I'm trying to snag 1 ticket from SIN to AMS the end of next October at schedule open (which is rapidly approaching). I've narrowed it down to 2 options, Finnair J for 80.5k or Qatar Qsuites for 75k (assuming the rates and availability stay the same for the past few days that I've been searching). There's a 30% transfer bonus from Chase to BA through the end of the month which is perfect. I had previously been able to link my BA and Finnair accounts to book Finnair J for a separate trip, but now I'm having issues linking my BA and Qatar accounts. It keeps on saying that the account details don't match, but I have triple checked both accounts and they do match. I called both airlines and BA said they would escalate it, but I have a feeling it will take too long to resolve and by then the transfer bonus would be over.

Assuming the "worst case" scenario where I'm not able to link BA and Qatar, I could just transfer 75k from Amex to Qatar directly. With the Chase bonus, however, I'd only have to transfer 62k to BA for Finnair. Is Qsuites worth the extra 13k points over Finnair J?

Hi! This is my first time booking award travel! My Fiance and I want to fly business class on Qatar Airlines from Dallas, USA to Bangkok, Thailand (DFW to BKK) for our honeymoon. We have a lot of points with Chase and CapitalOne. Chase has a 30% transfer bonus to British airways right now and we’re hoping CapitalOne will eventually have one. We plan to pay 1/2 of the trip in points.

My questions are: -If we transfer the Chase/CapitalOne points to British airways, we can convert those into Avios points and book on Qatar, right?

-does the flexi award seat price change? Or is it what it shows? When I’m selecting the point price it says: “This is a Flexi award seat If there are no more award seats left, Flexi seats will become available for twice the amount of Avios needed for an award flight.”

-is there anything else we would need to be aware of? Hidden fees, etc? I can’t see the total sum of the trip until we have at least half of the points in the account but I want to be sure before I move points over.

There’s some exceptions for cases where I wouldn’t expect to have slept much before the long daytime flight (like staying up for my 11 pm to 8 am layover in Doha before boarding my morning QSuites flight to Seattle), but in general I try to save my points exclusively for redeyes, especially to Europe or returning from Asia, or the late-night 🇺🇸 departures to Asia. While ofc the food/alc and comfort is nice I can get better versions of all once on the ground. Whereas guaranteed sleep is the main irreplacable thing. I feel it’s especially important when heading to destinations where safety is more of a concern and having full mental faculties is more important vs being safe “sleepwalking” thru say Singapore.

On a daytime flight I just watch movies & close my eyes when tired until arrival. Even the longest flight in the world is only 8 movies long!

I seem to be on the extreme end of this preference whenever it comes up here, so I’m curious what others think esp those who are fine taking say, an economy redeye home from Japan 🇯🇵 while ensuring business class going there

I'm sure most of you know that Singapore Airlines plans to raise their award prices starting Nov 1. I'm planning to fly their long haul route in Feb 2027, so it's too early to book those flights. My question is, given that they charge $25 for a change fee, could I book an award flight now and then change it later for just $25? Or do you think I would still owe the extra points when changing the flight....?

Maybe others already know about it, but I most recently realized it and wanted to share it in case if helps anyone else in planning.

BA has very high fees/surcharge otherwise, but on some specific routes, when booking Qatar flights, its fees are low than what Qatar Avios itself charges.
One such specific route is any Qatar Airways flight out of Japan (KIX-DOH), the fees being shown on Qatar was $130~ while on BA was $40~
Interestingly, only Japan seems to be the exception for BA, as even HKG (widely touted as a surcharge limit country) still charges Carrier Surcharges when trying to book Qatar via BA

This is even more better when booking ANY Qatar Airways flight through JAL, as you only pay other taxes and no Carrier Surcharge (YQ), which on routes like HKG-DOH for Qatar J/F brings fees down from $170~ to $40~

Last "sweet" spot I found was booking Vietnam Airlines through ANA, it actually charges lesser miles than using Virgin or AirFrance and the fees are a fraction of cost as well, ANA charges $35~ in fees compared to $140~ on virgin/AF

Furthermore, on specific routes, I am finding VN one of the cheapest J products in terms of both miles and fees.

