Long Haul Business Class for under $2K (Long Post)

[Luv2Phuket]

4 hours ago, Calmdown said:

I payed about 2300usd for Qatar business for my trip i made in february.

I’m looking to book another trip for july which I was under the impression was the low season. However I cant seem to find a flight under 3000usd now. Is this increase because of recovering from covid meltdown or is is it more of a increased fuel prices because of the war?

I scored Qatar Biz class RT from USA for around $2500, which was an un-fucking-believable deal. All 4 legs in Q Suites.

Then COVID happened and that trip got killed. They offered me full value + 10% towards a future flight, but everything I found was in the $6,000-7,000 USD range. Even one way tickets were like $3500+.

I have zero personal knowledge, but think the increased fares you are seeing are due to a combination of factors, with the 2 you listed chief among them.

[Calmdown]

2 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I scored Qatar Biz class RT from USA for around $2500, which was an un-fucking-believable deal. All 4 legs in Q Suites.

Then COVID happened and that trip got killed. They offered me full value + 10% towards a future flight, but everything I found was in the $6,000-7,000 USD range. Even one way tickets were like $3500+.

I have zero personal knowledge, but think the increased fares you are seeing are due to a combination of factors, with the 2 you listed chief among them.

Damn, that was a insane deal. How did you end up dealing with it? Or have you not yet gone back?

I think i’m gonna hold off booking anything for now, it cant get much worse…. or can it…. ;D

[Little Evil]

8 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I scored Qatar Biz class RT from USA for around $2500, which was an un-fucking-believable deal. All 4 legs in Q Suites.

Then COVID happened and that trip got killed. They offered me full value + 10% towards a future flight, but everything I found was in the $6,000-7,000 USD range. Even one way tickets were like $3500+.

I have zero personal knowledge, but think the increased fares you are seeing are due to a combination of factors, with the 2 you listed chief among them.

Qatar must have been doing a fire sale between the Q suites launch and Covid F'ing up their profit margin, as I also scored a very similar deal (but also had to cancel). Now, the closest thing I can find for them is $2,500 one way Q suites. But I did see them a lot under AA and Alaska miles programs under regular search (don't need to call in for it). 

Those Q suites look amazing. Maybe not the biggest seat, but being able to close the door is awesome. 

[Luv2Phuket]

6 minutes ago, Calmdown said:

Damn, that was a insane deal. How did you end up dealing with it? Or have you not yet gone back?

I think i’m gonna hold off booking anything for now, it cant get much worse…. or can it…. ;D

I took the full refund. The travel credit would have been a drop in the bucket for futures fares (although I am always on the lookout for a another great Qatar sale!).

I was back in Pattaya in November and in February - both trips were about a month long and included 7-nights stays in Phuket (first for Certificate of Entry, then because Test & Go wasn't in place).

[Calmdown]

Just now, Luv2Phuket said:

I took the full refund. The travel credit would have been a drop in the bucket for futures fares (although I am always on the lookout for a another great Qatar sale!).

I was back in Pattaya in November and in February - both trips were about a month long and included 7-nights stays in Phuket (first for Certificate of Entry, then because Test & Go wasn't in place).

Alright, i really dislike flying anything else but Qatar, once you get used to their level of service its tough to switch. I could settle for something in the oneworld alliance to get the Miles but everything seems about equally expensive right now.

[Luv2Phuket]

Posted this in one of the "Realistic Travel" threads, but felt it warranted posting here, as well, since Cathay and EVA were two great award travel options pre-COVID:

GREAT news on the travel front for USA-based BMs - Hong Kong reportedly is opening for transit passengers soon!

Most of this piece focuses on travel to Hong Kong, so it remains to be seen what will be required of transit passengers:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/hong-kong-will-reopen-with-restrictions/

Hopefully, Taiwan follows suit, so Cathay and EVA both become viable flight options moving forward!

EDIT:

Breing the obsessed fucker I am, I immediately jumped on Alaska's website to see if Cathay had availability in November. It's still not coming up in their search options, so my guess is the schedule will not load for a few days (maybe after April 1).

