We’re all waiting for the announcement on Emirates mileage redemptions, but in the meantime, other Alaska Airlines partners such as Cathay Pacific and Qantas still offer good opportunities to fly international first class at reasonable rates- though no inflight showers!

The ability to earn miles flying Emirates is a nice perk, but probably not the main focus here- though it’s nice to know that when carriers of your preferred alliance are more expensive then flying Emirates, your miles aren’t wasted.

Probably the best news here is the ability to redeem miles on Emirates later in the year. One of Alaska’s many quirks is the lack of ability to mix and match partners, and the addition of Emirates will essentially allow redemption to so many more places in the world, especially in Asia and the subcontinent.

This is an interesting development- watch this space.

Starwood Preferred Guest

So lets back up a bit here, and talk about Starwood in general. Starwood is a hotel chain consisting of certain brands, such as Sheraton, Westin, W, Four Points and a few lesser-known brands. Starwood Preferred Guest is their loyalty program, often abbreviated SPG. As hotel points, generally speaking, are worth less than airline miles, SPG is the exception to this rule. There are a couple of reasons for this:

• SPG points can be used for cash+points redemptions which offer great value (and Starwood counts award nights toward elite qualification requirements)
• They offer a 25% bonus when transferring to airline programs
• They transfer to a wide variety of airline programs from across the globe.

I’ll cover the ways to spend them in the next few posts, but for this one we’re going to focus on the ways to earn points, because you can’t spend them without earning them!

Earning Starwood Points by Staying at Starwood Properties

Of course, the “conventional” way of earning points is to stay at Starwood properties. General members get 2 SPG points per dollar spent, while elites get 3 points per dollar spent. While this isn’t as generous as other chains such which offer up to 10 points per dollar spent, it’s still fairly decent when you factor in the higher value of SPG vs. say Priority Club points.

Earning Starwood Points by Spending on the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express

There’s a reason that I say SPG points are for everyone, not only for Starwood guests, and it’s the Starwood Amex. Sure, if Starwood is your primary hotel chain, then you could get some extra SPG points, but even if you prefer say Priority Club/InterContinental as your main hotel chain, the SPG Amex should still form a part of your wallet.

What does the SPG Amex offer its cardholders? You earn 1 SPG point per dollar spent, and 2 points per dollar at SPG properties. So while that’s another benefit of staying at SPG properties in addition to using the card, just one point per dollar should be enough to make this the go-to card for most people.

Now just 1 point per dollar seems unimpressive, but as I said, the value of SPG points is as lot higher than those of airline miles. Most non-SPG guests would be interested in earning SPG points to convert into airline miles, or using them for cash+points stays at SPG properties (which also count towards elite status). Now, for every 20,000 SPG points converted to airline miles, a 5,000 mile bonus is awarded- therefore the transfer rate is essentially 1:1.25. There are two notable exceptions, firstly United/Continental miles are only transfered at half the rate, which makes it uncompetitive for UA transfers (though other partners such as US Airways allow for easy Star Alliance awards). The second fact is that points to LAN transfer at a 1:2 ratio (or 2:5 including the bonus), and this is one of the real gems of the program which I will discuss in more detail in the next posts.

While the SPG Amex is a great card, there are certain situations that probably means that it would be better to put the spend on another card, most notable card that offer bonus points for certain types of spending, such as airfare or dining (the SPG Amex offers no bonuses outside of 2x points for SPG spend). I’ll break down the recommended cards for each type of spending.

Alternative Credit Cards to the Starwood Amex

• The American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card- Offers 3 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on airfare. Despite Membership Rewards points being massively devalued, they still be can transferred to Delta, Air Canada and ANA among others. A 15,000 point bonus applies for $30,000 spend, which is probably too steep for most people- though 3 points per dollar spent is still a great deal, and despite charging fuel surcharges, both ANA and Aeroplan offer very reasonable mileage charges for international business class awards. Membership Rewards points can also be transferred to SPG at a 1:3 ratio, so for only one SPG point per dollar spent on airfare, it really isn’t worth it.
• The Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Card- Offers 2 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on travel and dining, and one point on all other spend, as well as a 50,000 sign up bonus. They also offer a 7% points dividend on all points earned, including the sign up bonus, resulting in an actual sign up bonus of 53500 points and 2.14 points per dollar spent on dining and travel. Chase UR points transfer primarily to United/Continental, as well as other programs such as Hyatt or British Airways. This is a good card for all travel (non-airfare), including non-SPG hotel stays, as well as all dining spend.
• All spend at SPG properties (including cash components of cash+points redemptions), and all other non-travel, non-dining spend should go on the SPG American Express.

