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Now and again, I like to feature actual emails from readers (with their permission, of course). The idea is to highlight real-world miles and points challenges, as well as possible solutions. With this particular email, I’m hoping for some feedback from you guys, since Israel isn’t my area of expertise.
Here we go:
| American Airline Miles | 33787 |
| British Airline Miles | 30,473 |
| Alaska Airlines | 68,459+5 for survey on 11/12/21 – should be good for two years now |
| IHG Points | 137800 |
| Marriott Points | 99,919 |
| Chase Freedom Points | 25,163 – definitely use for Israel – hope for another sapphire card before then |
| AMEX Membership Rewards | 86,998 |
| Club Carlson Points/Radisson | 10,585 |
| Hilton Honors Points | 300913 |
| Amtrak | 53619 |
My response
First, the short answer. My advice for something like this is to always accumulate flexible points. That way, when you are ready to book, you can search various programs and see which one has award availability. Your plan is quite specific, aka fly on certain dates (Thanksgiving?) in business class. That’s always tough to pull off, as redeeming miles in economy is much easier.
I do think Air France Flying Blue program will probably be your best bet. According to this post on Frequent Miler, Israel is once again priced the same way as Europe routes. There is even a screenshot highlighting a non-stop flight from New York to Tel Aviv. The rate is a relatively reasonable 55k miles in business class each way. Air France is known for consistently offering four or more business-class seats on each flight to its own members. In fact, Nancy recently wrote about her experience redeeming Flying Blue miles on five tickets from Dallas to Paris.
There is a catch, though. The fuel surcharges are higher than what you are willing to pay: about $650 per business-class roundtrip ticket. Still, this option will probably be your best bet. Even if you find award availability via another program for your dates (and that’s a big if), you will most certainly pay much more than 55k miles each way. Most programs will charge you between 70k and 95k miles.
Of course, anything is possible, which is why I recommend accumulating flexible points in the meantime. You could see a sale on business-class award tickets to Israel, or perhaps a great deal on a revenue flight might pop up out of nowhere. Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, Capital One and Marriott programs all partner with Air France. So, you should easily have enough for two roundtrip tickets in business-class after you get your bonus on Capital One card. And if that option doesn’t work out, there are other frequent flyer miles programs to look into.
As far as what cards you should concentrate on next, I do think applying for Capital One Venture X in a few months isn’t a bad idea (see Nancy’s post). Make sure it’s been at least six months since your last Capital One application.
It’s a very good deal, as long as you can meet the minimum spending. You don’t necessarily need the points for Air France award tickets, but you can use them to offset other travel expenses in Israel or elsewhere.
Readers, do you have any other suggestions?
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Author: Leana
Leana is the founder of Miles For Family. She enjoys beach vacations and visiting her family in Europe. Originally from Belarus, Leana resides in central Florida with her husband and two children.
If anyone is curious, I ended up using Aeroplan miles – transferred amex, and chase (with 30% plus 10% bonus) plus got the aeroplan card and booked LOT airlines. Just booked one way (as soon as the booking window opened) and it cost 154,210 miles for two of us (it let me use miles instead of paying cash for the taxes and fees.
Check on typical transfer times to flying blue. For instance Marriott can be slow and once I got hosed by Citibank because they took weeks to transfer to flying blue and the award availability dried up before I got the points in (this was several years ago however). Just something to think about when considering transferable currencies!
Israel is a dream! I can’t wait to go back someday 🙂
@ Tammie Good point on researching transfer times from various programs. I too had issues with a transfer from Citi to Flying Blue, though it was years ago. It’s probably best to stick to Chase, Amex and possibly Capital One.
I love that you’re planning ahead for a big 2023 trip. I can’t tell you the number of times someone asks for advice about earning miles for a trip that is just a few months away. You understand that it takes time to accumulate a variety of miles and points, so I applaud you for that!
I agree that flexible points are the best way to go. And coming from NYC, you could focus on getting across the pond and then use Capital One miles to go the rest of the way to Israel.
While Air France does have some steep fuel charges, I still think it’s a good option because Flying Blue miles are so easy to accumulate from so many transfer partners.
United might also be a good option in either direction. I’ve had good luck with business class availability with United.
Would you consider flying Premium Economy in one direction?
In any case, based on the miles/points you already have and the time you still have to accumulate more, you’re in a great position to make these flights happen.
@Nancy I’ve never flown in premium economy, and am curious as to what it’s like. I do think I’m getting too old for regular economy, especially on 14 hour flights!
Sorry, they could go straight from JFK to MAD. No need for ORD.
Chris, thanks for your advice! What you originally said actually made me think that it makes sense to look for award flights from other cities on the east coast, and possibly use the existing mileage stash for positioning flights. There is more than one way to accomplish her goal.
I haven’t looked too hard, but I’m thinking use the AA miles to get to ORD then ORD-MAD in Business for 136K plus about $275/pp transferred from MR, BA and Chase, then direct Business flight to TLV using 150K Cap One points to cover the $1442 fare for 2 people. Pay for the Iberia fuel surcharges with the remaining Cap One points.
As to CC, grab the Aspire and Surpass Hilton cards and add them to their 300K stash. By the time they go they should have 640K Hilton points plus 3 free weekend nights from spend. With the Tel Aviv Hilton running 80K points per night and 5th night free, they’d have 13 nights covered.
Air France is an option – but the flight from CDG to TLV will be in European style business class (i.e., no real business class).
The best option would be TK (despite them being well, TK and the high surcharges) the price on miles is extremely low and you can get real business class all the way to TLV. Now that they are transfer partners with multiple credit cards it is even easier.
While it is very hard to get partner award on TK if you can get the unicorn on the direct UA flight, or connection with Swiss you can double dip of both worlds – but those are extremely hard to find (and book as this is TK after all).
@Mddcflyer Sorry, just saw your comment in spam, and had to manually approve it. Thank you for your suggestions, very helpful. This reader said she is following the comments, so she will see yours.
Turkish program is an interesting possibility. I did know about cheap rates on business class from US to Europe, but didn’t realize those also extended to Israel. I’ve read it can be tough to deal with, and some folks had to actually go physically to the airport in order to book an award. Hopefully, things have improved. But after dealing with Avianca, I’m leery of booking an award with a relatively obscure program.But that’s the trade off for a great deal, I suppose.
I was totally looking Avianca. It seems to have everything I need: lots of transfer partners, low booking fees.
I will have to see what’s available in a year.
Turkish only had flights on Tuesdays using aeroplan for some reason and I needed to fly on a Saturday night so didn’t get to use them but definitely wanted to – they were my first choice – but I couldn’t extend my trip to 2 weeks unfortunately.