[HimBadMan]

14 minutes ago, Calmdown said:

Alright, i really dislike flying anything else but Qatar, once you get used to their level of service its tough to switch. I could settle for something in the oneworld alliance to get the Miles but everything seems about equally expensive right now.

I'm in same boat 2/3 of my trips to thailand In the past 1.5 years have been in qsuites.    Scored 1 for $2500 and another for $1500 RT.  Made reqaulifying for AA EXplat super easy.

It was hard for me to go from Qatar biz to JAL biz my last trip in Dec.   can't even compare those two.  Plus the lounge in Doha is open and the lounge in NRT is a joke right now.

I like to stick to OW because status and mileage uses.   With CX being out of commission we don't have many "good" choices.

ANA has an amazing new biz class seat but not on all aircrafts have it.

Finnair is another option for us OW Geeks.  that is an option for me this summer.   their biz class on A350 not bad.  

But yes airfare right now (not just for long haul) are pricey..   Not a time for deals that's for sure.    demand is outpacing currently supply.

PS.  I do love EVA BiZ and been waiting to use my United miles for them.  but awards hard to find plus like luv2 said. who knows what's happening with Tapei transits

[HimBadMan]

6 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Posted this in one of the "Realistic Travel" threads, but felt it warranted posting here, as well, since Cathay and EVA were two great award travel options pre-COVID:

GREAT news on the travel front for USA-based BMs - Hong Kong reportedly is opening for transit passengers soon!

Most of this piece focuses on travel to Hong Kong, so it remains to be seen what will be required of transit passengers:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/hong-kong-will-reopen-with-restrictions/

Hopefully, Taiwan follows suit, so Cathay and EVA both become viable flight options moving forward!

EDIT:

Breing the obsessed fucker I am, I immediately jumped on Alaska's website to see if Cathay had availability in November. It's still not coming up in their search options, so my guess is the schedule will not load for a few days (maybe after April 1).

let me know if u see Alaska opening up.  I've been waiting to use my Alaska miles..

[Luv2Phuket]

2 minutes ago, HimBadMan said:

let me know if u see Alaska opening up.  I've been waiting to use my Alaska miles..

Will do....right AFTER I book the lone available first class seat on the flight I want! 5555

Suddenly, those "buy Alaska miles with 50% bonus" promotions are looking better! 

That said, Cathay's service was going downhill fast before COVID. I'm guessing we are going to take some time to get back to the luxurious days of the past.

[bgtp]

I know, I told myself not to even bother looking for flights while Thailand's requirements/restrictions currently in place are unacceptable to me. But there's really no risk in booking an award flight, so I decided to poke around. Pretty happy with what I found. A trip of a little over five weeks covering most of November and some of December. AA award with AA/JAL 70K each way in business with the domestic flights between Florida and DFW in first. Although that last bit wouldn't have been a deal-breaker if had to do the domestic leg in coach, it's nice to be in first. I've found having to do the domestic leg in coach a lot more common on a United award than American.

A few other things I'm happy with. You can cancel an American award anytime before the flight for free. United has a $125 charge if it's under 30 days. I'm also glad to be connecting in Tokyo versus Taipei or Hong Kong, although I see HKG is ending its transit ban April 1 (as @Luv2Phuket noted above while I was typing this 555). This is also my favorite time of year to visit Thailand and something I have not been able to do since 2010.

I was last in Thailand August 2019, so it's been a while. Hopefully, the requirements/restrictions will be acceptable to me by November. I'm not all that bothered about the state of P4P as long as there's some options. I just miss my friends and some of the other things I enjoy about Thailand. Meanwhile I've been taking domestic trips and while my miles have remained untouched, I've gone thru all my free night certificates and started burning thru my hotel points. I'm fine with that as I get more value out of hotel points at home than in LOS.

[Luv2Phuket]

Damn! Frequent flier news coming in hot today.....

