What up Points Guy. Long time lurker on your blog. Just wanted to say thanks. I was convinced that m

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We re going to launch a new series of posts called the Tuesday Travel Top 10 , where we talk about our top 10 favorites in various categories including airlines, classes of service, award redemptions, airports, airline lounges, hotels, credit cards, perks and benefits, rental cars, travel gear and technology, and more. Have ideas of what we should cover? Tell us what you d like to read about in the comments below.
In the meantime, for today s topic, we thought we’d cover ten of the best coach award redemptions out there including car rental lax both domestic and international options. I thought this would be relevant since I often talk about my personal redemptions in business and first class and people always tell me to focus more on economy. So here you have it! As always, feel free to share your thoughts and whether I missed any good ones.
1) 4,500 British Airways Avios + $75 for roundtrip short-haul (650 miles or less) economy flights. car rental lax Most people focus on 4,500 mile one-way short haul awards, but the Cash Miles feature stretches the value of these awards out even more because they sell points at 1.67 points a piece so in this example you pay $75 and save 4,500 points. car rental lax British car rental lax Airways is a 1:1 transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, American Express Membership car rental lax Rewards, though now until May 31, 2012, there’s actually a 50% transfer bonus from Amex to BA , so those 4,500 miles would only cost you 3,000 Amex points and $75 for a roundtrip flight . This can be an incredible car rental lax value considering short-haul flights can be some of the most expensive. Another great aspect is that British Airways doesn t charge last minute ticketing fees like American, who tacks on a $75 fee   if you make an award reservation within car rental lax 21 days of departure. Even if you didn t want to do the cash co-pay, spending 9,000 miles and ~$50 for these roundtrip flights is usually a great deal.
2) Southwest Yearly Companion Pass. While not necessarily an award, you earn it after 100 one-way flights or 110,000 Companion Pass Qualifying points (currently their 50,000-point credit card sign-ups do count). Once you get the companion pass, it can be good for nearly 2 years of unlimited car rental lax companion flying. Check  this post for more details. Southwest is a 1:1 transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, car rental lax but transferred Chase points do not qualify for the companion pass. Transferred hotel points do, however.
3) American Airlines Distance-Based Oneworld Awards . For 160,000 miles, you can fly up to 50,000 miles more than enough for an around-the-world trip of a lifetime. You can have a maximum of 16 segments and you must travel on two Oneworld airlines, not counting American. Check out the multiple options here .
4) ANA Mileage Club economy awards from the East Coast to London for 38,000 miles, and since they are a Star Alliance carrier you can fly on United, though ANA does now charge fuel surcharges on United awards (as they do on another partner airline, Virgin Atlantic) and you will have to price out individual car rental lax awards on their search tool or call ANA to see how much the taxes and fees on them will by. ANA is also a 1:1 transfer partner of American Express
5) 24,000 LAN kilometers for roundtrip coach travel within Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Even short intra-South American flights—such as between Montevideo and Santiago, or Santiago and Easter Island—can be very expensive, car rental lax so these redemptions can be lifesavers. Plus, Starwood points transfer at a generous 1:2 ratio, so 12,000 Starwood points = 24,000 LAN kilometers. There is currently a 25,000 point sign-up bonus on the Starwood Amex which equates to 60,000 LAN kilometers with the 5,000-point bonus for transferring 20,000 SPG points!
6) 25,000 British car rental lax Airways Avios points for roundtrip award tickets from the West Coast of the US to Hawaii on partner airline American that would start at 35,000 MileSAAver off-peak miles plus last-minute ticketing fees if you just used American miles.
7) 40,000 American AAdvantage miles for roundtrip off-peak coach to Europe between October 15-May 15. Tip: For Europe awards American classifies Hawaii in the same region as the continental US, so you can actually fly Hawaii to any number of international hubs like Chicago, Dallas, Miami or New York and build in a stopover before continuing onto Europe. car rental lax Offpeak awards can also be used on Oneworld partners; like British car rental lax Airways, Iberia, and Finn Air. American is also Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partner, so you would actually only need to transfer 35,000 SPG points to get to 40,000 AA miles.
8 ) 25000 mile + £170 copay bmi coach roundtrip awards North America to Europe. That copay can cost over $300 depending car rental lax on currency fluctuations, but when ticket prices to Europe really soar, as they are right now, even paying car rental lax that much can save you a bundle on airfare.