One of the major “rules of thumb” that applies to all points with transfer partners is that one should never transfer their points unless you are planning to redeem an award in the immediate future. One of the main benefits of SPG (and Chase UR and Amex MR) is that the large number of transfer partners, and this flexibility is lost when one transfers to another program.

So there you have it… the comprehensive guide to earning Starwood points. In the next few posts, I’ll cover the best ways to make the most of these points.

But wait, there’s more! Looking at the Continental web site, there is at least eight award seats in both economy and business class, for every flight, until end of schedule. That’s right! Brussels Airlines on Twitter also suggests that’s not a glitch- but one has to wonder whether award space will always remain this generous. Nevertheless, this remains a great deal, and a genuine option for those looking to redeem for flights to Europe and Africa.

Using American/Alaska Miles to Fly on Qantas to Australia

This will probably be the main way that most award tickets to Australia on AAdvantage and Alaska Mileage Plan are redeemed- indeed the other options should only be used as a last resort. Qantas has a significant route network to North America, including:

• Sydney- Los Angeles- Sydney (Airbus 380, Boeing 747)
• Melbourne- Los Angeles- Melbourne (Airbus 380, Boeing 747)
• Brisbane- Los Angeles- Brisbane (Boeing 747)
• Sydney- Dallas- Brisbane- Sydney (Boeing 747)
• Sydney- Auckland- Los Angeles- New York- Los Angeles- Auckland- Sydney (Airbus 330)
• Sydney- Honolulu- Sydney (Boeing 767)

In terms of onboard product, the Airbus 380 features suite-style first class seating, and “Skybed Mark 2″ for business class seats, which is a fully flat seat in a standard 2-2-2 configuration (upper deck). The Boeing 747′s feature fully flat beds in first class (but no suites), and their “Skybed Mk I” product, which an an older-style angled lie flat seat in a 2-3-2 configuration on the main deck. The Airbus 330s they fly on the NZ-US route also have the older style Skybed Mark I’s.

Finally, the 767s they fly to Honolulu, seeing as it is a predominantly leisure market, feature 1990′s style recliner seats in a strange 1-2-2 configuration. Dubbed “Dreamtime” seats, they do not have AVOD, but rather a select choice of channels containing looping programming (and if your aircraft is substituted for a domestic 767, which given the rate of retirements is quite likely, the seating will be 2-2-2 in a domestic configuration- similar to United’s much disliked “ghetto bird”). So for obvious reasons, unless there is no availability on all of the other routes, or you would like to stop over in Honolulu, this route is to be generally avoided.

So, what does that tell us? Qantas does not selectively block award space based on aircraft type (unlike Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa for instance), so obviously the best option product-wise would be to fly the Airbus 380.

We also have another “quirk” route- the Airbus 330 flown between Los Angeles and JFK. As this is a domestic flight (unlike other tag-alongs such as Vancouver-JFK), fifth freedom rights would not apply and therefore Qantas is not allowed to carry any local passengers on this route. If you are flying from the east coast to Australia, you can fly on AA to JFK, connecting to this flight instead, as it offers greater product (and award space) than American’s transcontinental 767-200s.

One final thing though, if you’re booking with Alaska miles- Alaska does not allow you to mix and match partners on an award ticket. This means that if you are flying Qantas out of Los Angeles, you can only be connecting to either the LAX-JFK leg flown by Qantas’ Airbus 330, or a flight operated by Alaska/Horizon- so you cannot fly Qantas, then connect to Delta or America. This means that if you are redeeming Alaska miles, you may need to purchase a revenue fare to get to Los Angeles (or double connect via SEA). This also means that the DFW flights aren’t really suited to using AS miles for, unless you live in Dallas (or Portland/Seattle).

