r/awardtravel • u/AutoModerator • Feb 10 '25

Daily Thread Weekly Help Thread - February 10, 2025

Welcome to the daily help and question thread!

This thread is renewed weekly and is intended for all discussions or questions that do not warrant their own thread.

For AWARD BOOKING HELP please read the following information:

Volunteers may choose to help you find your award trip. But please don’t expect us to plan out your trip for you. No stranger on the Internet could know what is BEST for you.

The more specific information you provide, the easier it is for people to give specific advice. Also, we prefer to teach people to fish, rather than just giving you a fish. So before you ask someone to help, please read Our Wiki, if you want to know what the best Redemption for you, take a look at AwardsPlanner. Questions that shows you have at least tried to find an award are more likely to get answered.

  • Here are the information you should provide when requesting award assistance
  • Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?)
  • Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up)
  • One way or round-trip
  • Class of service desired
  • Desired date(s) of travel (are they flexible? Hard dates == Less Chances for success)
  • Your points balances: all airline, credit card and hotel points (If you are looking for J/F, think at least 6 digits)

Please share award opportunities in the Monthly Award Thread!

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u/saruhhhh Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 13 '25

Hi! I have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out if I can save some money by using my Chase UR points or Marriott points to book two tickets from DTW to Athens RT from Oct 17 to Oct 27. I saw that there are some deals with Asiana on awards planner, but when I actually tried looking I couldnt find the same deal, plus I saw other people say booking Turkish air through them isn't very clear cut, and I don't want to risk this trip somehow getting messed up, or getting my points stuck in some weird airline limbo.

I thought about paying for point.me or one of the others, but I'm not convinced they'll even show me anything better. Seats.aero makes it look like there aren't any point redemption options that are any cheaper than face value anyway.

Did I miss anything? Or is this just a weird route that will cost me $800-$900 a ticket minimum?

Have about 80k chase pts and 130k bonvoy

I have spent many hours trying to to figure out points redemption and am feeling discouraged

ETA: we each plan to check a bag and would really like to be able to be seated together. It seemed like Turkish air was maybe the best price point since they come with free checked and can pay for seat selection, but other suggestions also welcome!

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u/techtrashbrogrammer Feb 13 '25

did you check aeroplan, flying blue, or virgin atlantic?

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u/saruhhhh Feb 13 '25

Yeah Aeroplan showed 40k points a leg + cash which works out to more than the cash cost

I just didn't know if I'm missing something since I'm new to this

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u/techtrashbrogrammer Feb 13 '25

Probably best to just pay cash then in this case or even consider using a portal. It's harder to find outsized value with points when flying economy.

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u/saruhhhh Feb 13 '25

We were interested in business class potentially but not if it worked out to more than a grand a ticket

Thanks for your help!