How to get from Brisbane to Toronto with Amex points in September 2022?

Team, hope its okay to post this kind of request here,

I have 420K Amex points. My goal is to get a business class flight from Brisbane to Toronto CA around the 15th September 22 and return from either JFK or DFW approximately a week and a half later.

I think I have maybe 30k in Qantas FF but that’s basically it outside the amex.

Assume I’ll need to do an upgrade from an economy booking. Don’t think it makes a difference but the card is platinum card.

Any recommendations, suggestions on who to transfer the points to?

thanks!

Hi @nathan.bentley.anz

It is absolutely OK, in fact encouraged, that you post this kind of request here!

On paper, you should transfer your points to Asia Miles. With Asia Miles you’ll have enough points to fly to North America and back in Business class without having to worry about Economy upgrades. In fact, you’ll have enough Asia Miles to fly around the world (RTW) which might help if you need to fly back via Europe. Asia Miles is in Oneworld so you’ll have the option of using any Oneworld airline.

In practice, it might not be as simple as that as availability is extremely hard to come by at the moment. Don’t transfer your points until you’re certain or almost certain that the reward flights you need will be available. But if I were you I’d start to research Oneworld availability, with a view to using Asia Miles to book your flights.

If that falls through, you’ll need to start looking at Star Alliance options (Air Canada, United etc) but you won’t have quite enough points to fly Business class there and back.

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All of @sixtyeight suggestions are very good (as they always are!).
I would suggest you look into Virgin Velocity as well. They have a partnership with Air Canada and Air Canada has just resumed flights from Brisbane to Vancouver. I don’t know about you, but I personally prefer transiting in Canada rather than the USA if I’m going to go to Toronto.
So, transferring your points to Velocity and then booking a ticket with Air Canada shouldn’t be too hard.

A slightly more complicated option would be United as well that has just been made available with Velocity. This would definitely involve 2 transfers so its a lot less efficient. But there’s another option.

What we are both saying I think is that there are plenty of options. You should choose the program that has the flights and routing that you want. After all, I remember another forum member once saying “the best frequent flyer program is the one you can redeem flights with” or something along those lines!

Hope this helps.

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