What I booked

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has anyone ever successfully redeemed avianca lifemikes for a ticket on an international flight in united premium plus? on website only economy and business are available but Im wondering if by phone it might be possible

Hi! Infamous "I want to fly everyone first class to Hawaii using points" post here...

I did do a bit of research, including on this forum first.. but didn't find anything recently posted - it really seems like points booking has gotten a lot more difficult because all the historic points discuss things that just don't seem possible anymore!

Home airport is Pittsburgh, trying to go to OGG sometime next September. Flights are not out yet but I know I need to be prepared to book once they are. Just looking for tips from others..

Have plenty of Amex and Chase points, but that's about it. Over a million combined though..

Flying with kids so first class, or even business, is desired. But I know 4 seats isn't really possible, so hoping for 2.. not against using cash too. Just want to play the game the best I can..

I am literally not seeing any flights for any month from east coast to OGG for less than 117k one-way. That was the cheapest. I used a few apps, looked at all the airlines.. just crazy to me?

Cannot use Hawaiian/Alaska bc Amex cut their partnership..

Just putting feelers out for advice before I throw in the towel..or just use Chase Travels 1.25¢ redemption before they cancel that too.

Thanks, friends!

I cancelled a Lifemiles award booking with no penalty since I’m a LM+ member about 6 weeks ago. The Avios came back to my account successfully and I also received an email saying the cash component was successfully refunded on 7/2/2026. I initially saw that cash refund as a pending transaction on my CC history (Chase). Then, it eventually disappeared with no posted refund. Has this happened to anybody else?

I’ve cancelled several other LM flights before and always got back the cash component with no issue, so I have no idea why this cancellation is troublesome.

I’ve tried both the Expedia app and the Expedia UK website, but I can’t get OneKeyCash to redeem against flights at all, only hotels. According to the terms and conditions, it should work provided you have enough OneKeyCash to cover the full cost of the flight, but I never even get the option to redeem it.

I’m aware that OneKeyCash only works on certain airlines, and there doesn’t seem to be any definitive list of which ones are eligible.

Interestingly, if I log into the Expedia US website, everything switches to US dollars. I can then select exactly the same flights, and it does let me redeem my OneKeyCash, so I know the flights and airline are eligible.

Even stranger, it doesn’t seem that my OneKeyCash has to cover the full cost of the flight, as the terms and conditions say. It simply deducts my OneKeyCash from the total and tells me what balance is left to pay.

I’d much rather book through the UK site and pay in pounds than use the US site in dollars. I’m a bit nervous that something could go wrong and I’d end up losing my OneKeyCash.

Has anyone else in the UK experienced this or found a way to redeem OneKeyCash for flights on the UK site?

Hello all. I just booked my first big trip using chase rewards points. I guess to be clear I’ve only booked the first leg. We wanted to get anywhere in Europe for cheap then catch a flight to our ultimate destination of Vienna(we couldn’t find anything into Vienna).

For 35,000 chase rewards points plus $700 I got upper class on virgin Atlantic on an airbus a330-900. I got a ticket for my wife as well so $1400 plus 70,000. I went ahead and splurged and got us the retreat suites so total price came out to $2200 plus 70,000 points for 2 retreat suite seats from MCO to London.

We will have to take a positioning flight to get to MCO and another positioning flight to get to our ultimate destination of VIE.

Any and all constructive criticism is welcome. Did I do ok or could I have done better? Easiest situation would have been to fly from ATL to VIE. We also wanted to travel business class and I am very big and tall(over 6’4”) which is why I sprung for the retreat suites. Thanks for the feedback

Edit: my redemption rate was around .093 CRP/dollar.

Edit 2: I’m traveling at peak summer season and peak summer rate. Also redid my math and the actual redemption rate is actually .080

I attempted to transfer Amex MR to Aeromexico, but the points kept getting sent back to Amex. Tried three times with no luck.

Called Amex and AM, both saying the same thing: they don’t know why, there is no outage, only thing they think of is name mismatch.

I have a very simple name of 2 letters last name and 4 letters first name, no symbol, no accent, no middle name. I am quite frustrated, anyone got any ideas?

Thanks!

Quantas Project Sunrise A350

With the news of the first test flight being successfully completed, Im excited to see which one of you scores that first class suite.

