Planning a Trip to Asia with American Airlines Miles: Part 2 of 2

In my previous post on planning an award trip to Asia with American Airlines miles, we left off with my cousin Roman about to search for his award tickets and book his flights. He had American Airlines miles and British Airways to use, each of which has a very different award chart. He lives in Chicago and wants to take a trip this winter where he will visit Hong Kong for a few days, continue to Bangkok and travel around Thailand for a week and then return home. Here is what we learned so far and need to keep in mind as we book his flights.

• The American Airlines search engine will not show award availability on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines and one can search on the British Airways website to include award availability on these airlines. Anything that’s available with Avios miles can be booked on American Airlines.
• American Airlines charges by region and also does not charge fuel surcharges on flights to Asia. They are best used for long, multi-segment portions of the itinerary.
• American Airlines award tickets are all booked as one-way awards and only allow a stopover at the international gateway city within North America. Stopovers up to 24 hours do not count and are considered connections. All trips must end within 1 year of the date the ticket is issued.
• British Airways Avios miles are charged by distance per segment and are best for short one-segment flights within Asia. 
• British Airways Avios will charge fuel surcharges which can range from $150-$200 for transpacific flights.
• You do not earn miles on award tickets, either redeemable miles or miles or segments that count towards elite status (Roman was not aware of this so I decided to point it out separately).

Feel free, of course, to check out my post Planning a Trip to Asia with American Airlines Miles: Part 1 of 2 for a refresher where we prepare mentally to use Roman’s miles. 

Step One: Find Flights Across the Pacific

When planning an award to Asia, the first thing you need to do is look at your options to get across the Pacific ocean. That’s the toughest part and those are the flights that tend to have the least availability. Within Asia, especially between highly frequented cities, there are many flights and availability is easier to come by. So the first priority should be to search for the transpacific segment.  We already decided that to find all our options to flights to Asia, we need to search on the British Airways award search engine, not American Airlines.

Say you’re flying from Chicago to Bangkok. Since there are no direct flights to Bangkok on any of American Airlines’ partners, there’s no way to go directly to Bangkok. You may need to first fly to Shanghai on American Airlines, connect to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific and connect on to Bangkok. While you can book all these segments as a single one-way trip with American Airlines miles provided the stop in each city does not exceed 24 hours, this is going to be a tough itinerary for the British Airways search engine to come up with. So your best bet in the first step is to just find a way to get to Shanghai or Beijing or Tokyo or Hong Kong, etc. 

Transpacific routes on American Airlines partners:

You can find all the transpacific routes on American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines and Japan Airlines in one place on the American Airlines route map (it includes partner flights). Here are a few routes that Roman searched in each direction.

• Chicago to Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific)
• Chicago to Beijing (American Airlines)
• Chicago to Shanghai (American Airlines)
• Chicago to Tokyo (American Airlines and Japan Airlines)

If you can’t find a transpacific flight starting from your home city, you may have to search from other hubs. For example, Roman could have searched Los Angeles to Hong Kong as well and then tried to see if he can get to Los Angeles.

Searching for availability:

The British Airways website will show availability for American Airlines’ partners in Asia as well as American Airlines. To search, you will need a British Airways Executive Club account, but it’s free to sign up. Once signed up, simply select Spending Avios under Executive Club in the menu. Then navigate to Book Flights with Avios and you can start looking for flights. Don’t forget, write down the flight numbers for what you find. 

Roman’s flight to Asia turned out to be pretty simple. We found a non-stop flight from Chicago to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific in economy. For the return, Roman found a flight in business class from Beijing to Chicago on American Airlines. He could not cross the Pacific ocean on Cathay Pacific, a generally superior airline. However, non-stop flights from Asia to his home city are great as that will allow him to add on a free one-way flight anywhere in North America later on.

These were good flights to start with.

Step 2: Find Connecting Flights to Your Destinations and to Your Home City

Outbound flight: Chicago to Hong Kong

For the flight to Asia, Roman had found a flight to Hong Kong. 

He was happy to start in Hong Kong, but wanted to continue to Bangkok. American Airlines only allows stopovers in the North American gateway city so there was no stopover option in Hong Kong on the same ticket. British Airways also charges by segment so there is no way to add a trip from Hong Kong to Bangkok without paying extra miles. This meant that the Hong Kong to Bangkok segment would need to be booked independently.

His flight to Hong Kong would cost 35,000 American Airlines miles + $2.50 based on the fact that he was traveling from North America to Asia Zone 2 using American Airlines partners. Alternately, it would cost 35,000 British Airways miles + $136 in fuel surcharge based on distance. Since the American Airlines miles were giving him a better deal, he went with American Airlines miles.

