Long Haul Business Class for under $2K (GENERAL MILES & POINTS DISCUSSION)

[Luv2Phuket]

44 minutes ago, bgtp said:

I was able to more or less clean out my American and Alaska points for my upcoming summer trip. I'm not going to look to add to them and will likely cancel any cards when the annual fee hits unless I see signs of improved availability. I have about 2K American miles left and exactly 2 Alaska miles. 
 

I have 1.35 million AA miles and am about to add a decent chunk more with an absurdly priced flight to London.

I would give do ANYTHING to burn them on a Bangkok run!  Those 250k miles United fares would be a welcome sight to me if they were using AA miles!  555 

I'm using 110k for JAL first (BKK-HND-SFO) on my return in June.  I need to start looking now to see if I can find anything for next March.

[Luv2Phuket]

Quick follow-up example of AA uselessness:

I just searched for business class between LAX and BKK for next March.  The full month isn't even open yet and there are ZERO business class awards in either direction (ditto for February and ditto for SFO, although SFO has PE).

Just absurd.

I might look into LAX or LAS to LHR, spend a day or two there (my employers is based there), then hop a cheaper flight to BKK.  Unfortunately, award tickets from LHR to BKK seem to be about the same price as from here.

[Samf]

5 hours ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Quick follow-up example of AA uselessness:

I just searched for business class between LAX and BKK for next March.  The full month isn't even open yet and there are ZERO business class awards in either direction (ditto for February and ditto for SFO, although SFO has PE).

Just absurd.

I might look into LAX or LAS to LHR, spend a day or two there (my employers is based there), then hop a cheaper flight to BKK.  Unfortunately, award tickets from LHR to BKK seem to be about the same price as from here.

I thought AA miles are useful for JAL?  If not then damn I got their card for nothing 

[Luv2Phuket]

48 minutes ago, Samf said:

I thought AA miles are useful for JAL?  If not then damn I got their card for nothing 

JAL availability is tough to find.  It's also on Alaska.

When I use AA, it is generally on JAL.

[mattmoore1965x]

Can anyone give me a review of the Gatwick to BKK flight via Frankfurt with CONDOR?  Hope this is the correct place to ask......sorry if it isn't.

I've read in this thread people talking about them, but couldn't spot any kind of review.

I'm out soon any want to avoid Dubai etc, and stumbled over them and they are bloody cheap for my dates - £440 return!  I'm having to pay for my own flights this time - so cheap is good.....

[vivid2]

34 minutes ago, mattmoore1965x said:

Can anyone give me a review of the Gatwick to BKK flight via Frankfurt with CONDOR?  Hope this is the correct place to ask......sorry if it isn't.

I've read in this thread people talking about them, but couldn't spot any kind of review.

I'm out soon any want to avoid Dubai etc, and stumbled over them and they are bloody cheap for my dates - £440 return!  I'm having to pay for my own flights this time - so cheap is good.....

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Airline_Review-d8729054-Reviews-Condor

[mattmoore1965x]

36 minutes ago, vivid2 said:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Airline_Review-d8729054-Reviews-Condor

Thanks - scary!  Would still like to hear it from a BM though - don't know why, but I trust them more.......!

[Luv2Phuket]

2 hours ago, mattmoore1965x said:

Can anyone give me a review of the Gatwick to BKK flight via Frankfurt with CONDOR?  Hope this is the correct place to ask......sorry if it isn't.

I've read in this thread people talking about them, but couldn't spot any kind of review.

I'm out soon any want to avoid Dubai etc, and stumbled over them and they are bloody cheap for my dates - £440 return!  I'm having to pay for my own flights this time - so cheap is good.....

I don't think he flew the Gatwick to BKK route, but I think @SJJ23 recently flew Condor long haul.

I think Condor is considered "no frills," but I was going to fly them long haul until they changed one of the flights on my itinerary.

