I just started collecting miles seriously this year so don't have too many options especially since we would want 4 tickets in J.
We have about 350k UR, 75k United, and 770k AA.
How about this?
1. CMH-JFK-CMH using Avios if calling AA to complete award doesn't work
2. JFK-HKG-JFK using AA miles
3. HKG-CGK-SUB-HKG using UA miles
Would #3 be considered 1 award ticket? We would stopover 1 week each in both CGK and SUB.
Awesome tips so far guys! I'm learning so much. Thanks!
Yes, #3 would be one award ticket, but the *A partners for that routing are less than ideal - there is a Singapore flight option with just one change between SUB-HKG but a lot of the routes have 2 changes of plane- which sucks. There is a non stop Cathay flight between SUB-HKG which you could use AA or avios on, and another non stop Cathay from CGK to HKG.
Here's a better approach....
Stop thinking of AA as roundtrips now - just think of them as one way flights, and use the Avios to patch them together.
Outbound 'one way' - (ignoring CMH) should be JFK-CGK (route JFK-HKG-CGK on AA)
Stop there a week
Get yourself from CGK to SUB - it's an hour flight, pay $52 on Air Asia or Lion Air or whatnot..
Inbound 'one way' SUB-HGK-JFK-(CMH) straight home on one ticket, should space be there
OR
Add the cost of Avios from SUB-HKG so you can stopover in HKG too for as long as you want, then fly
HGK-JFK-(CMH) straight home on one ticket, should space be there
If you are going to go the UA route then you'd really get better value out of putting together a full route:
- CMH-SUB (outbound)
- CGK-CMH (inbound, stopover in HKG if desired)
Edit - I should add you need to get from SUB-CGK, but that is a $50 revenue ticket for a 1hr flight, so I see it as less important. Some itineraries like this (open jaws) you can do land or sea crossings also.
That would all be one ticket... and would allow you to stop a week in SUB, CGK and HKG... I don't have pricing to hand, but if you fly Partners it would likely be too expensive, if you fly on UA metal it may be do-able, but I doubt there are UA metal flights all the way there...