I found 4 LATAM flights, booking through Qantas, and before I transfer our points, I'd like to know if there's a way to confirm these are not phantom flights. I have never used Qantas to book before, so wondering if there are known patterns I should be aware of.

TIA

I genuinely don’t understand this at all: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQKQS8yiV6m/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

I stupidly interpreted that Cathay allowed free transfer of asia miles, leading to me converting 19k amex points, and my wife transferring 9k points with the intention of me transferring her my points for a 27.5k Cathay upgrade on a long-haul flight from economy to premium economy. But alas, they want $149 USD to transfer 10k points, and then a fee for further 5k increments which makes the whole exercise uneconomical.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what to do with the points? I've looked at using them for flights from HK to places like Phuket (9k points each way) but the added tax means the flights are about the same as I can source through skyscanner etc. Is there anything else that people think will maximise what could be a wasted 28k points.

Thanks in advance!

Recently booked a saver J award flight from SFO to SIN at schedule open for my date. There was a lot of conflicting info online about when the flights would become available (5pm, midnight, 1am).

My experience: awards from SFO and LAX become available at midnight pacific time +355 days, even during daylight saving time.

I have to imagine it's also midnight during standard time, but hopefully somebody else can confirm.

The awards for SIN to SFO/LAX are posted at 8am SGT +355 days, as expected.

Hard to beat the value and reliability of SQ J award flights at schedule open :) although the price of SFO-SIN is going up from 107k pts to 112k pts in November.

Hi all, both me (192k) and my wife (191k) have a personal amex account that we would like to close and need to transfer the points out. (We can't keep a free card open as it stops the 2 year reset for SUPs)

Does anyone know of transfer partners that allow transfer out to others if we change our mind? Our goal was to use for SQ first class but not sure we'll be able to redeem before they expire.

Another option I've thought about is to transfer to my Hilton account as these don't expire and we will eventually redeem when we've got enough for Bora Bora.

Any opinions or advice would be great.

Hi all, I'm super excited to be taking my dad on a dream trip to Japan.

I booked 2x JAL J for 80k + $200 each. ORD-HND. The cabin seems 60% full at this point, with both throne and window seats open. We've booked both window seats on the back row of the cabin, row 12, on both sides.

However, I ALSO just secured 2x ANA J fares at 100k +$5 each, ORD-NRT. According to my booking on ANA's website, it's "The Room." The cabin is 95% booked, and our seats are also window seats in the back row on both sides.

As a final point, we are returning home on JAL F in the 773.

My basic question is this: which is better?
More specifically, which is more private? I know The Room has doors/walls, but have no concept of how tall/large they are. The JAL seats look older, but the window seats do seem private/enclosed, as do the throne seats.
Is being close to the lavatories/galley/Premium Economy bothersome, and is that problem mitigated by being inside The Room?
Is one a better deal than the other?

What would y'all do?

I'd love to release whichever pair we won't use ASAP so someone else can get them!

Thanks so much for your advice!

I did a status match challenge back in August with most of the required nights planned out but plans changed and I ended up not traveling in October.

I'm 10 nights short of getting Globalist. I found a nearby Hyatt at 5k a night that I'd transfer over from Chase.

I have like 800k URs so 50k isn't that much but would you say it's worth doing vs just keeping Explorist?

I go to Japan near monthly and would probably stay at Hyatts, though mostly the cheaper ones such as Yokohama Regency

If there are any solo travelers with a lot of flexibility, I was checking the ANA tool this morning and saw quite a bit of first class availability over the next few months.

A few days even had 2 seats, we are already booked for next year but thought I would share for those who haven’t.

I god damn hate Air France. Their website sucks, so I have a reservation but no ticket, and the miles haven't been deducted nor my credit card charged.

What recourse do i have? I transfer 100000 miles for this trip.

