Plans for my son's bar mitzvah are getting finalized and we're starting to plan on buying tickets for 2 adults and 4 kids. So here's our situation as of now:
160K miles on AA (20K miles short of 2 tickets from NYC to TLV)
125K points via HAS US bank (rough equivalent of 2 tickets to NYC from TLV)
Going on AA's website, it seems that I could do NYC-LON for 60k miles and $686 and then use my HAS points to get from LON-TLV (not sure what the costs are for that flight) or I could use 90K miles for a direct flight from NYC-TLV and $686 in fuel surcharges. I'm thinking of getting the British AIrways Chase card for the 50K Avios points to get us another ticket, but it seems that flying direct to TLV is cheaper than getting a stopover in London or elsewhere in Europe, which is contrary to what I've been reading re: the different airline programs (i.e. fuel costs are less when flying from NYC to Europe than NYC-TLV).
Any thoughts?
thanks from a newbie
