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How does 9 hours of ultra lux, lie-flat, wine and dine First Class sound?
Amazing, right? Who wouldn’t want to luxuriate and have an extremely well trained staff take care of your every need. It’s possible, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg, just a little creativity. One of the SWEETEST of the Sweet Spots of United’s award chart is from South Asia to Australia, and one of the best ways to route is through Bangkok on Thai Airways First Class. The greatest thing is you don’t need a single point in your account, and you don’t need to be under 5/24, or sign up for another card. You’re gonna buy the flight with points. United offering a mileage bonus, I posted about it earlier today, and this is how $800 buys you First Class + an hour massage.
You can buy United miles with 100% bonus. When you buy 50k miles or more, that equates to 1.88 cents per mile.
United allows you you to buy up to 150k miles a year.
As long as you book your tickets from South Asia to Australia, or vice versa, before November 1st, you can fly for just 40k miles. 40,000 x 0.0188 = $752. You’re gonna have some taxes too. Hence the $800
After November 1st, United’s award chart will change and the cost will pop to 65k each way. Still not a terrible deal, but not NEARLY as incredible as 40k
Miles, I bet there is no space avail. I did a quick search. Tons of availability until the year’s end. As long as you BOOK by November 1st, even if travel is next year, the rate is locked in at 40k.
By my understanding, the rate holds even if you need to change dates, you’d just need to keep the class of service in tact
This is a $3k ticket.
In fact, you can buy 150k miles, almost enough for 4 tickets, for less than the price of this ticket 1 way.
You mentioned a massage. First class isn’t enough for me. Gimme, gimme, gimme.
You’re so right, I did. And deliver I will. Thai Airways is known for their insane spa in Bangkok. Flash that first class boarding pass and you have 60 minutes of flesh pounding bliss to look forward. Budget in a long layover, or arrive early, you don’t want to miss this.
Interested in the deal…go here.
You can apply the principle of this post across the board. This just happens to be an unbelievably valuable route, and one that exemplifies creative thinking to extract value from buying points to get the flight you want.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.