Washington to Brisbane: How to go about it?

[Risk]

1. What route are you looking for?

• Washington, DC (WAS) to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)

2. What dates do you want to travel (mention how flexible you are)?

• September-October 2017

• Flexible
• 3 to 6 weeks
  
• At least one week in Brisbane
• Would like to visit Sydney before or after
• Perhaps Melbourne?

3. Do you want to fly first, business, or coach? (maybe also "are you willing to fly coach for a positioning flight")

• Coach

4. How many passengers?

• 1

5. How many points do you have, in which programs?

• 40k United miles
• 15k American Airlines miles
• 120k UR (Chase)
• Have time to get more points

6. Additional considerations

• ITA Matrix shows some flights for ~$1,400 with stopovers in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
• Should I just buy flights and not bother with points and miles?
• How to organize my thinking? Compare points to dollars? Consider the length of the flights and layovers?
• I have not been to Australia? Is there anything peculiar about it I need to know?

 

[thepaul500]

Few things, don't have time at this sec to do a full on award search.
-Got status on any airlines? Access to extra legroom seats is very nice on these long flights.
-Airlines wont release seats until 365 days prior (did you mean 2016???)....you got some time. No one knows what pricing will do in the next 12 months.
-Intra-australia flights are cheap on Qantas/VA (think $100 each in econ). Can easily tack those on if booking with miles.

How to organize thinking? Assign a value to your points (or use FM's or something). If the cost of your points is more than the cash price, pay cash. If you can MS the points for free, use points. Easy.

 

[Risk]

Few things, don't have time at this sec to do a full on award search..

Thank you, Paul.

-Got status on any airlines? Access to extra legroom seats is very nice on these long flights.

I don't have any status, but I have American and United airline credit cards that should allow earlier boarding. I don't care about extra leg room.

-Airlines wont release seats until 365 days prior (did you mean 2016???)....you got some time. No one knows what pricing will do in the next 12 months.

It's 2017. I am trying to plan in advance. I am new to this and prefer to over prepare.

-Intra-australia flights are cheap on Qantas/VA (think $100 each in econ). Can easily tack those on if booking with miles.

Great. I'll register with Qantas and Virgin Atlantic.

How to organize thinking? Assign a value to your points (or use FM's or something). If the cost of your points is more than the cash price, pay cash. If you can MS the points for free, use points.

I meant organizing thinking in terms of:
- Start with US-Australia flights? OR something else?
- Start collecting points and miles now?
- Have itinerary and then find suitable flights? OR find great flights and hotels, and organize the itinerary around them?

I am a bit overwhelmed and looking for some structure.

 

[thepaul500]

Ok, seeing as I did a trip similar to this last year, here's what I did (and I had WAY less time to plan than you do). We booked cash, but that's because there used to be a nice fuel dump to AUS (that Delta just killed

1. Figure out where you want to go and what you want to see. You mention Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. All easily done in 3 weeks. Go on tripadvisor, read blogs, etc, and figure out roughly where you want to go and in what order, and how long. If you have 6 weeks, you'll probably want to add a few other places as well (west coast AUS, Bali, Asia?)
2. Start collecting miles in some other currencies. You have a year+ to collect what you need. Grab some AMEX MR, Skymiles (yes, these are useful in coach to AUS), more United, and some AA. Sign up for a CC from each, multiples if you can. Hotels you have even more time to collect, sometime late this year apply for IHG and hilton cards to at least get 4 free nights.
3. Save cash. Every penny you can. Stuff adds up really quick in AUS, and if you are cash poor, the trip wont nearly as much fun if you are pinching every penny.
4. Do the IHG getaways mail in now. Those points will come in handy for a few nights in hotels.
5. Report back in September with you new points balances and your suggested itinerary. That's when space will start opening up for your outbound. Otherwise, don't worry about the flights until then. Getting coach space is easy if you have the points and are flexible. That far out should be easy to find convenient flights.

Sound reasonable? 1 and 2 are by far the most important.

 

[Risk]

PAUL, Great thanks for the plan!

1. Brisbane is the primary destination because I have a conference there. I'll check TripAdvisor about the rest.

2. I am working on accumulating miles now. My conference is at an IHG hotel, and I am waiting for Chase to offer an 80k bonus.

3. It's always a good advice. By the way, I've seen somewhere that the exchange rate is now particularly favorable for the US dollar.

4. Is that the quarterly special where you pay 5k points per night?

5. Will do!

 

[thepaul500]

2. I wouldnt be surprised if you are able to get a cheapish nights at the brisbane hotel using a conference code, once it becomes avail.

4. No, see www. flyertalk.com/forum/intercontinental-hotels-ihg-rewards-club-intercontinental-ambassador/1721193-priceless-surprises-promotion-7.html

 

[Risk]

2. Good point. It's obvious in the retrospect, but as a new point collector, I am trying to justify the effort.

4. I recognize it now. I don't qualify because I did not have a MasterCard on the specified date.

 

[thepaul500]

There are reports on FT of people just using any mastercard numbers and them working (you only need the first 6). There doesnt appear to be any verification.

 

[Risk]

GREAT! I'll try it with a MasterCard I got in January.