HooRay! I got the flights!!

I did it! I got award seats for 2 going to Bali and home from Tokyo. For 75K miles I have IAD to SFO (14 hour layover which I wanted:D) then SFO to TPE with 3 day stopover in Taipei for sight seeing then TPE to DPS Bali Indonesia. We will have to buy tickets to Yogyakarta separately roundtrip as not available Star alliance. Cruise from Bali to Osaka. Then home after a week of sightseeing NRT (Tokyo) to IAD (Washington DC). We are flying United and have gone to E+ on 3 flights. I wish it were BC but I don't think this is bad in about 2 months of working on credit cards and CHARGE!

I am very pleased with myself!! Yahoo! (Certain family members did not think I could get the tickets I wanted :rolleyes: )

Congrats!!! I literally just started using "rewards/points" credit cards. Wish I would have started a long time ago. Hopefully by next year, we can do the same.

Congrats and what an itinerary you have :eek: Enjoy your trip!

I just booked my FF seats on Delta for Alaska next year and got great flight times too :D

I did it! I got award seats for 2 going to Bali and home from Tokyo. For 75K miles I have IAD to SFO (14 hour layover which I wanted:D) then SFO to TPE with 3 day stopover in Taipei for sight seeing then TPE to DPS Bali Indonesia. We will have to buy tickets to Yogyakarta separately roundtrip as not available Star alliance. Cruise from Bali to Osaka. Then home after a week of sightseeing NRT (Tokyo) to IAD (Washington DC). We are flying United and have gone to E+ on 3 flights. I wish it were BC but I don't think this is bad in about 2 months of working on credit cards and CHARGE!

 

I am very pleased with myself!! Yahoo! (Certain family members did not think I could get the tickets I wanted :rolleyes: )

Great...were these two one ways? And, how did you manage the three day stopover in TPE?

Great...were these two one ways? And, how did you manage the three day stopover in TPE?

For UA award tickets, you are allowed a stopover for a roundtrip, but if you do two one ways, you can stop each time.

You simply book as a multicity trip and put in the dates you want.

The way that I got the 3 day stopover in Taipei was to do a roundtrip award. It was the challenging part. The rules are that a layover is LESS than 24 hours and a stopover is MORE than 24 hours. You are allowed LAYOVERs on connecting flights and 1 (one) STOPOVER on a roundtrip. 14 hours in SFO where I will go on free shuttle to hotel for night (8PM to 10 AM) is layover. Then nonstop flight to TPE getting in on 9th with private tour on 10 and leaving on 11th to arrive in Bali (DPS) Flight back is nonstop NRT (Japan) to IAD Washington DC. Could do the same with other cities including PEK (Bejing) BKK (Bangkok), Seoul (ICN) Tokyo (NRT). Most US flights to Asia go through NRT/ICN (or PEK or Hong Kong) depending on alliance and air line.

Know the rules for layover or stopovers and then start dreaming of adding another city. On way back we land in Osaka and tour for a week in Japan. We will take the bullet trains to Tokyo for 2 days in city and then fly home as part of open-jaw ticket. I found that for awards I did each leg separately listing my possible flights with super saver award. Keep stretching out how far I could get. Roundtrip (2 flights) to Japan would cost same amount of points as the 4 flights and additional 8K miles that I booked.

Look up ITA matrix and start to play with city combinations. For our trip, the dollar (cash price) varied by several thousand dollars depending on where you flew to (Jakarta was over $1000 Cheaper with additional flight of 7 hours than the same Tokyo flights without Jakarta leg:confused: ) and length of those layovers. We chose Taipei from many choices because not been there and a world class art museum according to Frommers and Trip Advisor. Good Luck.

Thanks for the information....have a land southeast Asia trip in mind for Feb 2016, but we would like to stop in Hong Kong the way to Vietnam. And, I like the west coast layover idea.

I will have to play with some pretend bookings to get an idea of what I'll be up against.

We have miles on two airlines (United and Delta) and I was going to use the United miles for a trip to Poland next year, but might save those for Asia (more of them) and use the Delta miles for one of the tickets to Poland. Anyway, a complicated Delta FF multicity ticket would be near impossible for a neophyte like me to score.