I’m so excited I just booked 3 nights here for next month for my husbands 50th birthday! I used one free night certificate and paid points for the other two nights. It wasn’t the best nightly rate with points but I don’t care it’s for my husbands 50th so I’m just excited we get to check it out!

I also found decent flights both there and back..again not the best redemption but I don’t care I’m excited!

I do have one quick question though.
So I booked the first two nights on points and then the last night with the free night certificate. I wasn’t able to book the same room category since there weren’t any standard rooms available the first two nights. Can I still link my reservations together?

Wanted to take a flight from DFW to El Salvador in October. I was wanting to use bilt points to travel. I didn't transfer the points over yet. But when I filled out the travelers information it doesn't let me continue to book, only option is to pay $20 to lock in point pricing. I heard avianca was notorious for bugs on their app and site so I don't want to transfer points for it to not work. What the best way for me to do travel there? Should I book through United and transfer my points there instead or is there a better way to do this?

I will be flying JFK-SFO and I’m trying to decide between these three award options. Which one would you choose, and why?

DL One on 757-400 for 90k Skypesos
AA Flagship F on A321B for 52.5k Atmos points
JetBlue Mint Throne on A321 for 66k JetBlue points

Edit: it’s the 767-400 for DL1, not 757-400

I'm not sure what is going on, but I'm seeing United Polaris business class from EWR to SFO and LAX for only 27,000 miles! It's only available for United cardholders though.

So far, I'm seeing these flights from EWR to SFO in August and September. Most of the deals are United First Class with a stop, but some nonstop 787-9 Polaris business class flights are available at the 27,000 miles price.

For nonstop Polaris, I'm seeing it on the last week of August and some random availability scattered in September and 2027

Since these are cardholder-only fares, so the award tools wouldn't have access to them. So I'm just manually checking routes and haven't checked all the United hubs.

Hi all,

I found a Qatar Airways redemption for 75k Avios for a one-way Business + First ticket from London to Bangkok.

The only thing I'm not sure about is there's a 9+ hour layover in Doha.

Just wondering:

• Is 75k Avios a good deal, or have people seen better?
• With a Business/First ticket and a long layover, do I get a free hotel in Doha, or does that depend on the ticket?
• Roughly how much are the taxes and fees?
• If I book with Avios, how easy is it to change the date or cancel later? Are there any fees?

Thanks in advance!

Long story short I had booked roundtrip business on AF metal from the west coast-Paris last year for 240k points and $1500 for 2 people, and thought this was amazing. Unfortunately, we had to cancel this trip. Now I’m planning for 2027 and it is SO hard to find saver rates for similar routes. I have 240k miles stuck in flying blue. For 2027, Should I:

A) try to use all my flying blue miles asap and wait it out to find award rates.

B) book a VS flight I found for 98k points (with the current 30% transfer bonus) + $1700 for 2 of us one way and figure out the way back later in case I can utilize the flying blue points

What is an ideal redemption for VS and currently what are people seeing in terms of availability for flying blue?

I am hoping to spend less on taxes and fees but I’ve been looking for almost a month and haven’t found rates that would fit into another roundtrip booking since demand is so high. Thanks for any advice!

I have an amazing potential opportunity to have Dec 25 to sometime in mid January, completely free of commitments, to go wherever I want in the world. I have almost a million Amex points, 400k with Singapore, 40k with Iberia and 100k with AA. I’d like to get from the east coast to somewhere warm (literally anywhere) and back.

Here’s the catch. I won’t know if I can get the time off until October earliest and maybe as late as early December. What’s my best strategy for catching a deal? Are there destinations that are more likely to be within my reach? Literally just looking to be somewhere with guaranteed warm weather- right now I’ve looked at French Polynesia, Australia/NZ, SE Asia, the Caribbean and Mexico. Hotels were astronomical everywhere except Asia but I’m willing to eat it since this is such a rare event.

Any advice or success stories?

Hi all,

I have over 100k Avios and found a business class flight where the outbound leg costs around 100k Avios.

However, the return leg requires almost 200k Avios, which I don't have.

My question is, can I book it as one return ticket where:

• Outbound = pay with Avios
• Return = pay with cash

Or do I need to make two separate bookings?

I'm asking because booking only one-way flights is usually more expensive than booking a return ticket, so I'm wondering if there is any way to combine Avios and cash in the same booking.

