Miles usage advice?

[JakeM]

Hi everyone! Looking for some advice here.

My wife and I are flying JFK --> Kiev --> London --> JFK. With week or more long stop overs in Kiev and London.

We have a bunch of points on our Amex Goldcard. I tried booking through Amex and what they do basically is just convert my points into $. 10,000 points to $100 towards travel. I have a feeling this isn't the best way of going about it. What can I do to make use of the points more effectively towards this trip?

And also though Amex website, I seem to only be able to book this as the multi-city trip, rather than a round-trip, and this kind of is a round-trip. Round-trip should be cheaper, no?

I also have some Jetblue points and some AA points but I'm not sure if they'd be helpful here...

Would love some help! Thanks very much!

[tuki046]

Youre probably better off transferring those points into an Airline (ex Continental) but then you are limited to finding available dates and all. But when you use miles for an award ticket you are usually allowed one stopover- Look into different airlines for your itinerary

[LAXtraveler]

Youre probably better off transferring those points into an Airline (ex Continental) but then you are limited to finding available dates and all. But when you use miles for an award ticket you are usually allowed one stopover- Look into different airlines for your itinerary

I'm not 100% about this and would gladly be corrected if I am wrong, but I believe BA allows multiple stopvers on award travel. Maybe look into that since you are flying to London anyway. Just remember that with BA award travel comes lots of YQ.

[aussiebochur]

Aeroplan and Delta both allow two stopovers. CO allows one stopover but also an open jaw.

It does depend on wheather you are looking to fly coach or Business what the best option is.

[JakeM]

Thanks so much, all! What's is YQ? Also, what's CO?

Finally - if I wanted to use Delta or Aeroplan (Aeroflot?), wd I be transferring to points to that specific airline, or do I need to register with Star Alliance or smn?

[YOSEF]

YQ- fuel surcharge
CO- continental
Aeroplan- name of Air Canada's (AC) mileage program.

And you would transfer to the individual program; delta or AC specifically.

[JakeM]

Hi everyone, many thanks for your help so far.
So the issue is that I got two stop overs on my overseas round trip - one in Kiev, one in London.
I just checked Aeroplan and they don't have times/dates that work, and also checked Delta and it's really pricey
I don't have a ton of points, but some on my goldcard... any recommendations which airline to go with?

[myb821]

Hi everyone, many thanks for your help so far.
So the issue is that I got two stop overs on my overseas round trip - one in Kiev, one in London.
I just checked Aeroplan and they don't have times/dates that work, and also checked Delta and it's really pricey
I don't have a ton of points, but some on my goldcard... any recommendations which airline to go with?

u need to search for availability dont transfer any till u find the availability

[JakeM]

of course - thanks. but where to look? which airlines should i go after?

[aussiebochur]

What are your tentative dates?
If you're flexible it makes it much easier...

How many points do you have?

[JakeM]

Thanks, Aussie Bochur -
I'm looking at

Thu Aug 18th JFK-Kiev
Thu Aug 25 Kiev-London
Fri Aug 26 London-NY

(obviously i gotta arrive to kiev fri am and NY in the AM too - shabbs)

I have about 60K points on my goldcard, not a lot...  Plus some on AA and on Jetblue.

Thanks again.