to buy the ticket and then get a rebate or can you just have 188000 to buy the ticket - a big difference. Also, are there any $ fees or taxes in addition to the points?

Still, even at 188K it's a LOT of points. On KLM I can have that business class ticket for as low as 63K miles on some dates and similarly on Iberia and BA.

2:35 PM San Francisco (SFO)
9:45 AM  +1  Amsterdam (AMS)
Trip duration: 10h10
Lowest fare
63 000 Miles
+ 210.35 USD*
KL606
2:35 PM
 
 
 
San Francisco, International Airport
9:45 AM +1
Amsterdam, Schiphol
Operated by
K L M
Aircraft
781
Class
World Business Class

Just so you know you can split tender with amex points and amex charge. So in our example if you had 100k amex points you could offer 1000 dollars with points and pay 1900. In end you'd have bc ticket and still have 35k rebate and 5 times points on 1900 dollars or 4500 more points. Therefore almost 40k points in bank but out 1900 dollars. Klm happens to be one of airlines like ba and af with high fuel charge fees on awards. In your example over 400 round trip for a "free" no mileage earning ticket 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thepla,

Thank you for taking the time to explain the Amex plan.

I am glad that it works for you. For better or worse, I have hitched my wagon to the Chase Reserve card plan and as you know, it works best if one puts all (or most) of the eggs in the same basket. Otherwise it’s hard to accumulate enough points/miles to do anything meaningful with. My backup card is Citi Thank You card for those elusive Cathay premium awards that were once readily available with AA miles in the past but no more.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Paulchili said:

thepla,

Thank you for taking the time to explain the Amex plan.

I am glad that it works for you. For better or worse, I have hitched my wagon to the Chase Reserve card plan and as you know, it works best if one puts all (or most) of the eggs in the same basket. Otherwise it’s hard to accumulate enough points/miles to do anything meaningful with. My backup card is Citi Thank You card for those elusive Cathay premium awards that were once readily available with AA miles in the past but no more.

We recently booked biz on CX, one-way Singapore-Newark, to return from our cruise for 70,000 AA miles pp. Thought that was a pretty good deal. Used award booking service to do it for us. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, Riverroad said:

We recently booked biz on CX, one-way Singapore-Newark, to return from our cruise for 70,000 AA miles pp. Thought that was a pretty good deal. Used award booking service to do it for us. 

Lucky you.

I am a Lifetime Plat with AA and have been booking awards with them for many, many years. There was a time not too long ago that at T-331 I could log on to AA and book my Cathay award 95% of the time in either Business or First. Then the Cathay elites complained that AA members, who greatly outnumber Cathay members, book all Cathay Firts awards. Thus Cathay decided to simply not allow any First awards to AA members. Since the US Air merger things have changed even more and lately even business awards on Cathay are next to impossible to get. Remember that Cathay members have access to awards 3 weeks before AA members do. Hence, no wonder that only a few crumbs are left, if one is lucky.

By transferring my Thank You points into my Cathay account I become a Cathay member and thus have access to First and Business awards like other Cathay members and that is 3 weeks before AA people do. Since I started this I have had no trouble getting Cathay business awards on several occasions.

One may still get a Cathay award with AA miles but the odds are so poor that I am not willing to take that chance - Asia, Hong Kong and Sydney are too far for that 😀

Edited by Paulchili
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the info Paul. I may have to get a Citi Thank You card although I’m not sure when we’ll be flying Cathay again. I have a lot of AA miles that I’d like to use up but, as you point out, it’s harder and harder to use them. That’s why we used an award booking service and we’d do it again if they can get me what I need. We’re flying SIN-HGK, then non-stop HGK-EWR. We may be too old to ever do it again.😀

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Riverroad said:

I have a lot of AA miles that I’d like to use up but, as you point out, it’s harder and harder to use them

You are not kidding! Over the years I have spent close to 2.5  million AA miles without much trouble. In the past I would never use miles for domestic flights - only for premium class long haul flights. Those are just not available anymore and I can't even find domestic First anymore to spend the last few of my miles left 😥 Even domestic economy awards are ridiculously high - goodbye AA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meanwhile I used the Amex offer for Celebrity and got $150 credit on a $500 purchase. 