[bgtp]

50 minutes ago, mattmoore1965x said:

Thanks - scary!  Would still like to hear it from a BM though - don't know why, but I trust them more.......!

I'm flying them in July. I did a search for their business class reviews and it seems ok. Direct aisle access and a flat bed are my main priorities. Here's the most recent review I could find. A different route, but I believe all their aircraft are A330neo.

Condor A330neo Business Class, Frankfurt (FRA) to New York (JFK): Bottom Line Review

The BM mentioned above flew coach and his comments are in this post.

[SJJ23]

3 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I don't think he flew the Gatwick to BKK route, but I think @SJJ23 recently flew Condor long haul.

I think Condor is considered "no frills," but I was going to fly them long haul until they changed one of the flights on my itinerary.

@mattmoore1965x @Luv2Phuket Indeed, 'twas me who flew Condor recently from BKK to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to JFK New York. I was concerned it would be a RyanAir of International Travel since they charge extra to choose your seats and had a bizarre-to-me "Pay to reserve an overhead bin." But they were fine. Apparently very few people fall for the pay-to-reserve-overhead space scam, so I had no trouble finding space for my carry on bag.

I fly economy so I can't speak to biz class travel. But in my mind it was similar to flying Economy on Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific. More or less the same product.

Be sure to add in the cost of reserving seats on all your Condor segments unless you don't mind having a middle seat. I forget what I paid, but I'm sure it will tell you during the booking cross before having to finalize your purchase. Hope this helps.

[Luv2Phuket]

The points and miles "hobby" can get frustrating, and it is requiring more and more planning/work these days, IMO.

That said, I have scored a couple of very minor "wins" the past few days.

As things start to open up 330 days out, I have booked a couple of return options for a trip next Feb/March/April.  My December trip has a January 11 return, so a my typical mid-February trip seems a bit too soon.  I'm thinking a late February/early March trip back might make some sense, with the goal to GTFOH before the Songkran madness starts.

To that end, I was able to find a late March return flight on Starlux Biz for 85k Atmos/Alaska miles.  I think early April will open soon on Alaska and AA (good fucking luck finding anything other than economy on AA, though), so I might keep looking.

I also found an early April return -- a week after the Starlux flight -- on Vietnam Air using Air France. Booked it, too, with the plan to figure out when I can book a flight in, then decide which of those returns looks best.  I love to use Air France, since it softens the blow of my "rock bottom" decision to get a BA AF card last month!  555

I have 75,000 EVA miles expiring next April, so they are the obvious choice to book my flight over, but I'm always hoping to find a way to use some of these other programs, given that EVA tends to have decent availability for its members.

My plans to split the time between my May/June trip and my December/January trip with one around August/September has fallen flat this far, with no "reasonable" availability (plenty of 175,000-200,000 flights using Atmos, Aeroplan, United or Qatar).  EVA is a good fallback there, as well.

[Luv2Phuket]

Need a quick sanity check:

Once my Bonvoy Brilliant 85k FNC posts (hopefully soon!), I am going to downgrade that card, which means I will lose my automatic Platinum status (free breakfast; late checkout).

Because of the bonus elite nights it earned me, I am sitting at 43 Elite Nights now.  Business trip to London in 10 days will bump me to 46.  I need 50 to lock in Platinum for another year, so I am 4 short.

I am seriously thinking about booking the "Dirty Castle" (Excalibur) for Sunday night.  It's showing as $58, INCLUDING the $45 resort fee and all taxes (I could bump it to $73 all-in and get an additional $30 F&B credit).

The rush is the current Marriott promotion is an extra Elite night credit + 2500 bonus points (yawn - about $15) ends on May 10 (in typical "I'm jinxed" fashion, my stay in London starts the 11th!  555).

I can either stay the night OR GTFOT right after I check in (and use my Platinum $20 F&B credit, of course), but it seems like a fairly cheap "mattress run" to lock in status.  I'd still be 2 nights short, but could make this run again mid-week during summer, when I think the rates (amazingly) get even lower.