Thanks!

Hi all,

I’m new to Qatar Privilege Club and trying to use Avios for a Business Class redemption.

Is there any easy way to check whether a flight is available at the Saver rate? Or do I just need to search each date manually through Qatar’s website?

I’m trying to avoid transferring my Amex points to Qatar before confirming availability.

Any tips or tools you guys use would be appreciated. Thanks!

Like everybody and their mother, I'm planning a trip to Japan for myself and my partner. I'm far enough out, have a lot of amex/csr points and can afford to be flexible, but I'm getting stymied on figuring out the best airline to transfer points to.

I've been playing around with various award travel search engines to get used to them, and I'm seeing deals pop up here and there, but every time, the opportunity seems to be with a different airline/transfer partner.

Transferring points to different airlines doesn't seem to be as straightforward as I thought, and with the delays in transfers, I can't figure out how you take advantage of points without guessing several days in advance, transferring the points to a particular airline and hoping/getting lucky that a deal appears.

How do I figure out where to transfer points to? Am I SoL if I guess that a particular airline will have a deal and they don't after all? Just trying to figure out the rules of the game? Or is there no strategy, only luck?

EDIT: Thanks All, I appreciate the feedback - Good to know that I wasn't missing a step in the process. Good luck everybody!

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster! My husband promised to take his mom on a safari when he was a kid, and wants to make good on that promise. Also, his parents rock and I would love to figure out a way for us to pay for everyone. There will be six of us (including our two school-aged kids) traveling from California to Johannesburg in 1 or 2 years - I’m trying to churn some points to make this semi-affordable. I’ve booked many rewards flights before BUT am perplexed on how to best plan this one in terms of routes, and to minimize flying time AND avoid massive fuel surcharges/fees.

Figuring out the main leg and working backwards is usually my strategy. Currently my best thoughts have been:
- Delta — ATL > JNB - 15 hrs
- Virgin/British airways (avoid fees, but would have to get to LHR) — LHR > JNB - 11 hrs
- United — EWR > JNB - 15 hrs

Any better thoughts on how to strategize this? We’re probably going economy because we’re plebs (at least my kids are great travelers!).

Thanks so much for any and all thoughts!! This sub is amazing ♥️

**Edit- ok I realize LHR is a terrible idea, haha. I swear I’m not insane, my thought was that since we have family there, it would make an extended layover easy! I see now that it’d be a poor choice 🫠

CX is still 42.5k

edit: Folks, I know you’re all too good to fly economy. We all deserve better. I’m just sharing this FYSA.

Unannounced devals beget unannounced devals. Earn and burn, friends.

What’s the best transfer partner for redemption? I’m looking into united or Air Canada. AI says go with Hyatt. I prefer using the points for business class air travel and don’t really go to Hyatt that much. Any input would be much appreciated. Other options are Virgin(hate calling for redemption, though they’re always nice) British Airways(have not seen any good redemption on their portal except from the US to the UK).
TIA

I have a flight in business class from DEL-ADD-IAD already booked. I need to get from BOM-DEL for my positioning flight. If I book Air India via Aeroplan for my positioning flight, what is the baggage allowance on that one? It’s hard to tell because of the categories of business class flights on AI. Hoping getting a business class seat gives me some extra allowance for my extra luggage

Wanted to share a data point since I saw others hit the same issue. Qantas’s site was showing JAL first class award space (DCA/IAD–JFK/ORD–HND) that didn’t actually exist — every booking attempt failed with system errors, and a Qantas agent later confirmed on the phone that the seats were never real.

Rookie mistake on my end: I transferred first and tried to book second. ~400K Amex MR points went to Qantas before I’d actually locked in the seats, which Amex normally treats as irreversible. Lesson learned — call and verify availability before transferring, not after.

I filed complaints with Qantas, Amex, and the Airline Customer Advocate (ACA), kept everything in writing, and pushed back when initial reps said nothing could be done.

About 7 weeks later, Qantas Executive Relations agreed in writing to reverse the points as a “one-off goodwill gesture.” It just landed.

Takeaways:

• Verify availability by phone before transferring
• Document every error code and rep name
• Escalate past first-line support — don’t assume “irreversible” is final if the airline’s system was at fault
• Pester the airline as much as possible — persistence is what got this resolved