How to get the best value using AmEx points for flights from Sydney to Europe?

Hi Guys,

I have an AmEx Business Platinum card which I’ve accumulated 1.8m in points. I would like to take the wife on a business class trip Syd to Paris.

AmEx has a range of partner airlines, but I wanted to know from everyone’s experience, what is the best airline partner that has the most value ?

Asia Miles seems to have the lowest points needed but even when I choose dates a year in advance, it always says Wait-list. It’s like they don’t want you to use them.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Raz.

Hi Raz,

As I think you’re already discovering, the airline with the “most value” is the airline that you can book the seats you want with! Yes, Asia Miles will take the fewest points, but if you can’t get flights with them, then they don’t have the best value after all. You might like to look at KrisFlyer: Singapore Airlines availability is generally pretty good, and their fees and charges are low as well. But if a seat you want is available, you’re getting the “most value” from your points.

Having said that, I was a bit surprised to read that you can find no availability on Asia Miles. Asia Miles availability is there if you know how to search for it. The trick is that they release a very small number of seats, 352 days in advance, at midnight, Hong Kong time. Very often, all those seats (I’m talking about the cheaper “Standard” awards) are gone within a day or two.

Last month, I successfully booked an Asia Miles business-class redemption to Europe. To get the seats I wanted, I set my alarm for 3am (AEST), got up and booked the seats within minutes of them becoming available, and went back to bed. Don’t wait for your return trip to become available: book the one-way trip as soon as the seats are released, 352 days ahead.

So my advice would be to try first for an Asia Miles redemption; my second option would be Singapore. If you still can’t find seats, that’s when it’s time to search a bit further afield (eg. Emirates/Qatar/Etihad, Thai, Malaysian, etc etc… I think Air France also codeshares with Qantas from Singapore). You’ve got oodles of points and you can use them on countless airlines. With a bit of diligence you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the flights you’re after.

Let us know how you go!

1 Like

Hi sixtyeight,

Thanks so much for the advice.

We’re looking at travelling in the next few months, so Asia Miles option of booking 352 days in advance is not going to work for us.

I’ll Singapore next.

I’ll go through all the airline partners and report back the number of points needed and any fee’s required.

This may help other members.

Thanks

Raz

Hi Raz,
Perhaps look into awardhacker.com as it will show you the program which requires the least points for your journey. Armed with that knowledge you can then do a few dummy searches to look into availability before you transfer.

thanks NLP28.

I’ll check it out.