With Qatar's shift to Avios, you can now link your BA account (where I have 67,000 largely stagnant miles) to your Qatar account:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/qatar-launches-avios/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=thepointsguy&utm_medium=social&utm_content=FECC5E58-A9FE-11EC-AC1E-BACD4744363C&utm_term=editorial&tw=1

I'm gonna do it asap!

Blog also notes substantial decrease in miles required to book Qatar on BA.

Just when I was starting to wonder of my Thailand days would be coming to an end, the options are opening up fast and furious!

[Little Evil]

7 minutes ago, Calmdown said:

Alright, i really dislike flying anything else but Qatar, once you get used to their level of service its tough to switch. I could settle for something in the oneworld alliance to get the Miles but everything seems about equally expensive right now.

Qatar FA's were good. Very polished. They must have a FA school similar to Emirates. But I've also had the same level of service on CX, JL, NH, and EK. Particularly if your leg gets the full foreign crew. But this was pre Q Suites, so maybe its even better? 

I did like the food presentation on Qatar. Also, their lounge in Doha is gargantuan. I got lost inside, where I actually thought I was in the terminal, but was still in the lounge. 

[Little Evil]

1 hour ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Posted this in one of the "Realistic Travel" threads, but felt it warranted posting here, as well, since Cathay and EVA were two great award travel options pre-COVID:

GREAT news on the travel front for USA-based BMs - Hong Kong reportedly is opening for transit passengers soon!

Most of this piece focuses on travel to Hong Kong, so it remains to be seen what will be required of transit passengers:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/hong-kong-will-reopen-with-restrictions/

Hopefully, Taiwan follows suit, so Cathay and EVA both become viable flight options moving forward!

EDIT:

Breing the obsessed fucker I am, I immediately jumped on Alaska's website to see if Cathay had availability in November. It's still not coming up in their search options, so my guess is the schedule will not load for a few days (maybe after April 1).

Holy sh*t!  I booked Sept on CX without even realizing HKG was closed to transit! 

[Luv2Phuket]

Just linked my BA and Qatar accounts and checked Qatar's mileage requirements.....tim eot call out to my Vietnamese friend - HO LEE PHOC!!!!

I ran a check on BKK to LAX - 95,000 miles for business class.  Are you fucking kidding me?!?  WHY oh why did I kill my bonus options for that Chase BA card b y snagging it a few years ago?!?  5555

Here is the downside - you are flying blind. Unless you already have the miles in your account, you cannot search for or see award ticket availability.

Still....it may be worth the "risk" to move 28,000 miles/points over to my BA account to see if I can find anything that looks worthwhile. I think it will extend my Avios another 3 years (technically about a year and half as my current expiration is Nov. 2023).

Options....
 - Chase UR (but my balance is pretty low - right around 35,000)
 - AMEX MR (my balance took a big hit from SQ transfers and is down to a little over 66,000)
 - Marriott Bonvoy - 60,000 Bonvoy = 25,000 Avios

Given that I am sitting on over 325,000 Bonvoy points, I'm leaning towards that option, topping it off with 3,000 UR or MR.

Thoughts?

BTW, my "transferrable program points" have dropped from 228,050 last August to 170,725 today. I am focused on getting AA status using my Aviator card, but need to look into a new card that will build AMEX MR (the more likely option) or Chase UR.

[Luv2Phuket]

Following up on my last post, I just totaled all of my miles/points programs (once my OCD kicks in, I have to get the full picture on this kinda shit)....BIG drop since my last update on 8/31/21.

I went from nearly 2.3 million to just over 1.85 million - a drop of over 433,000 points/miles. Ouch!

HUGE hit to Hilton, where I have 2 upcoming trips booked and United went from 100k to 1k (but it was looking fairly useless and I hopefully have converted it into my Nov. trip over to BKK).

Also, if I cancel my May/June trip (which is looking more and more likely), I'll get a bump of almost 400k points/miles, which would put me pretty much back where I was. Even if I go on my May/June trip, I will get either 75,000 EVA miles or 95,000 KrisFlyer miles back, as I have competing reservations due to Taiwan transit ban).