In terms of stopovers, both Alaska and American allow a stopover, but American only allows a stopover at the North American gateway. So in Qantas’ terms, if you are redeeming using American miles, you can only stop over at Honolulu, Los Angeles or Dallas (for a period of up to one year, depending on time of ticketing). Alaska allows one stopover, but without the restriction, so you can stop at anywhere en route.

Another funny restriction American has on its all-partner awards is that the over-water carrier (so in this case, Qantas) must publish a fare between the origin and destination city pairs. So, while this shouldn’t be a problem if you’re travelling between larger city pairs- if you are travelling between smaller towns, so say Gove (Nhulunbuy), NT, Australia to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, USA- then chances are Qantas doesn’t publish a fare between these two city pairs and you might have to split the award into two. (But the odds of someone wanting an award like that are… )

So now we have the routing all mapped out, let’s focus on the next part of the task… finding award space.

Finding Qantas Award Availability

The general rule for finding partner availability is not to use the airline’s own website, when there are other options available (though for some smaller airlines, such as Air Berlin or Hawaiian, there are no other options and availability generally maps through to partner carriers). For example, Lufthansa will often release first class seats on the Airbus 380 to its own members, but not to partner carriers, so looking at availability through the Miles and More website would be misleading. However, Qantas doesn’t (typically) release different award inventory for their own members as opposed to partner members, so using the Qantas website is okay, though it’s still best to avoid using their website if you are using partner miles, just to be on the safe side.

So that leaves us with… yes, the British Airways site. Now, British Airways does not allow Australian or NZ residents to be part of their program, so unless you have an alternate address it is still best to use Qantas’ site. British Airways’ site is quite clumsy to use, as I have (undoubtedly) mentioned before, but it’s functional, and once you get over the fact that they always try to push you on BA metal flights, and ask a thousand times whether or not you’d like a stopover in London, it does the job quite well in terms of partner award space.

One last thing is, that while Qantas does not release award space to own members that are unavailable to partners, it does make its award space available to members before the 330 day window in which American and Alaska members can see their award space. So in essence, Qantas’ own members have first dibs on the award space- and often the most desirable options, such as first class on the Airbus 380, would already be booked out as the 330 day window rolls by.

Other Methods of Travelling to Australia using American or Alaska miles

American does not allow you to route via Asia, so that leaves Qantas, as well as Hawaiian, Alaska, Air Tahiti Nui or Air Pacific. I’ve covered the first three earlier in the article on using Delta SkyMiles (it’s funny how many out-of-alliance partners American/Delta/Alaska have in common), so I won’t repeat myself as most of the information there also applies to booking with American or Alaska miles. I will, however, briefly touch up on the last option, which is Air Pacific.

Air Pacific partners with AAdvantage, and if you are not familiar, it is the flag carrier of Fiji. They fly Los Angeles to Nadi to Sydney/Brisbane/Melbourne. They operate the Boeing 747 to Los Angeles and Sydney, and occasionally the Boeing 767 or Boeing 737 to Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. The aircraft type is largely irrelevant as all the aircraft have more or less the same product- an older recliner style seat. Adding to that, American does not permit stopovers in Fiji, so really unless you want to explore Fiji in under 24 hours, there is no real reason to be flying Air Pacific enroute to Australia- (of course, if Fiji is your destination, that’s another story!)

So there we have it folks, your ultimate guide to award travel to Australia delivered in three sections. Over the next period of time, I want to dedicate a couple of articles to the Starwood Preferred Guest program (and of course, the Starwood Amex), as they have many “concealed benefits” that are not obvious to most people- and as the most valuable and flexible frequent flyer currency out there, they are essentially a must-have.

Happy holidays to all my readers!

Using Delta Miles to Fly on Delta to Australia

Delta does fly its own aircraft to Australia, a once daily Boeing 777-200LR service from Los Angeles to Sydney. From LA they have built up kind of a focus city, in conjuction with their partner Alaska, so you can fly one-stop from most cities in the US to Australia. Their hard product is decent, being their flagship BusinessElite product featuring herringbone seats that recline flat.

The thing is, Delta is pretty famous for being extremely stingy when it comes to BusinessElite award space (with a couple of exceptions, such as Atlanta-Munich and Memphis-Amsterdam), and the Sydney route is no exception. Let’s take a look at the award calendar to see what I mean.