Am I crazy to be considering this?

[ThePope]

1 minute ago, Luv2Phuket said:

(free breakfast; late checkout).

eating breakfast makes you fat, late checkout is usually free if you ask unless its high season

sounds like you'll hit it anyway

[Luv2Phuket]

2 hours ago, ThePope said:

eating breakfast makes you fat, late checkout is usually free if you ask unless its high season

sounds like you'll hit it anyway

Disagree on free breakfast and late checkout -- the free breakfast/lounge access perk is fairly valuable to me, although I shifted to only one meal a day for much of my last stay.  If I eat breakfast, I usually have a light meal later in the day.

On late checkout, the odds of getting a late checkout for free with higher status are much better, IMO.  Before I had Platinum status, I called a hotel where I was booked by SFO and asked about a late checkout. The hotel employee immediately asked if I was Platinum or higher; when I said no, she said no late checkout.

That said, your last point is the one that hit home for me.  It's early May - I have 2/3 of the year to get 4 more nights.  Marriott runs promotions every quarter, so I'm pretty confident that I can score a promotion offering extra Elite Night credits over the next 8 months that will get me there.

 

[Luv2Phuket]

Frustrating day of "ghost availability."  I decided to check PE and Alaska/Atmos seemed to have some very good fares -- 50k OW in PE on Starlux, which has similar leg room and recline to U.S. domestic first class.  Not thrilled about 2-4-2 seating, but I figured aisle seat in the center section is about as good as I can get to avoid someone crawling over me.

I got all the way through to the payment page, when it kept returning an error.  While I thought it meant ghost availability, I think somebody may have swooped in and beaten me to the punch, because when I ran the search again, the flight came up, but this time at 140,000 miles.  For PE?  Yeah, GFY!  555

American and JetBlue are tied for my "GFY award" for having the worst ghost availability.  I can't for the life of me figure out how to book long haul biz awards on JetBlue.  I see lots of economy availability, but can't get Biz to pop up.  Either it's not available or I'm a moron....and BOTH may be true!  555

[bgtp]

Just got some multiply your points offer from IHG. The cheapest cpp comes from buying the maximum offered. I got 140K points for $710 which is 0.507 cpp. Pretty close to their best offers which are 0.5 cpp. I thought it was a good deal since I already bought the 200K maximum allowed for the year, although there are other ways to buy more such as this offer. In any case, I jumped all over it. The value I get from IHG points, especially with the 4th night free and 10% rebate, make it the best value hotel points program for me by a wide margin.

[Luv2Phuket]

4 hours ago, bgtp said:

Just got some multiply your points offer from IHG. The cheapest cpp comes from buying the maximum offered. I got 140K points for $710 which is 0.507 cpp. Pretty close to their best offers which are 0.5 cpp. I thought it was a good deal since I already bought the 200K maximum allowed for the year, although there are other ways to buy more such as this offer. In any case, I jumped all over it. The value I get from IHG points, especially with the 4th night free and 10% rebate, make it the best value hotel points program for me by a wide margin.

FUCK!  As is typically my luck, I haven't earned or purchased shit in the time leading up to this, BUT I will earn a nice big chunk of points RIGHT AFTER the effective date!  555

I have 9 paid nights at a top room (Junior Suite Ocean View) + 2 FNCs coming up at the InterContinental in Pattaya.  I took advantage of a "3rd night free" promo, but the rate still works out to about 6,500 baht per night.

My best was 17,556 for $89.01.  Still, better than a sharp stick in the eye!

I'm going to check frequent flyer blogs to see if I might be able to wait and bump that number up with the stay later this month.

[Samf]

4 hours ago, Luv2Phuket said:

FUCK!  As is typically my luck, I haven't earned or purchased shit in the time leading up to this, BUT I will earn a nice big chunk of points RIGHT AFTER the effective date!  555

I have 9 paid nights at a top room (Junior Suite Ocean View) + 2 FNCs coming up at the InterContinental in Pattaya.  I took advantage of a "3rd night free" promo, but the rate still works out to about 6,500 baht per night.

