Kris Flyer (Me): 31,377 miles
Kris Flyer (Wife): 0 miles
Kris Flyer (11 year old son): 3094 miles
AMEX (Wife): 159,514 points
NAB Reward (Me): 3939 points
We need to see our parents in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, once tickets to India become available. I was thinking of simply converting all the various points into KrisFlyer points and buying as many tickets as I can. We’re (2 adults and 1 child) looking at economy class travel unless the points allow any business travel. Want to spend less out of pocket for tickets.
I am looking for suggestions and experts’ advice on the best possible way to travel from Melbourne - Mumbai/Ahmedabad and return.
KrisFlyer is probably the best strategy if you want to use up some of your points. It costs 84,000 miles in Business or 40,000 miles in Economy for a one-way flight from Melbourne to Mumbai or Ahmedabad, via Singapore.
Three return tickets in Economy would require 240,000 KrisFlyer miles. Unfortunately, you’re not going to have enough for that with your current balances.
Here’s one suggestion:
Collect 160,000 Amex points and transfer 80,000 KF miles to your wife’s account. She can redeem 1x return Economy ticket for herself. Be sure to check Saver reward seat availability on the Singapore Airlines website before you do this transfer, as flights back to Australia might still be limited.
Book yourself and your child on an Economy return ticket with cash.
Save your other KrisFlyer miles, NAB Rewards points and Velocity Points for a different trip. You’ll only have enough for 40,000 KrisFlyer miles, a one-way ticket, which is usually not worth redeeming as you have to buy a separate one-way ticket home.
It’s easier to just buy a return ticket from Australia for two people. Just keep in mind that 160K Amex points can be worth quite a bit flying Business Class on other airlines to other routes, so you need to weigh that up against buying 2 or 3 Economy tickets to India.