 

I have 3 amex cards, Hilton, Delta, and Everyday, none of them had the Oceania offer. I did have and used the Oceania offer a few months ago. 

Edited by ORV
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, ORV said:

Meanwhile I used the Amex offer for Celebrity and got $150 credit on a $500 purchase. 

 

I have 3 amex cards, Hilton, Delta, and Everyday, none of them had the Oceania offer. I did have and used the Oceania offer a few months ago. 

Hi. I have platinum and 225 came back within days directly from Oceania. They also gave 280 obc for using card. I did transfer to another agent and 280 will be replaced by standard 300 plus free wine tasting and bottle of wine which is part of amex cruise priledges program. Agent threw in an additional 75 obc. To me this was pretty good as it turns out to be worth 600 and bottom line I'm really looking forward to Oceania which is most important to us. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Does this also apply to the cruise cost as well? If I charge $7000 ???

I got $225 back for an initial deposit of $1500. Terms and conditions would seem paying for cruise qualifies. If you or I cancel they probably would catch it and reverse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/12/2019 at 3:17 PM, Carol From California said:

American Express Platinum gives 5X points for flights if you book directly with airlines or on amextravel.com.  They give 5X points on hotels if you book and prepay (pay in advance) on amextravel.com. They do not give 5X on cruises. If you want the travel insurance and 3X on cruises, best to pay with Chase Sapphire Reserve card.  This may be different for Canada.  

Carol, you can use both Amex and Platinum/Gold/Green to get multiple benefits since Chase only requires any portion of the cruise to be paid with the card.  Cannot get Cruise Privileges without paying 100% with the Amex Card but, Chase Reserve triple points vs. Amex single makes up for that.  Then just make a $750 payment toward your cruise with the chosen Amex cards to get the bonus points.  It's win win!!! 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, rallydave said:

Carol, you can use both Amex and Platinum/Gold/Green to get multiple benefits since Chase only requires any portion of the cruise to be paid with the card.  Cannot get Cruise Privileges without paying 100% with the Amex Card but, Chase Reserve triple points vs. Amex single makes up for that.  Then just make a $750 payment toward your cruise with the chosen Amex cards to get the bonus points.  It's win win!!! 

Thanks! I am aware of being able to use both.  I did have an Am Ex offer from Oceania so I have taken advantage of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, rallydave said:

Carol, you can use both Amex and Platinum/Gold/Green to get multiple benefits since Chase only requires any portion of the cruise to be paid with the card.  Cannot get Cruise Privileges without paying 100% with the Amex Card but, Chase Reserve triple points vs. Amex single makes up for that.  Then just make a $750 payment toward your cruise with the chosen Amex cards to get the bonus points.  It's win win!!! 

I do think I get 5x points for cruise now, always 2x. I put deposit on Chase booking directly with NCL transferred to Amex and received cruise privileges. Not part of $225 deal but you can get some Chase credit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Charles4515 said:


Different country with different laws.  

 

I can't imagine 'the laws' coming into it.

Rather, I think the competition for credit card business in your country is much fiercer. Even the best rewards cards in Canada aren't that good compared to the States. I guess they don't have to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

Is this offer now over and expired.

Is anyone still seeing this?

I did get some new offers on my card, but no Oceania.

These offers come and go without any rhyme or reason.  Have to grab them as soon as you see them.  One trick I have heard of is to sign up for some offers you are not interested in and new ones will come in almost immediately to the maximum of 100.  Not on my card at this time but, was there a few days earlier.  Only Amex knows how people are chosen for various awards and nobody is talking about how or why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/29/2019 at 9:17 PM, Wishing on a star said:

On Princess, people have been able to access the offers thru what has been called The Back Door.  So, it didn't have to show up on your account.  I tried a few times to see if I could hit a back door to any AMEX Oceania offer, but was not able to get anything to work.  

 

Back Door?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...