The big revelation for me was that I need to use JetBlue miles, if possible, to book any LAX-LAS legs that I need to use award travel that cannot be booked directly from/to LAS. Looking at their schedule, if booked in advance, I am looking at 6,500 miles, which is better than dropping $100 (IMO). Pretty sure JetBlue miles work out to about 1.5 cents each on their typical fare and I have almost 84,000.

[bgtp]

1 hour ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I ran a check on BKK to LAX - 95,000 miles for business class.  Are you fucking kidding me?!?  WHY oh why did I kill my bonus options for that Chase BA card b y snagging it a few years ago?!?  5555

Do you still have the card? I canceled mine a few years ago. If you don’t have the card currently and it’s more than 2 years since you got the sign-up bonus, you’re eligible to get it again (assuming you meet 5/24). Current sign-up bonus is 100K.

[Luv2Phuket]

1 hour ago, bgtp said:

Do you still have the card? I canceled mine a few years ago. If you don’t have the card currently and it’s more than 2 years since you got the sign-up bonus, you’re eligible to get it again (assuming you meet 5/24). Current sign-up bonus is 100K.

EXCELLENT!  I had forgotten that!

It's been way over 3 years since I cancelled that card (probably closer to 5).

With the bonus at 100k Avios, I need to look into it. I'll move excess credit over from existing cards to get it opened.

EDIT:

Well, that was easy - applied online, expecting to get sent to "further review" (where I would transfer credit to get it opened), but I got immediate approval.

I was a little concerned about the $5k spend, but realized I will have my tax bill coming up in less than a month. That should get me the bonus and 100k Avios.

[julio321]

On 22/03/2022 at 15:34, Luv2Phuket said:

EXCELLENT!  I had forgotten that!

It's been way over 3 years since I cancelled that card (probably closer to 5).

With the bonus at 100k Avios, I need to look into it. I'll move excess credit over from existing cards to get it opened.

EDIT:

Well, that was easy - applied online, expecting to get sent to "further review" (where I would transfer credit to get it opened), but I got immediate approval.

I was a little concerned about the $5k spend, but realized I will have my tax bill coming up in less than a month. That should get me the bonus and 100k Avios.

congratulations! why not a chase business card bonus instead though? (the inks) because they don't add to 5/24 count

[julio321]

On 22/03/2022 at 14:12, Luv2Phuket said:

Following up on my last post, I just totaled all of my miles/points programs (once my OCD kicks in, I have to get the full picture on this kinda shit)....BIG drop since my last update on 8/31/21.

I went from nearly 2.3 million to just over 1.85 million - a drop of over 433,000 points/miles. Ouch!

HUGE hit to Hilton, where I have 2 upcoming trips booked and United went from 100k to 1k (but it was looking fairly useless and I hopefully have converted it into my Nov. trip over to BKK).

Also, if I cancel my May/June trip (which is looking more and more likely), I'll get a bump of almost 400k points/miles, which would put me pretty much back where I was. Even if I go on my May/June trip, I will get either 75,000 EVA miles or 95,000 KrisFlyer miles back, as I have competing reservations due to Taiwan transit ban).

The big revelation for me was that I need to use JetBlue miles, if possible, to book any LAX-LAS legs that I need to use award travel that cannot be booked directly from/to LAS. Looking at their schedule, if booked in advance, I am looking at 6,500 miles, which is better than dropping $100 (IMO). Pretty sure JetBlue miles work out to about 1.5 cents each on their typical fare and I have almost 84,000.

do you have the JB biz card? pretty handy with the bonus and the 10% points rebate

[Luv2Phuket]

Just now, julio321 said:

congratulations! why not a chase business card bonus instead though? (the inks) because they don't add to 5/24 count

I have an Ink Biz card (which I think is no longer around).

That may be my next pick, although I already have 2 business cards and I think they get a little testy of you have too many.

[julio321]

On 22/03/2022 at 13:37, Luv2Phuket said:

Just linked my BA and Qatar accounts and checked Qatar's mileage requirements.....tim eot call out to my Vietnamese friend - HO LEE PHOC!!!!