My best was 17,556 for $89.01.  Still, better than a sharp stick in the eye!

I'm going to check frequent flyer blogs to see if I might be able to wait and bump that number up with the stay later this month.

When are you staying at Pattaya?  I’ll be there end of August, staying at IC to use my CSR credits… I’m not a huge fan of the resort, it’s a bit out of the way (not nearly as bad as Andaz though), a bit dated and the damn birds!! But I’ll take free rooms lol

 

[Luv2Phuket]

1 hour ago, Samf said:

When are you staying at Pattaya?  I’ll be there end of August, staying at IC to use my CSR credits… I’m not a huge fan of the resort, it’s a bit out of the way (not nearly as bad as Andaz though), a bit dated and the damn birds!! But I’ll take free rooms lol

 

I about 2 weeks - mid-May. 

It is out of the way, but I kinda like that about the place. 

I don't have a CSR, but I am using a Bilt Home Away from Home credit on a 3-night stay.  The 3rd night was free, Bilt gives me a $200 kickback on my statement, and I get a $100 F&B credit.  All told, it knocked the cost down to like $100-$150 total for their top Junior Suite (I almost always stay in those, but usually get a garden view).

The plan on this trip is to look at condos -- leaning rent, but also might consider buying one if the price is right.  I've always leaned heavily toward renting, but the more I look at photos of place online, the more I realize they all have shit in them that I would like to toss/replace. 

EX: I saw a decent sized one bedroom in the area I like (Phra Tamnak - not far from the IC! 555) and at a price that I liked. Everything was great except it had 2 shelving units in a space that would work great for a desk/work area.  If the landlord would not be willing to out that in another unit, I would have to rent storage space for the damn things.

[Luv2Phuket]

JFC!  I am a forgetful FJO (fucking jerk off!  555).

So I just jumped through all of the hoops to book a late August flight on KLM from ORD to BKK.  LONG layover at Schiphol, but it was premium economy, so I booked a "closet with a bed" at the airport Yotel (555) to allow me to catch up on some lost sleep.  KLM is 2-3-2 from ORD-AMS, BUT 2-4-2 from AMS-BKK.

It also cleared out my Air France miles and even required transferring 9,500 from Wells Fargo.  My damaged shoulder couldn't keep me from patting myself on the back about using those "I hit rock bottom" card bonuses.  555

Only ONE problem....I had ALREADY BOOKED  United Premium Economy on the SAME DAY!  Hell, I even POSTED ABOVE about the United flight, but somehow it was erased from my feeble memory!  This is what happens when I'm searching for flights over like 8 dates!  555

While it uses more valuable (to me) United miles, the United flight is LAS-LAX-HKG-BKK, and it's the direct LAX-BKK flight that just has a stopover at HKG.  FAR more efficient and less expensive than (a) a positioning flight to ORD, (b) a hotel room at ORD, (c) the $470 in taxes and fees (yikes!), (d) the hotel room at Schiphol (145 Euro), and (e) the TEN HOUR layover.

Basically, all I lost was the time that I fucked with this - probably 2+ hours all in.  I called Air France (toll free) and got my miles and taxes back (no fees, since within 24 hours), and I have emailed the hotel.  I can't see a way to cancel online, so I may have to chase them until I get a confirmation on the cancellation.

Back to Square 1 on trying to get BACK from BKK on that trip, but I think I'm just going to book EVA to have it locked in.  There is a shocking lack of award availability in the late September time frame.

 

[bgtp]

1 hour ago, Luv2Phuket said:

JFC!  I am a forgetful FJO (fucking jerk off!  555).

When I see some of your posts, I sometimes wonder how you manage to keep everything straight 555. Overall, I’d say you’re doing pretty well. Speaking of long layovers, I have one in FRA on the way to BKK in July. If anyone has some ‘get some sleep in the airport’ recommendations, let me know.

