ElainePDX
Level 2 Member
I have been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to book some intra-Africa flights as awards tickets.
The flights I need are all operated by South African Airlines, which is a United partner. The United site is no help at all as it doesn't recognize the SA airport codes at all. I plan to call them but do not have high hopes of either getting an agent who can actually help or finding there is award availability if I do.
I also tried to use the Ana site but it was no help. Ditto for Air Canada's Aeroplan.
I moved on to consider if I can transfer some Membership Rewards points to an airline like Virgin America that also partners with SAA. I am not in their FF program and I am a bit reluctant to transfer MRs that could get stuck there if I run into a problem and the award seats I thought were available end up not being bookable.
In the course of this, I realized that perhaps the simplest way to use points for the tickets I need would be to just book them through the Amex travel site, and to then pay with points. For example, a $355 flight would cost us 35,420 MRs.
Is this sacrilege? I sense that this would be a crummy redemption, but I am a total MR newbie, having only decided to collect them when the 150K deal for the Bus Plat was live a few months ago. As a result, we are very lucky to have 340K+ MRs in our household.
Should I save them for a better redemption or just figure the points are worthless until I use them on something?
What super redemptions have you used your MRs for? Perhaps if I have a sense of that, I'd know if it's smart or foolish to blow 35,420 MRs to cover a $355 cash ticket.
Thanks for any advice you may be able to offer! Happy Weekend!
The flights I need are all operated by South African Airlines, which is a United partner. The United site is no help at all as it doesn't recognize the SA airport codes at all. I plan to call them but do not have high hopes of either getting an agent who can actually help or finding there is award availability if I do.
I also tried to use the Ana site but it was no help. Ditto for Air Canada's Aeroplan.
I moved on to consider if I can transfer some Membership Rewards points to an airline like Virgin America that also partners with SAA. I am not in their FF program and I am a bit reluctant to transfer MRs that could get stuck there if I run into a problem and the award seats I thought were available end up not being bookable.
In the course of this, I realized that perhaps the simplest way to use points for the tickets I need would be to just book them through the Amex travel site, and to then pay with points. For example, a $355 flight would cost us 35,420 MRs.
Is this sacrilege? I sense that this would be a crummy redemption, but I am a total MR newbie, having only decided to collect them when the 150K deal for the Bus Plat was live a few months ago. As a result, we are very lucky to have 340K+ MRs in our household.
Should I save them for a better redemption or just figure the points are worthless until I use them on something?
What super redemptions have you used your MRs for? Perhaps if I have a sense of that, I'd know if it's smart or foolish to blow 35,420 MRs to cover a $355 cash ticket.
Thanks for any advice you may be able to offer! Happy Weekend!