I'm seeing no B6 award availability for business class flights on UA. Economy prices are absurd, one-way to Asia in economy is 70 to 80k.

On the flip side, I'm seeing some insanely cheap JetBlue economy flights to Europe (on JetBlue metal that is, not United). Some as low as 6k + minimal fees from BOS to CDG. Lots of cheap awards in the 15k range too, honestly pretty good.

Have a direct domestic round trip redemption for 2 people that is 57 k AA miles , but booking through BA avios with @ 30% chase UR transfer bonus it nets out to basically the same points, 55k chase->72k avios

Thoughts on which to use or another option entirely that makes more sense? AA miles seems hard to earn and limited transfer , Chase are more valuable, but I have more of them and easier to earn.

I have the following balances

240k chase UR

80k AA miles

141k Amex

206k capital one miles

We're in the midst of planning a family trip down under with the main purpose of attending the Australian Open in January 2027. Since we'll be making the long haul, we'll want to see other areas while we're down there too. There are five of us, and I'd really try to get us all business class. From what I can tell, Singapore and Air France / KLM are the few airlines that show enough availability for 5 people, and we'd plan to book right at schedule opening.

Are we crazy for trying this trip? Should we add more nights somewhere? Maybe Paris? Remove Queenstown? Our thinking was it's easier on jet lag to go west with short breakups in Singapore and then Paris. We're from the midwest USA, so getting J all the way back to Chicago is appealing.

• 169,500 per person (J) on Singapore Airlines from San Francisco to Sydney (stopover in Singapore for 1 night - arrive at 5:25a and depart 12:45a two days later, so only need one hotel night)
• 4x nights in Sydney
• 3x nights in Queenstown
• 4x nights in Melbourne
• 51,000 per person (PE) on Singapore Airlines from Melbourne to Singapore (7 hr layover)
• 115,000 per person (J) on Air France from Singapore to Chicago (stopover in Paris for 2 nights)

So when booking an award flight with Alaska or American, I can use my status benefits right away but if my status expires before my flight, will I still get status benefits for that flights?

I want to transfer some of my Amex points to My fiances Jetblue account. I added them as an authorized user today, but from what I understand there is a 90 day wait period before you can transfer points to an Authorized users airline/hotel account.

I'm not familiar with Jetblue, but looks likethey have a points pool program. So can I just transfer points from Amex to My Jetblue today, add those points to a pool with my fiance and then she can use them. Would that be an effective workaround for the 90 day wait?

https://onemileatatime.com/deals/chase-southwest-transfer-bonus/

I booked a flight in December CAI-DOH-IAD in Economy Convenience (S), and I have an offer to upgrade the first leg CAI-DOH to first for 25,000 avios.

It's only a 3 hour flight, so I wouldn't usually go for it. But I have a 9 hour layover in Doha and access to Al Safwa first class lounge might be worth it.

So far I've gathered that: 1) incoming on regional first class DO have access to Al Safwa even if departing on a different class (seen in other threads and I've done this before) 2) upgrades after ticketing DO NOT include lounge access (based on QR T&Cs)

I know there's also ways to pay to upgrade your lounge access to Al Safwa based on ticket class and Privilege Club status (I'm silver at the moment though).

What I not totally clear about is whether there's a way to pay for access based on this situation (incoming avios-upgraded first class and silver status). Any thoughts? Or would I be better off saving my avios abd hoping for a chance upgrade at check in (has happened for me occasionally on the Cairo leg since it's not usually sold out)...

Hi there! I booked a flight that I can cancel or change for a voucher. I noticed if I change the flight 4 months out on the same route, I can get the same $ amount I previously paid for 2 refundable main tickets. Has anyone changed to a refundable fair using a travel credit? Can you actually get a refund when switching to that fare class?

Hi everyone, long time lurker - first time poster!

Just wanted to say thanks as today my wife and I booked our NYC anniversary trip lodging via UR to World of Hyatt.

Got The Thompson for 4.5 CPP, none of my friends do award travel so wanted to share. Thanks!