I ran a check on BKK to LAX - 95,000 miles for business class.  Are you fucking kidding me?!?  WHY oh why did I kill my bonus options for that Chase BA card b y snagging it a few years ago?!?  5555

Here is the downside - you are flying blind. Unless you already have the miles in your account, you cannot search for or see award ticket availability.

Still....it may be worth the "risk" to move 28,000 miles/points over to my BA account to see if I can find anything that looks worthwhile. I think it will extend my Avios another 3 years (technically about a year and half as my current expiration is Nov. 2023).

Options....
 - Chase UR (but my balance is pretty low - right around 35,000)
 - AMEX MR (my balance took a big hit from SQ transfers and is down to a little over 66,000)
 - Marriott Bonvoy - 60,000 Bonvoy = 25,000 Avios

Given that I am sitting on over 325,000 Bonvoy points, I'm leaning towards that option, topping it off with 3,000 UR or MR.

Thoughts?

BTW, my "transferrable program points" have dropped from 228,050 last August to 170,725 today. I am focused on getting AA status using my Aviator card, but need to look into a new card that will build AMEX MR (the more likely option) or Chase UR.

why not save the Marriott points for harder to get miles, such as Alaska?

[Luv2Phuket]

1 minute ago, julio321 said:

do you have the JB biz card? pretty handy with the bonus and the 10% points rebate

I never fly JB.

I downgraded my JB card to their no annual fee card years ago.

[Luv2Phuket]

Just now, julio321 said:

why not save the Marriott points for harder to get miles, such as Alaska?

Yep - gonna do that now I got the BA Avios card.

 

[julio321]

Just now, Luv2Phuket said:

Yep - gonna do that now I got the BA Avios card.

 

awesome. I wish there was a BA/Iberia biz card

1 minute ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I never fly JB.

I downgraded my JB card to their no annual fee card years ago.

Southwest is another possibility since I think they fly that route?

2 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I have an Ink Biz card (which I think is no longer around).

That may be my next pick, although I already have 2 business cards and I think they get a little testy of you have too many.

I've got ten chase biz cards atm, approved for another one last week. They don't care as long as you meet their other requirements (5/24, total CL, etc).

[erikhansen]

Interesting threat with good intel @Luv2Phuket!

Nowadays I usually fly business on Star Alliance awards since based in Europe, like the upcoming trip til LOS in May. As TG ROP Gold the annual upgrade (GUP) pr booking is great value as all legs in that booking gets upgraded. Even did 20 legs BKK-CNX in a couple of days to keep my TG Gold. Since TG have direct flights CPH-BKK I prefer it instead of transit flights.

But TG has really priced itself out of the market even in economy. Still have a fondness of TG despite their incline in service/seat quality since I have an nostalgic feel about already being in Thailand when entering the plane.

In the past I've paid business with Qatar, which occasionally had insane deals like $1200 RT and well as SAS via HKG (closer to $2000 but earned a lot of points). Those HKG tall narrow buildings with girls felt really clinical though as the girl watched the clock rigorously.

US Airways Dividend Miles (USDM) was a gold mine in the past for us in Europe with all those milage sales and cheap awards between Europe-Asia. I read all I could in all forums and got approved insane routings due to the US Agents missing knowledge about backtracking and Asia. 

This gave me the opportunity to fly Business/First award for economy prices and I had at least 30 flights with TG First throughout the years, as well as Lufthansa First, CX First(when USDM changed to AA) and business in LX, JAL, EVA, Austrian.

On a intra-Asia trip with my father CX kept changing the aircraft as they do so I lost F only to experience equipment change again and First available, but not to me since the downgrade already was issued on C-tickets. Although just a 2 hour flight I sat and looked directly on those empty F seats, made me really upset. My father thought that was funny as hell. That did not help 🙈 Loosing the award game is never fun  

Still, flying in general more economy the later years to maximize trips and number of ST with the girls.

Edited March 24, 2022 by erikhansen