I flew Air France business earlier this week on a new A350-900. I thought the hard product was very good. I had the first row with the huge footwell which made it even better. Not quite as good as JAL’s new A350-1000, but better than any other business class seat I’ve been on recently. Food and service was good, but the flight was only 6½ hours, so can’t really compare it to one of my 12-16 hours transpacific flights. This is my first European vacation in at least 20 years. After I started going to Asia, it became a tough habit to break 555

[Luv2Phuket]

17 minutes ago, bgtp said:

When I see some of your posts, I sometimes wonder how you manage to keep everything straight 555. Overall, I’d say you’re doing pretty well. Speaking of long layovers, I have one in FRA on the way to BKK in July. If anyone has some ‘get some sleep in the airport’ recommendations, let me know.

I flew Air France business earlier this week on a new A350-900. I thought the hard product was very good. I had the first row with the huge footwell which made it even better. Not quite as good as JAL’s new A350-1000, but better than any other business class seat I’ve been on recently. Food and service was good, but the flight was only 6½ hours, so can’t really compare it to one of my 12-16 hours transpacific flights. This is my first European vacation in at least 20 years. After I started going to Asia, it became a tough habit to break 555

If you don’t mind my asking, how bad were the taxes and fees on Air France?

[bgtp]

1 minute ago, Luv2Phuket said:

If you don’t mind my asking, how bad were the taxes and fees on Air France?

It wasn’t an award ticket. I paid $3360 for business round trip. Not the best value since my last two paid BKK trips were $4450, but it was the best deal I could find and that’s how airfares work. As you probably know, US-Europe business can sometimes be just as expensive as going to Asia for less than half the distance.

[Luv2Phuket]

I don't know if anybody else got the Barclay's Hawaiian card when they had a decent SUB, but, if you did, check the "Offers" in your account on the website.  They are offering a bonus for adding an authorized user (no fee to add someone).  My offer was if the AU spends $200, I'll get 5,000 bonus miles.  If I'm doing the math correctly, that's like 25 miles per dollar of spend.

I got an additional card in my brother's name (don't need SSN, just DOB) and had it shipped to my address.  When I get it, I'll activate it, go on Amazon, and load my GC with $205.  Quick and easy 5,000 Atmos miles.

This card is on the chopping block and will be dropped when the AF comes around.  With the combination of Alaska and Hawaiian into Atmos, the card lost all value to me, since I have the Atmos Summit card.

Speaking of the Atmos Summit, I heard on a podcast (and read online) that using it to pay a mortgage through Bilt will net me 3 Atmos miles per dollar spent.  Bilt will charge me a 3% fee, but it effectively nets out as buying Atmos miles for a penny a piece (+1 Alaska status point for every $2 spent).  I might switch to this in about 2 months after I max out a perk on another card.

2 wrinkles:
 - it's capped at $50k a year on the 3X
 - the cap is based on card renewal; not Jan - Dec.

That is gonna limit the benefit that I can get this card year (I renew on August 27), but at least the $50k will start over after that.  My goal is to pay off my condo by year end or just after (targeting it for some of my year end bonus money), so it's not a benefit that I can take advantage of for very long.

[Luv2Phuket]

A rare win last night!  I get email updates from Award Tool that mostly turn out to be phantom availability,

Last night I got one for Aeroplan, which is usually pretty solid.  Got out of bed and jumped on LAS-LAX-TPE-BKK on United/EVA/Thai. Still under the current 87.5k miles,

I’m not sure where @ThePope comes out on this, but, since almost all of my trips are “schedule permitting,” I used extra miles (103.5k) to n my levity fully refundable.  In hindsight, I should have done the math to figure out the true cost/benefit but now locked in.

i was looking forward to trying United PE on their LAX-BKK route, but the difference in price (6K miles, ignoring my refund ability choice) made the Biz option the easy choice,