Do you see any green? No? Me neither. And the other months aren’t much better. So unless you’re prepared to fork out 240K miles instead of 150K (and the answer is, you shouldn’t), this is probably not a good idea.

But if you want to go with this idea (and miraculously do find low award space), the best way of booking it is simply using Delta.com. It is clumsy, but once you find the award space, should be pretty functional. They also allow two-day holds, so if you’re indecisive it’s best to hold the award first, then un-hold it if necessary, seeing how rare low price awards are.

Using Delta Miles to Fly on Virgin Australia to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific

Here we go… the golden goose of Australian award tickets. Virgin Australia partners with Delta, and you can redeem your miles for Virgin Australia flights. Trans-Pacifically, Virgin Australia flies from Los Angeles into Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne- and award space is markedly superior to that of Delta. Best of all, if you fly on a Virgin Australia award from the US to Australia, from Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney one can tack on additional regional segments on Virgin Australia to Australia, New Zealand or the Pacific Islands. So one can fly from Indianapolis to Los Angeles on Delta, Los Angeles to Brisbane to Hamilton on Virgin Australia all for 150,000 miles round trip. Virgin Australia is in this transitional phase where some of its aircraft will have business class, and some of it won’t, so the actual flights you will get on the domestic and regional sectors is mostly luck of the draw. But on their trans-pacific routes, they do operate the Boeing 777-300ER with international standard flat bed business class seats.

A couple of notes on booking- first of all, to search availability, one has to sign up for a Virgin Australia Velocity membership, which is Virgin Australia’s frequent flyer program. Once you have signed up, you simply go to book a reward flight, as per usual. Any award space that shows up under the “Reward” column should be bookable using Delta miles.

The results screen is tabbed by dates fur further convenience- although it lacks a calendar view, you can clearly see award space for the whole week. And while it does try to price out connection for you, as with most award search engines the results are the most effective if you search segment by segment, especially as Delta allows two stopovers per award ticket. Another quirk is that you must purchase a trans-pacific segment on Virgin Australia in order to redeem for domestic and regional segments on Virgin Australia- you can’t book them as stand alone flights. This is one thing I expect to be fixed as Virgin Australia completes its re-branding, and I would expect that all Virgin Australia flights would be redeemable with no limitation in the future.

Using Delta Miles to Fly on Air Tahiti Nui to New Zealand and the Pacific

Okay, technically this doesn’t belong here as the article is about award travel to Australia, and well… Air Tahiti Nui doesn’t fly there. But I have to give this a mention- as a “boutique” airline with an exotic product flying exotic routes via an exotic hub, it doesn’t get much better than this. Its product is not conventional (as in lie flat or herringbone), but has that distinct Pacific touch that one would definitely not get flying Delta, and that’s what makes Air Tahiti Nui worthwhile. It’s also worth noting that Air France also fly the Los Angeles to Papeete route, and therefore offers additional award space- which can be searchable on Delta.com

Air Tahiti Nui flies from Los Angeles to Papeete, and then Papeete to Auckland. The best way to look for Air Tahiti Nui availability is through the KVS Tool or ExpertFlyer, if one is signed up for such, or through calling Delta.com. Personally I find calling Delta.com to be a real pain, but it’s really the only free option here. Air Tahiti Nui would only release one award seat in first class and one award seat in business class per flight. As first class awards are off limits to SkyMiles members, this essentially means that only one premium cabin award seat is available per flight- making travel with a companion (short of paid upgrade at check-in) virtually impossible.

Using Delta Miles to Fly on Hawaiian to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific

There’s a reason I left this to last, and it’s because it’s the least desirable option. Despite starting up many routes recently, and upgauging others (such as the Sydney flight, which is due to be operated by an Airbus 330), it’s not the Emirates of the Pacific for a simple reason- it’s connections are not timed for a hub-like effect. Still, with free stopovers on offer, a stopover in Honolulu might not be a bad idea, and in that case Hawaiian should also be considered.