Intra-Asia flight: Hong Kong to Bangkok

We found a very convenient non-stop flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific. Since the distance from Hong Kong to Bangkok is 1049 miles, it costs 7,500 British Airways miles + $43 in taxes and fuel surcharges. Alternately, it would cost 15,000 American Airlines miles plus taxes as well.

Outbound flight: Bangkok to Chicago

Roman did find a non-stop flight back from Beijing on American Airlines, but he needed to return from Bangkok. When he could not find any availability from Bangkok on the American Airlines website, he suggested he can take a train from Bangkok to Beijing… in his defense, he has never been to Asia and probably thinks the distance from Bangkok to Beijing is like Zurich to Paris. I reminded him that he can add the flights from Bangkok onto the same American Airlines award ticket as long as he doesn’t exceed 24 hours in Beijing.

Roman’s flight from Beijing to Chicago left at 8 am. When we looked on the British Airways website, we found business class flights from Bangkok to Beijing with a connection in Hong Kong. Roman would arrive in Beijing at 5 pm the evening before his flight to Chicago. Since this was a connection of fewer than 24 hours (15, to be exact), the whole thing could be booked on a single business class ticket from Bangkok to Chicago for 55,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles + $83.

Add this point, Roman had found all the flights he needed for his trip to Hong Kong and Thailand this winter. His total cost would be:

• 35,000 American Airlines miles + $2.50 to fly from Chicago to Hong Kong non-stop in economy on Cathay Pacific.
• 7,500 British Airways Avios + $43 to fly from Hong Kong to Bangkok non-stop in economy on Cathay Pacific.
• 55,000 American Airlines miles + $82 to fly from Bangkok to Chicago in business class on Cathay Pacific and American AIrlines connecting in Hong Kong and Beijing.

This would be a total of 97,500 miles + $123. He could book the flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok with British Airways miles right on the British Airways website. All he had to do now was call American Airlines customer service and book his other flights. But because he played his cards right, he had one more thing left to do…

Step 3: Add Free One-Ways Within North America (if possible)

Roman ended up having Chicago as his international gateway city on both his outbound and inbound flights. That is, on his way to Asia, Chicago was the last city he would touch in North America. Similarly on his return, Chicago would be the first city he would touch in North America.

American Airlines allows a stopover in the North American international gateway city for as long as you like provided you finish all travel within a year of ticket issue. For complete details on this, check out the post: How to Add Free One-Way Trips on American Airlines Awards.

Roman already knew he needed to go to Cancun the following May so why not add a business class flight there for free? He found a flight from Chicago to Cancun connecting in Miami. For 55,000 American Airlines miles, he can book a ticket from Bangkok to Cancun with the routing:

Bangkok-Hong Kong-Beijing-Chicago (stopover for 4 months) – Miami – Cancun

Because he lives in Chicago, he gets to go home for 4 months and take a trip to Cancun later. This was he gets a free one-way trip within North America without using any extra miles!

Step 4: Call American Airlines Customer Service

The very last step once you’ve found your flights and itinerary is to call American Airlines customer service and book with miles.

I should point out first that Roman did call American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum desk before talking to me. He was offered a 100,000 American Airlines miles itinerary that got him to Hong Kong in economy and only back from Beijing to Chicago in business class… I suppose the agent was not aware American Airlines has partners? Well, we did much better than that! We used under 100,000 miles to cover ALL of Roman’s travels plus added a one-way trip to Cancun. The lesson to be learned: If you want to use your miles well, do your own research and do not rely on customer service.

When Roman called American Airlines customer service again, he had already done all the work to find availability and had all the flights he needed. It just came down to giving all the flight numbers to the customer service agent and having him price it. Roman kept trying to convince me to book the flight for him, but I was adamant he call customer service himself. After all, if he doesn’t go through the steps himself, he will never learn! He conferenced in American Airlines while I was on the line so I could help out in case anything went wrong.

First, he gave the agent the ORD-HKG flight. It was only one segment was a fairly easy task. 35,000 American Airlines miles. Done.

Next came the tougher 5-segment flight. Roman read off the flights one at a time. Bangkok to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific; Hong Kong to Beijing on Dragonair; Beijing to Chicago. Then, 3 months later, Chicago to Cancun with a connection in Miami. All segments in business class. At the very end, he said (and, let me tell you, it was super amusing to me when I could hear in his voice the disbelief and uncertainty that what he had just done would actually work) “That’s all. So… all that costs 55,000 miles…?” to which the agent responded “and $82 in taxes!”

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