ekscrunchy

It's only been once or twice that I've been able to get an award ticket. I am quite uneducated in all of this with points and using award miles.

I have only 16,000 miles on FLYING BLUE. I had tons of points but they were lost after COVID and a couple of medical-reason cancellations.

And I have some Iberia points but after spending about an hour trying to get on the Iberia Plus site, even after getting a new password, it is impossible.
I've taken about 4 RT flights from USA to Spain in the past two years so should have a decent amount of points, if only I could find out how many without having to call and jump through a million hoops.

I also have about a million AMEX points.

I need two RT business class tickets to CAT for late August. I believe my choices are ITA/Delta or Lufthansa. I want specific dates as Ii already have my hotels booked. Not flexible on that.

It must be too late in time to get an award ticket on such a popular route.

So I am thinking of starting easy and using those AMEX points. What is the best way to use them? A few years ago I just called AMEX and paid for Alitalia tickets with the points. I know that is an inefficient use of points. That trip had to be cancelled two days before departure and we lost everything, even with medical substantiation. AMEX travel agents were totally unhelpful.

To use the AMEX points, is the only way to just book them through AMEX?


Many thanks to anyone who offers me some help here!!!!

Gardyloo

Couple of things...

First, CAT is the code for Cascais, Portugal (near Lisbon) which has no international service. Do you mean CTA, Catania in Sicily? I'm guessing so.

Second, airlines release award seats both in economy and business class when their very complicated (and very secret) revenue management algorithms tell them to. This can be eleven months in advance of the flight date, or eleven hours. It's a commonly held fallacy to think that early birds get the worms with award seats; the seats are released into award inventory when the robots determine that the seats aren't going to sell for thousands of dollars, based on historic data, market trends, the status of competition for the routes, price of fuel, on and on... Unless you got a degree from Hogwarts you won't be able to predict when they'll be available.

Which means that getting two award seats in business class on specific dates is pretty much a longshot.

As for the mechanics, you would probably best be advised to transfer your Amex points to an airline that either flies themselves, or has a partner that does, to your destination, or failing that, to some hub airport from which you could purchase separate tickets to the final destination. In the case of Catania, most of the "big name" Europe-based airlines fly there, e.g. British Airways from Gatwick, Lufthansa from both Frankfurt and Munich, Turkish from Istanbul, KLM from Amsterdam, Iberia from Madrid, ITA from Milan and Rome, on and on. In addition, most of the "low cost" airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair, fly there from various points on the continent.

Amex transfer partners: Full List of Amex Transfer Partners - Airline & Hotel [2024] (upgradedpoints.com)

How to transfer points (as opposed to booking through Amex?) Read this: How to redeem American Express Membership Rewards for maximum value - The Points Guy

For example, that article says that Virgin Atlantic (a Delta partner) still only requires 50,000 miles for one-way business class from the US to Europe (excluding the UK.) So if there was space available on your dates (or close to them) you'd transfer 200,000 Amex points to Virgin Atlantic, then turn around and redeem them (4 x 50K for two round trips) for Delta flights that would get you to Sicily - IF there are seats available on your dates.

How would you find that out? You'd join Virgin's Flying Club (free, online) so you'd have access to their award availability charts. Flying Club | Virgin Atlantic. If you see seats, transfer the points right away as the seats won't last.

The same approach applies to other possible airline partners. You could join, for example, Air Canada's Aeroplan program, which would give you access to flights operated into CTA by Air Canada partners such as Lufthansa, Aegean, Austrian, Swiss International or Turkish. AC's redemption/points requirements will be different than Virgin's, but any port in a storm, right?

I know this is all very complicated but realize that you're trying to purchase tickets that would cost $3000 - $4000+ each, so worth the effort IMO. Good luck!

ekscrunchy

My goodness, Gardyloo..I think YOU are the Points Guy! You offered such incredibly detailed help here and I thank you. I always thought that you had to book those award seats 366 days in advance or something close to that......now I know better!!!
Yes, I meant Catania, but you are so smart to have known that!

I have there most Iberia points but cannot get on their website to see how many. I never thought of going via MAD.

You've explained it really well but its so complicated....

My partner is in favor of just using the straight Amex points, since we never use them anyway (except the one time I mentioned when we used all of them up and canceled and lost them all!!). They just sit there and we forget about them but I am determined to use them in some way this year!!!

raincitygirl

ekscrunchy, if you log into your Amex account you can go to the section for Rewards, then Travel rewards and click air travel. Then put in your details: 2 people travelling, your departure airports, your dates, change the setting to business class, then search and some options should come up. I just did a trial in my account, assuming also that you were going to Catania and assuming leaving from JFK. For me what comes up is it is around a million points for 2 people for Business class return. Seems to be Swiss Air and Lufthansa and Air CAnada coming up but that will be because I am here in Canada, you may get some different options.
I have booked tickets using my points this way several times with no issues, it's very straightforward. Amex has become a bit more stingy with flight rewards since covid, it used to take far fewer points to go somewhere but if you have one million points you may as well use them.
I think last time I did this my credit card was charged first, then they refunded me and deducted the points from my Amex Account.
Also I just did a quick search and it looks like if you have to cancel you can get your points returned to your account.

ekscrunchy

Thank you so much!!!