From Honolulu, Hawaiian fly to Sydney, Papeete and Pago Pago (the only airline to do so) in the Pacific region, providing a good one-stop option to the US (especially with combined with Alaska’s Hawaii network). Searching availability is doable on the Hawaiian Airlines website, and membership is required to do so, alternatively the ExperFlyer or the KVS Tool can be used.

So there we have it, all the airline options for using SkyMiles to Australia and the South Pacific. The reason this post is titled using “SkyMiles” instead of “SkyTeam miles” is because really all the good options are on non-alliance partners- and thankfully due to Delta allowing passengers to mix and match non-alliance partners (unlike United or Alaska), SkyMiles have some great value when travelling down under.

The last alliance, Oneworld, will be covered in the next post.

Transpacific award availability on Star Alliance can be tricky at times- there are some tried and tested routes such as Haneda to Los Angeles and Seoul to San Francisco with good availability, but here’s another good option starting mid-next year. Air China generally have very good award space and their Boeing 777-300ER product is one of the best transatlantic featuring fully flat seats in business class, while ANA has angled lie flat seats on their Haneda to LA route, and United’s seats are 8-abreast in business class. Look out for this great redemption option set to hit our Star Alliance skies shortly.

Now even at the cheapest pricing option, 9 cents per medallion qualifying mile is a lot to pay, considering that even in December most mileage runs can be had for 5-6 cents per MQM- and that’s not considering the RDMs one would forgo for buying miles instead of mileage running. A 5,000 mile mileage run for $300 would net 11250 RDM’s for a Diamond, which if valued at 2 cents per mile is $250 worth of RDM’s- thus you’re actually only paying $50 for the EQM’s. Factor in SkyClub access, complimentary upgrades etc. and paying $895 not to fly suddenly sounds like a very bad option.

Can’t fault Delta though, as the number of upgrades are finite and MQMs have no value in redemption terms, this is literally a pass to print money. But there should be no reason why one would “take advantage” of this offer.

I was going to do this as one long post covering all three alliances and their options to Australia, however that would have gotten out of hand, so I’ve split them up into three for each of the alliances. This post will cover the Star Alliance. Despite being generally the best alliance out of the three, it is sadly the weakest alliance when it comes to flights to Australia. One of the most common complaints is how stingy United often is with its business and first class award availability on the routes to and from Australia. However, with some flexibility and a bit of ingenuity, there are some tips for booking that ultimate Australian journey on Star Alliance.

One of the most common complaints is how stingy United often is with its business and first class award availability on the routes to and from Australia. However, there are some tips for booking that ultimate Australian journey.

Book Your Tickets Well In Advance

Availability is often greatest at the 330-day window when award inventory is usually released by the airlines. Still, it is impossible to find award availability every day, but 330 days out you can pretty much guarantee availability +/- 2 days from intended date of travel. So as always a bit of flexibility is required when looking for award seats. There are a couple of exceptions- if you are looking for business or first class space during the Australian/New South Wales school holidays- so that’s typically all of January, your odds of finding relatively direct flights are practically nil. In this case, you’ll have to consider alternate routings.

Transfer your United miles to Continental

This really applies to all awards, not just awards to Australia- if you have not yet linked your United MP and Continental OnePass accounts, it is very wise to link them up immediately and transfer all your miles to Continental. There really should be no reason for one to use United miles over Continental, given the wider range of partners, more flexible routing rules, superior search engine and ability to mix and match Star Alliance and other partners.

Consider Alternate Routings

While Air Canada is also often stingy on award space between Vancouver and Sydney, it is still possible to find award seats on them (especially at the aforementioned 330 day window). Otherwise, Air New Zealand offers decent availability in Business Premier on its flights to LAX and SFO. Another less-considered routing is flying Sydney to Auckland to Rarotonga to Los Angeles. Although this route is flown by a Boeing 767-300 aircraft with older recliner seats in Business class, this route boasts excellent availability- due to the relative unpopularity of Rarotonga as a tourist destination as opposed to say Tahiti. Therefore, even though two stops are required, it can still be worth while given the absence of other options. Adding a stopover in Rarotonga (if your award allows so) is also a great idea to visit the Cook Islands en route to Australia.

Air New Zealand will often open up award space two months prior to travel- so look into that, and set an ExpertFlyer alert if you have access to the service already (in my opinion it is not worth the $99 just to set up an alert).

