I still need to get from Paris - Budapest and then from Bali - home (BWI) ideally on Christmas day.
Paris > Budapest - I've tried like crazy to figure out how to use avios, thinking they'd be the best option. Nothing on BA search and I signed up for expertflyer and couldn't find something that didn't have an overnight stop (can't imagine I'm using it correctly just yet though). This is my first time booking award flights other than the stupid simple rapid rewards program. This is infinitely harder.
I don't envy you the challenge of putting this together so close to the travel date. The first place I'd start is to see what is available as flights, paid or otherwise, by checking flights.google.com. I spotted one nonstop flight on Air France. Do you hae AS miles? I've read that you can get award seats on AF with AS miles. I don't know how to check AF availability and I do not know how many AS miles it would take. Do you have UA miles? If so, there are a range of routings available such as LH via FRA. A sane routing is more available in C than in Y. C costs 30K UA miles per person. You can move UR points into your UA program. You'll see that the BA routing that is shown is from Orly via Heathrow to Budapest. There is a 22 hour stop in London. I also checked gcmap.com to see the distance from Paris to Budapest. It is 777 miles so would be a relatively long ride.
Bali > Home - We're going 3/4 rtw in economy and I'd like to splurge this once on a first class product. Sounds like the best value is Cathay Pacific first class to NY and we'll get home from there. This flight can be anytime between Jan.4th and 10th. I know we need to wait until a week or so out for the availability and someone mentioned booking the flight from Bali to a main hub like singapore or HK and then we can fly from there. I have 123k AA miles and probably the same in UR points. Do I transfer UR - to avios to get from Bali to a hub or transfer them into AA and book the whole flight as Bali to home?
Lastly, do I call AA or Cathay when trying to use the AA miles for the award booking on Cathay? Thanks a ton in advance. Should've been more in advance myself.
You cannot move UR points to AA.
How well do you know the Avios program? You'll want to do some fast reading. Avios are charged per flight not per one way. You can find their award bands in
this chart. Use gcmap.com to determine your distances.
DPS-HKG - 2136 miles - zone 4
HKG-NYC - 8062 miles - zone 9
DPS-HKG is 12,500 in coach or 25,000 in C one way. There is no F on the route.
HKG-NYC is 50,000 in coach or 50,000 in C or 75,000 in F.
Thus, if you find C from Bali to HKG and fly F on, it will cost you 100K Avios per person.
AA charges 67.5K miles for DPS-NYC in F one way.
You call the airline where you have points to do the booking. Thus, you will call AA if you are using AAdvantage miles and BA if you are using Avios. There is a phone booking fee. AA has a close in booking fee I believe unless you have elite status.