Good Redemption

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HanoiIG

Silver Member
I'm at the stage in life where it may be more important to use points and miles than accumulate them. Also with 5/24 and a couple of other things, it's not easy to find new cards with large bonuses. I guess I should have been cancelling and reapplying more but it is what it is. Anyway, using Award Nexus I have found some pretty good awards or at least what I thought might be. We are going to Spain with my brother and have to go in peak season due to his business. My wife and I thought we'd take a few days elsewhere before meeting them.

As our hotel in Berlin is rebranding, I thought it might be good to stay there one final time. Hey, who knows? Maybe the new brand will be good for us and it won't be the last time. So, I found AF AID-TXL for 53000 in Business and transferred AX MR points which moved in about 15 minutes. It's plus about $270 US in fees.

Coming home we will be around Bilbao and I thought at first to shuttle down to Madrid before I realized we could just book Bilbao to the US and avoid handling bags and possibly missing a connection. I found AF to IAD for the same 53000 and fee. I'm not always certain but it seemed good enough, especially as it's in late June-early July so fares might go up and awards may disappear.

Is this OK value for MR and also for FB miles? Most of the other flights were more than double the miles so that's what swayed me.
 
H

HanoiIG

Silver Member
HanoiIG said:
I'm at the stage in life where it may be more important to use points and miles than accumulate them. Also with 5/24 and a couple of other things, it's not easy to find new cards with large bonuses. I guess I should have been cancelling and reapplying more but it is what it is. Anyway, using Award Nexus I have found some pretty good awards or at least what I thought might be. We are going to Spain with my brother and have to go in peak season due to his business. My wife and I thought we'd take a few days elsewhere before meeting them.

As our hotel in Berlin is rebranding, I thought it might be good to stay there one final time. Hey, who knows? Maybe the new brand will be good for us and it won't be the last time. So, I found AF AID-TXL for 53000 in Business and transferred AX MR points which moved in about 15 minutes. It's plus about $270 US in fees.

Coming home we will be around Bilbao and I thought at first to shuttle down to Madrid before I realized we could just book Bilbao to the US and avoid handling bags and possibly missing a connection. I found AF to IAD for the same 53000 and fee. I'm not always certain but it seemed good enough, especially as it's in late June-early July so fares might go up and awards may disappear.

Is this OK value for MR and also for FB miles? Most of the other flights were more than double the miles so that's what swayed me.
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Update: I thought I might have erred in not using Delta Miles that I already have, considering I don't really have occasion to fly Delta, but these flights don't exist on delta.com which they say means they are not available PLUS delta redemptions for same route, often with an extra stop, are 155K!
 
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knick1959

Level 2 Member
HanoiIG said:
Is this OK value for MR and also for FB miles? Most of the other flights were more than double the miles so that's what swayed me.
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Seems like a good deal to me. I would be happy with these flights.

Our fall trip was supposed to be CLE->GLA, GLA->CLE with the return flight via Reykjavik and a 2+ day stopover. Iceland Air screwed us on this ... first, ok, the 737 MAX might be part of it. However, after heavily advertising flights to Europe in the CLE market, they decided to discontinue CLE service completely. That screwed our plans coming home as they to-date have offered no viable alternative to get home. So I canceled. All this building up to my recent experience with a flight home from Europe.

I spent a great deal of my weekend looking for flights GLA->US anywhere. The airline provided routings all the way to CLE was unattractive, but I found I could get to BOS easily enough and tickets from Boston to CLE can be found for $72 in coach. I did find a couple of different award flight options which surprised me for being only 5 months out.

I found a really great AA offering, or so I thought at first. 57.5k and pretty efficient flights. Following through these were on BA and the $1200 in total fees made for a head-scratcher. I should have known when I saw BA in the list.

We finally went for a United flight that ricochets around a little but gets us to Boston with enough time to pick from a couple of different final flight options. And maximizes our time in Scotland, which is a plus. 70k though, which dented our UA/UR bank quite a bit. Oh well, they are there to spend and I made sure it didn't impact a future trip already in the works.

So, 53k seems like a really great deal to me. Good for you!
 
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HanoiIG

Silver Member
I don't really understand the classes. So J is "full fare business?" Why should it matter on award ticket. This is the A380 so won't be like the 777 but for a short flight like this, it's OK. I need better for Asia flights.
 
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knick1959

Level 2 Member
HanoiIG said:
I don't really understand the classes. So J is "full fare business?" Why should it matter on award ticket. This is the A380 so won't be like the 777 but for a short flight like this, it's OK. I need better for Asia flights.
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J is simply Business, as opposed to coach (Y?). F is first. So this doesn't try to sub-classify the classes. Business seems to be the general want for long international flights, although some will be ok in coach and others will insist on F. For me/us, Business is my preference as it's comfortable and spoils us enough. First typically is too costly for us.
 
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HanoiIG

Silver Member
OK. I agree, First is way too expensive, though occasionally we've found ways on ANA through Life Miles and Emirates with Alaska. Once paid $ for Business in Qatar when there was a big sale.
 
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