Don't think it would be hard to score seats at all. This was my first try really. I was in the process of changing credit cards because the insurance company that I had card with ripped me off so badly on a claim (I was happy with that card but little did I know then :rolleyes: ).

rule #1 It is about the sign up bonus and the other bonus. No way you get the number of points you need by flying miles or even spending. I got 55 thousand miles from United explorer card. 45 thousand for Chase Sapphire (points really great go 1:1 United/Southwest/Singapore/Korean and others). I also learned here on CC about paying yearly insurance bills on credit card for points (worked) but decided not to when companies charged a fee or % to pay by card. Have to do the math and figure out which way is better for yourself. I also bought 12 thousand miles from United and received 12 thousand as a bonus -- that finished both accounts out to 75 K in a little over 2 months time. Oh how could I forget -- the cost of the cruise to Belize and those shore excursions helped too. The cruise to Asia will give enough Sapphire points for most of the hotels pre and post along with what is there from other travels. For basic education on this I browsed through Pointsguy.com and another blog on redeeming miles. Both help me think it out. Basically I think I get a good deal when points pay for something without my opening my wallet -- or pay me back that's good too. Addicted to travel I will basically "buy" it anyway so it is a good use of my points.

The hit on our credit score for opening 3 new cards while dropping one and keeping the "oldie of 30 years starter card" was a total of 4 points as far as I could tell. I now have the attitude that I don't need that credit score anyway because I can't think of a way that I would borrow at this stage of life. Finally get it up to top and now I don't want it!!!!:D:p

Don't think it would be hard to score seats at all. This was my first try really. I was in the process of changing credit cards because the insurance company that I had card with ripped me off so badly on a claim (I was happy with that card but little did I know then :rolleyes: ).

 

rule #1 It is about the sign up bonus and the other bonus. No way you get the number of points you need by flying miles or even spending. I got 55 thousand miles from United explorer card. 45 thousand for Chase Sapphire (points really great go 1:1 United/Southwest/Singapore/Korean and others). I also learned here on CC about paying yearly insurance bills on credit card for points (worked) but decided not to when companies charged a fee or % to pay by card. Have to do the math and figure out which way is better for yourself. I also bought 12 thousand miles from United and received 12 thousand as a bonus -- that finished both accounts out to 75 K in a little over 2 months time. Oh how could I forget -- the cost of the cruise to Belize and those shore excursions helped too. The cruise to Asia will give enough Sapphire points for most of the hotels pre and post along with what is there from other travels. For basic education on this I browsed through Pointsguy.com and another blog on redeeming miles. Both help me think it out. Basically I think I get a good deal when points pay for something without my opening my wallet -- or pay me back that's good too. Addicted to travel I will basically "buy" it anyway so it is a good use of my points.

 

The hit on our credit score for opening 3 new cards while dropping one and keeping the "oldie of 30 years starter card" was a total of 4 points as far as I could tell. I now have the attitude that I don't need that credit score anyway because I can't think of a way that I would borrow at this stage of life. Finally get it up to top and now I don't want it!!!!:D:p

DH uses the cards for business expenses so we will probably have enough United points by the time we would actually book the Asia trip. Will keep the Sapphire idea in mind in case we do need to get a few more.

It sounds easier to score this type of ticket on United than attempting on Delta. Delta's multicity function is user vicious - unless I'm missing something (probably the case) or it's changed. Back last year someone couldn't see how a ticket would price out in miles until the entire itinerary was put in.

What is the typical points costs for the hotels using the Sapphire? I have a Carlson (Radisson Blu) card that worked well for Scandinavia and will pay for most of the nights in Poland, but they have poor coverage in Asia. But, it will have served it's purpose after Poland. :)

Marriott and IHG I think have 1:1 ratios for Chase Sapphire. I book through the web using my loyalty numbers and whatever credit card. I need a cheat sheet. Sapphire is good for travel and dining 2X points and think you can just do a cash back or erase a bill like you can on Capital One Venture card (my original no fee travel type card). Chase Sapphire also has chip and pin and that is really important in Europe -- standard there and US behind. Hubby is stubborn about paying fee for card on general principal but like United card get checked bag free. Delta also. Club pass on some cards. IHG and IC we have paid for Ambassador status (less than $200) to get free weekend night and late check outs plus get room upgrade and status at all Holiday Inns brand. DSIL is a hotel manager and hoping his new job will get some benefits -- loved the Marriott employees rate which was like $59 dollars for JW Marriott on Copacabana Beach!:D I don't have to have the best room but I do like and pay for excellent locations.

Really check out that hotel price with breakfast and without. I don't value breakfast that much and have many ways to get something to eat in AM (Starbucks in Beijing across from the hotel and in the hotel on Waikiki ). Breakfast buffets boost the hotel profit line but lots of people like them. Just know what that included breakfast is costing you.