Would I do better (more value for points) if I book the way you describe, rather than phoning Amex and asking them to get us (2) from JFK to Catania (you are correct!) and back?
I need to have only one connection but don't are where it is.....

raincitygirl

I don't think you will do any better by phoning and speaking to an agent. I think Amex decides which routes cost x number of points and it's the same whether you call in or do it yourself on their website. Personally I prefer to do it myself rather than wait on hold forever to speak to someone.
When you go into the website and into travel rewards you can set the filters to one stop, business class and then 2 people and your dates. Their system will throw up all the options. Good luck and let me know if you have any issues, I will try to help you.

Gardyloo

Thanks to raincitygirl for researching how many Amex points you would need to get the two business class tickets with minimal effort. A million points for two tickets is quite a lot. Here's how I'd look at it, and it's important to note that this is just me.

Frequent flyer points are a type of currency. As such they have a value that can be expressed in other currencies. For example, if it takes a million Amex points to buy two tickets that would cost, say, $4200 each (total $8400) that means that each point has a "cash" value of $.0084, or a little less than a penny a point.

Now, if, after a fair amount of effort, you could land the Virgin/Delta flights at 50,000 Virgin miles each way, i.e. 200,000 miles for two round trips, those same points would have an equivalent value of 4.2c per point. You'd still have a balance of 800,000 Amex points, which you could use for other travel, or hotel nights, whatever.

(By the way, it looks like Iberia would charge you 125,000 Avios (their points) for each way in business class, so 500,000 Avios for two round trips. In my view that's not a very good deal.)

Back to my point. As a type of currency, the points can be, in a way, fungible. You might not be able to spend them on business class transatlantic travel on specific dates because of lack of award availability, but Amex points don't expire, so they could be used on off-peak transatlantic travel, or for business or first-class domestic travel, or travel to Latin America, Asia, what/wherever.

Some destinations are traditionally hard to get to using miles/points for premium cabin travel - Australia and New Zealand are usually VERY hard award destinations. Other destinations can be surprisingly easy to access; for example, Cathay Pacific Asiamiles can get you to Hong Kong, or other parts of Asia, or, surprisingly, South Africa, surprisingly easily. Or, there's almost never any difficulty in using miles/points for intra-Europe travel, or, except at holiday periods, for premium cabin travel around North and Central America.

In my mind, the key is to have something of a "master plan," maybe covering two or three years, where you lay out where and when you'd like to travel, and identify, as best you can, how you'd pay for it. Some trips would be paid with cash, others with points, some with some of each (e.g. cash over the pond, points for connections and hops around Europe or the Middle East.)

Enough of a spiel. Using all your Amex points for this trip might be easy if pricey, using a fraction of them for this trip, and having a bunch left over for future trips, might involve more work, but might be worth it. Your choice.

raincitygirl

All good points Gardyloo, but it seems like ekscrunchy wants an easy option and if she has a whole load of points sitting around unused she may as well use them up.
So ekscrunchy, when I did my test check I hadn't noticed your month was August and I just put in random dates in June. I have gone back and entered end of August dates and it seems like fewer points are needed for that time frame. So it looks like 973,000 for Delta, with a stop in CDG ,or ITA , about 974,000 pts with a stop at Rome Fiumicino and there are several iterations for both airlines, some with one and a half hour stops and some with several hours.
There are actually tons of options today, also KLM, Air France, United, all roughly around the same number of points, the site also shows you the cost in dollars.
It has been my experience that the options change day to day but so far it looks like you have a lot of choices, you just need to get on the site and choose.

raincitygirl

Just for fun, as I am an Aeroplan member, I checked with their site to see how many points your trip would be etc. It varied but mostly was around 300,000 to 400,000 per person per round trip and the options for flights were awful, very long flight times with super long layovers- this would be a big no thanks from me. Also many of the flights were mixed class so you weren't getting Business class the whole way.
What I saw for you on Amex was much better.

ekscrunchy

Both of you deserve a Big round of applause (round of applause begins.....)

Rainy: Was that Amex for one person or two?

raincitygirl

That was for two people ekscrunchy.

ekscrunchy

Gardyloo will be horrified, but I just booked the RT business to Catania on Lufthansa, via Munich.
With Amex points (800k -plus for two) Raincycity you are right on the money..the entire booking took about 5 minutes and we have our seats, too.

Gardyloo

No I'm not. Have a great trip!

raincitygirl

Oh hooray! I'm glad it all worked out for you. Have a wonderful trip!