9) 180,000 Delta miles for a coach class Round the World trip, with up to 6 stopovers. Since Skyteam partner availability is decent, planning car rental lax these isn t as hard as you d think. And with frequent Amex transfer bonuses of up to 67% , those with Amex points can get this award for a mere 108,000 points. United also charges car rental lax 180,000 car rental lax miles for economy Round the World awards.
10) 35,000 US Airways miles for Off-peak awards from the US to Europe car rental lax between January 15 and February 28 every year. If you have  the US Airways Mastercard, they are only 30,000 and US Airways has relatively low fees on their own awards. These are not available on partner airlines or codeshares. Saver/low level awards will automatically price at the Off-peak level and you can book them online.
Disclaimer: The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses car rental lax have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Brian, aside from the often-discussed Lima-Cusco car rental lax route, what are some of the other great bargains available under #1 (outside of the US)? I imagine there are quite a few in SE Asia, but I m not familiar enough with the region to even begin searching for deals.
Another great redemption, in my opinion, especially for those with lots of AA miles, is North America-Europe-Indian Subcontinent/Middle East (including Maldives) off-peak on AA + Etihad (or Air Berlin) for 80k r/t. I just finished the first part of an LAX-CDG(stop)-AUH-MLE(dest.)-AUH-CDG(stop)-JFK(stop indefinitely)-LAX-LIH trip booked for 80k AA miles per person. An even better itinerary for me would have been LAX-CDG-AUH-MLE-AUH-LHR-LAX(stop indefinitely)-LIH, but I booked car rental lax less than 30 days from departure. Availability is great on EY, and pretty good on AA during off-peak season. The LHR-LAX nonstop has the most limited availability.
I m planning a SE Asia trip myself, and unfortunately my experience has been that there aren t a ton of short-haul deals available in the region. Nearly all of Cathay Pacific car rental lax s (and Dragonair s) flights in SE Asia route via HKG, so if you re based there you can find some decent deals on flights that can be expensive car rental lax at times (e.g. HKG to MNL, PNH, HAN, or SGN). But most of those flights are slightly over 650 miles, car rental lax making them 7500 miles plus about $60 in fees, so not as good a deal as many of the short-haul flights on LAN or AA.
You refer to frequent Amex MR - Delta promos but since that 67% and the 50% + MQM which ran concurrently towards the end of last year, there haven t been any new ones. Given the rumored changes to the skymile car rental lax program, do you think a new Delta promo is coming?
Tip: For Europe awards American classifies Hawaii in the same region as the continental US, so you can actually fly Hawaii to any number of international hubs like Chicago, Dallas, car rental lax Miami or New York and build in a stopover before continuing onto Europe.
East Coast LHR may be 38k for NYC or BOS, but IAD is showing car rental lax at 43k. Looked it up, and sure enough car rental lax IAD is about 350 miles too close to London to redeem for 38k miles. UA does have excellent availability for all dates I searched, though, with 4 daily flights in each direction, so it s not all bad. On all 3 round trip dummy bookings I searched this summer, 3 of the 4 daily flights had availability for 2.
Do you know what availability is like on the Oneworld Award tickets? I flew RTW on a One World Explorer ticket in 2009, and had some trouble finding availability on flights (SYD-HNL, HKG-AUK). I suspect that tickets paid with miles have even less availability, which would make changing dates mid-trip difficult.
In the BA example, I don t know where you re getting the $75 from. I understand that If one books LGA-YYZ RT it would cost 9k avios plus $58.07. Alternatively, I could use 4.5k avios and pay $70 more to book the same flight. Is the $75 suppose to be $70?
Regarding car rental lax the AA stopover rule at a North American Gateway , does this include cities outside of the US such as Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, The Bahamas and the Caribbean where a direct flight arrives from outside of the North America region. I.e. if one flies London-Bermuda-US on BA and AA, would a stopover in Bermuda be allowed? If so, one could potentially replace Bermuda with any North American (per AA definition) city where a direct out-of-the-region flight arrives or departs from (i.e. definition of a gateway)
What up Points Guy. Long time lurker on your blog. Just wanted to say thanks. I was convinced car rental lax that my amex points were worthless (especially compared to ultimate rewards points), but I just booked two round trip coach tickets from DC to Chicago on American for 12,000 amex points (transferred to avios for 18,000) and $10 bucks. Tickets are selling for over $300 each. You cannot beat that! I m very proud of myself.
This is not about redemp