Buggins both of you can have credit card account and the other has a card on the account. Think 55K points. Easy. Can have business card too I guess even if not in business. Different cards have different features and different rewards. As retired, I was not interested in extra points for gas, and groceries. Use less of both now but dining out YESSSSS!:p

For UA award tickets, you are allowed a stopover for a roundtrip, but if you do two one ways, you can stop each time.

 

You simply book as a multicity trip and put in the dates you want.

Great to know. Is this stopover privilege only on international award tickets? Any time limit on the stopover?

Must correct my post - a stopover is permitted only on a round trip ticket. Am not sure what I was thinking.

UA's rules found here:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/awards/travel/types.aspx

Interesting info found here:

http://travelisfree.com/2014/04/08/uniteds-stopover-and-routing-rules/

http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2013/08/how-to-book-united-stopovers-online-part-1.html

Thank you ;)

Great job on persisting and using cards to get the miles you needed!

Must correct my post - a stopover is permitted only on a round trip ticket. Am not sure what I was thinking.

 

UA's rules found here:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/awards/travel/types.aspx

 

 

Interesting info found here:

 

http://travelisfree.com/2014/04/08/uniteds-stopover-and-routing-rules/

 

http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2013/08/how-to-book-united-stopovers-online-part-1.html

Thanks....great links! I'll have fun playing with some city combos. Thankfully, I have a year to figure it out...knowing me it will take that long to make a hit that works.

Great to know. Is this stopover privilege only on international award tickets? Any time limit on the stopover?

Check this information out 3 ways to Sunday since I understood what the United Reservation lady said that it had to be roundtrip. Most of the time the web site would not let me book a stopover on the one way (I probably wore out the "could not find message" ) but not always easy to know just which thing the web site did not like. I booked and paid the service fee. It was not completely smooth but it worked after a follow up call. With 3-5 legs in flight reservation, I could not usually get all the flights to line up and get results and could not get the 2nd ticket even started.

Guess I'll ask the question again that someone asked earlier... What is the maximum number of days for the stopover?

However, it might not help me....alas, unless things change on the Delta website when they start offering one way FF tickets at half the RT miles (it might make FF pricing on multiple cities more transparent) my United miles might be better used for our Poland trip and perhaps use the Deltas for upgrades on purchased tickets on SE Asia.

Don't think it would be hard to score seats at all. This was my first try really. I was in the process of changing credit cards because the insurance company that I had card with ripped me off so badly on a claim (I was happy with that card but little did I know then :rolleyes: ).

 

rule #1 It is about the sign up bonus and the other bonus. No way you get the number of points you need by flying miles or even spending. I got 55 thousand miles from United explorer card. 45 thousand for Chase Sapphire (points really great go 1:1 United/Southwest/Singapore/Korean and others). I also learned here on CC about paying yearly insurance bills on credit card for points (worked) but decided not to when companies charged a fee or % to pay by card. Have to do the math and figure out which way is better for yourself. I also bought 12 thousand miles from United and received 12 thousand as a bonus -- that finished both accounts out to 75 K in a little over 2 months time. Oh how could I forget -- the cost of the cruise to Belize and those shore excursions helped too. The cruise to Asia will give enough Sapphire points for most of the hotels pre and post along with what is there from other travels. For basic education on this I browsed through Pointsguy.com and another blog on redeeming miles. Both help me think it out. Basically I think I get a good deal when points pay for something without my opening my wallet -- or pay me back that's good too. Addicted to travel I will basically "buy" it anyway so it is a good use of my points.

 

The hit on our credit score for opening 3 new cards while dropping one and keeping the "oldie of 30 years starter card" was a total of 4 points as far as I could tell. I now have the attitude that I don't need that credit score anyway because I can't think of a way that I would borrow at this stage of life. Finally get it up to top and now I don't want it!!!!:D:p

Good for you! I agree with you completely , too. I just finished patchworking together our air for our Caribbean + transatlantic for next year. I already had AA award seats for LAX to FLL when we added the Caribbean on to the front. For 12,500 more points we could fly first class! Got out the two AA cards and used them for a month, plus paid for all our cruise bookings early. I was shocked when the AA reservation person didn't charge me a change fee for it all. Seems the upgrade trumped the change, and it was $1.20 more!!!

I know what you mean about the credit cards, too. I could care less about my credit score as long as I pay it all off each month, the banks still like us!

I used Sapphire points and cash to get us E+ coming home from London.

Enjoy your great trip: my son and DIL went to Bali last year, and loved it.