I remain deeply unsatisfied with the indifference US Airways has shown to booking Lufthansa award space I wrote about last week, but US Airways miles remain highly valuable, particularly when compared to partner Star Alliance carriers. For that reason, I still recommend picking up the US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard before the current 40K offer is pulled–those points just helped me book a massive trip.
My brother and I have wanted to explore Cambodia for some time and the opening of the new Park Hyatt in Siem Reap provided the perfect impetus to finally make the trip. But flying on award tickets opens up many doors never available on a revenue ticket without breaking the bank and I had two other objectives in mind.
First, and perhaps more important that Cambodia itself, was spending some time in Frankfurt to start the trip. Second, I wanted to take advantage of one of the sweet spots on US Airways’ award chart and fly from North America to North Asia in business class for 90K miles. In doing so, I wanted to route via Europe on the outbound and inbound to try four new business longhaul products that I have yet to sample.
The stars aligned and with a little legwork I was able to assemble an 11-segment, 26,920-mile itinerary that includes longhauls on LOT Polish, EVA, Austrian, and Brussels. Take a look at my routing:
- LAX-ORD on United (757-200 with lie-flat business class seating)
- ORD-WAW on LOT (787-8 with lie-flat business class seating)
- WAW-FRA on LOT (E-175 in business)
- FRA-AMS on Lufthansa (A321 in business)
- AMS-BKK on EVA (777-300 with lie-flat business class seating)
- BKK-TPE on EVA (777-300 with lie-flat business class seating)
- TPE-PEK on Air China (A330-300 angled lie-flat business class seating)
- PEK-VIE on Austrian (767 with lie-flat business class seating)
- VIE-BRU on Austrian (A320 in business)
- BRU-JFK on Brussels (A330-300 with lie-flat business class seating)
- JFK-LAX on United (757-200 with lie-flat business class seating)
Though I got away with one extra segment than is usually permitted (or three, depending on who you talk to), the routing was and is perfectly valid, falling under the maximum permitted mileage (MPM) via the Atlantic to Tapei.
The sign-up bonus for the US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard from Barclays provided 30K miles and I purchased 30K more from US Airways with a 100% bonus for $1050.00 plus tax. Thus for about $1200 and $200 in taxes/fees, I booked a trip that retails for more than $20,000 if segments are booked separately. US Airways is not currently running a 100% purchased mile bonus, but it has every other month for years now, so I suspect we will see a new promotion in October. Even if you have to pay full price for the purchased miles, you are still getting a much better deal than buying the ticket outright, particularly if wish to stop in Europe.
That’s one tremendous deal. I’ll be hitting some other places as well during my three weeks away and used a combination of points and one purchased ticket for travel within SE Asia.
To me, this is what aspirational travel is all about and I look forward to each flight on this itinerary. As an aside, if you need help constructing an itinerary like this, our Award Expert team would love to help.
It seems that to earn the extra 10K, you have to do a balance transfer of $10,000. Since balance transfer fees would apply, I wonder if it would be cheaper to just buy those miles, especially when there is a 100% bonus.
Still, I am thinking of getting this card.
Awesome itinerary, Matthew. I recently got the US Airways card expecting to use it in my AA account, but its hard to beat the value of the US 90k awards. Also, looks like you’ll get to try out Austrian and Brussels long haul business class products about a month before I do, plus some others. Well done.
this card does have an annual fee the first year of $89. It is not waived. The only time I’ve seen it waived recently is when the application is picked up on board a US airways flight or from the US airways lounge
Using 30K US miles, I flew MEL-AKL-SIN-KIX-GUM-NRT-PVG-AKL-MEL for 21594 miles in J 😀 Their “South Pacific” to “South Pacific” redemption options are awesome. I know of someone who PM-ed me on Flyertalk saying that he managed to route Australia-GUM via NGO and could wangle out a stopover at NGO, and that is even awesomer!
@Joel: that is great value, all for 30k US miles, I am impressed!
That the USAir agent OKd routing through BKK is good. I tried to do that on a NAsia award and was told that was a SAsia routing which would require more miles. I told the agent it wasn’t a stopover, final destination but simply changing planes. Although is the EVA flight AMS-BKK-TPE one flight number? That might have made the difference.
USAirways seem to have the best redemption chart when it comes to long haul Business Class flights.I just managed to ticket an 8 segment routing which involves KUL-SIN(SQ)-HND(SQ)-IST(TK)-ZRH(TK)-CDG(LX)-CPH(SK)-SIN(SQ)-KUL all in Business Class for 90K miles.
Will miss Dividend Miles should the merger be approved and go through 🙁
There are some better offers out there for this card, in case you want to share them. I just got the card today and did a bunch of looking around.
35K miles after first purchase, no fee first year, 10K after balance transfer: https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/Landing.action?campaignId=1695&cellNumber=36
40K miles after first purchase, 10K after balance transfer, fee NOT waived: https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/Landing.action?campaignId=1695&cellNumber=21&prodidreq=CCMWC47767
Both application pages have the T&Cs spelled out clearly including bonuses.
Do you have to book it thru travel agent or you can book it online?
Hi Asfand, just click through on the link above and you can apply directly for the card on your own–no travel agent necessary.
-Matthew