Also remember that Air New Zealand’s Airbus 320s are flown in a one-class configuration, including all trans-Tasman flights. While some widebody service exists from Auckland to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, Airbus 320-operated routes are booked in the economy bucket and will be ticketed accordingly.

Route via Hawaii

This is a real tricky move, and as Air New Zealand only flies Auckland to Honolulu thrice per week, would require a bit of flexible scheduling- though the prize is being able to fly to Australia with a stopover in Honolulu on the way. This is the trickiest redemption of them all and requires a bit of skill and knowledge to piece together.

This should really only be a last resort option for a couple of reasons- the least of which being that you’ll have to stopover quite a number of times. Otherwise, the product is solely regional-style offerings on narrowbody aircraft- hardly a way to cross the Pacific in style. Chances are you’ll be on a domestic first seat on a Continental Boeing 737 for the last leg of the trip from Honolulu- BusinessFirst awards such as the non stop from Honolulu to Newark are very rare.

Route via Asia

Some mileage programs such as Continental and US Airways allows one to fly from Australia to North America via Asia. This dramatically increases the number of options available as many Asian Star Alliance partners have great award availability. United does not allow one to route via Asia, which is another reason why one would transfer their miles to Continental before booking.

You should generally have no trouble routing via Asia, but you may occasionally need to double-connect to find premium cabin availability on certain days. Asiana generally have great availability on Seoul-Sydney and United offers good award space on their flights between San Francisco and Seoul, giving you a good one-stop option. There are other flights which are known for generous award availability, such as Air China from Sydney to Shanghai/Beijing and ANA from Haneda to Los Angeles.

Continental’s Island Hopper

Feeling really adventurous? Explore Micronesia, Guam, Hawaii and the Marshall Islands by flying Continental’s famous Island Hopper route. Sure, crossing the Pacific in a Boeing 737 in domestic first isn’t really the most fun, but hey, some people like this kind of stuff… (You can fly direct Guam-Honolulu too, for the somewhat less adventurous folks )

(The Sydney-Cairns leg is not included, so grab a seat on Jetstar or similar )

Looking Up Availability

Most of you should be familiar with the ANA tool, which can be located here. You will need to sign up for an ANA account to use the tool. If you have a new account, the “Use Star Alliance Member Airlines” option would be greyed out. A good workaround this is to look for a routing on ANA metal first, such as ICN to NRT and click search. On the results page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where the option to choose Star Alliance member airlines should now be available. Click on that, and the next page will allow you to search availability on all 27+ Star Alliance member carriers. I will probably write a detailed guide to using the ANA tool in the future.

While the ANA tool is good for looking up availability, it’s not a good “thinker” as it doesn’t create smart routings for you automatically. In this regard, you will need to look up availability segment by segment, as in one flight at a time. Now, hypothetically I have decided to route via Asia en route to Australia, which has the best availability. I would then look for availability on generally the longest segment first, which in this case would be the Transpacific segment. When I’ve found availability for the transpacific segment, let’s just say SFO to ICN, I will then look for availability on the next longest segment, which is the Asia to Australia flight. Let’s say there’s no availability on ICN to SYD, but there is for PVG to SYD. Finally, I would book the shorter “connecting” segments, which in this case would be ICN to PVG. As these are the shortest flights and offer the regional product, one should generally look for availability on these last, only after all the major segments have been found. This is as the shorter segments generally allow more flexibility in terms of scheduling and availability.

So while there appears to be relatively few options to Australia, you can really broaden your horizons by exploring every option that’s available, and using the loose routing rules of award tickets to your advantage. And remember the number one rule of award bookings- be flexible! (Well actually that’s rule no. 2, rule no. 1 is that if you get an answer you don’t like, hang up and call again )

I’ll write an article about using Delta SkyMiles (which ironically are the best currency to Australia) soon!

Last PointsBreaks list included the InterContinental Cleveland, and this time we go one better (esp. for United/Continental flyers!) with the InterContinental Chicago O’Hare on sale for 5,000 points. Considering that Priority Club points are consistently valued at around 0.6 cents per point and obtainable at that rate, $30 for an InterContinental is an unbeatable deal!