Advice please – best use of 260,000 Amex/Avios points for New York Trip Dec 25

[paulfoster2002]

Hi All

Hoping someone can give me some firm advice on how to best approach something I am looking at. My wife turns 40 next year and I am planning on taking her to New York in December 2025 for maybe 3 nights. We have about 30,000 Avios currently and 230,000 Amex points, so say 260,000 Avios if I convert.

What is the best way to maximise using them? Ideally we want to fly Business Class as a treat (certainly isn’t the norm lol). Could we do that with the points we have? What is the best way to do it and the process involved? Am I missing something?

Is there anything else I need to be considering, or a better way to do things?

I’ve put this in both the BA chat and the Amex chat so apologies if anyone sees this twice.

Thanks in advance for anyone’s help.
Paul

[CJD]

You can potentially get First Class returns for 272,000 Avios plus taxes, although availability isn’t guaranteed.

[qc]

Do you have a BA Premium Plus Amex – if you can spend enough to earn a 2-4-1 voucher you will be able to make your Avios go further and have some left for a future trip.

[Peter K]

2-4-1 would be super useful to you for flying club or PE. Then look at MR to Hilton points and see if any hotels appeal as you can get them on points with no added “resort fees” on top to worry about.

[Richie]

I like the daytime flights from JFK-LHR for short trips when you haven’t switched over to local time.

[aq.1988]

Given that most of your points are Amex MR, I’ll assume you don’t have a BAPP 241 voucher to use. You’ve got enough to travel in business both legs, but not enough to get the best cash element, so you’ll have to pay a bit more cash.

If willing, you could go on Iberia (also using your avios), which is only 68k avios plus a couple hundred in tax (IIRC) pp, MAD-NYC return in business. You’ll have to factor the time/cost to get to/from Madrid.

@CJD mentioned that you’re just short of enough for First class both ways. I would be tempted to try to find availability in F on the outbound (not guaranteed but better chance than other destinations), and maybe even consider a daytime flight back in economy. It’s only 25k avios plus £50pp on BA, or 10k plus about £150 on Virgin (IIRC), and you can save your points for future trips.

[NorthernLass]

December has some off-peak dates which would save you some avios depending on which dates you want to travel on. You can get an idea of which dates will be peak/off-peak by looking at avios rates for this coming December.

[simonbarker]

Echoing what others have said, if you have time to rack up the spend for a 241 voucher on a BAPP card that would really cut your Avios spend. NYC seems to have good reward availability so maybe grab some seats now and if you manage to get the voucher in time you and there are seats still available you could cancel and rebook using the 241 to get half the points back.

If you have a Platinum card then remember you have Melia Gold status and 3 x 20% off vouchers and 2,000 introductory Melia Rewards points that will make the Melia Innside Nomad very reasonable. We stayed there for a night a few weeks back and it was nice.

If you really want to maximise your Avios and reduce your cash spend then book your NYC flights from Madrid with Iberia 9as suggested above) and then get a cheap flight to Madrid and stay a night there, again that Melia status will help reduce the hotel cost and the tax savings will be significant. It does add faff to the trip though

[CJD]

OP hasn’t said where in the country they live so getting to Madrid might not actually be much more of a faff than getting to Heathrow.

[NorthernLass]

Aer Lingus is also an option, though not as much guarantee of award seats being released, I think.

[paulfoster2002]

Thanks all for the advice, UK based so will do a dummy run for this December to see what it’s saying. Could potentially pay for premium economy then use points to upgrade?!

Just wanted to make sure I’m not missing any tricks, ideally would like to get a hotel as well in New York so we then only need spending money.

Will take a look at the Iberia option as well but trying to maximise a few days away without the kids so don’t particularly want to lose a day having to transfer etc.

Appreciate everyone’s help

[memesweeper]

After Christmas and before (and immediately after) New Year is dead for business travel so business and first redemptions do come up. First in both directions with a companion voucher would be the once-in-a-lifetime box ticked at a reasonable cost.

[Super Secret Stuff]

Personally I’d go with virgin if you can, better service and you’d earn the tier points, so might end up with status depending on your current levels etc.

[BBbetter]

memesweeper wrote:

After Christmas and before (and immediately after) New Year is dead for business travel so business and first redemptions do come up. First in both directions with a companion voucher would be the once-in-a-lifetime box ticked at a reasonable cost.

But that’s the peak personal travel period. There’s a reason business travel is down.

[memesweeper]

BBbetter wrote:

memesweeper wrote:

After Christmas and before (and immediately after) New Year is dead for business travel so business and first redemptions do come up. First in both directions with a companion voucher would be the once-in-a-lifetime box ticked at a reasonable cost.

But that’s the peak personal travel period. There’s a reason business travel is down.

I know — but most routes the upturn in personal travel swamps the downturn in business. The busiest days at Heathrow are around the start/end of holidays, not peak business season.

What makes New York interesting is it has a ton of capacity for business purposes which is not swamped by personal travel in the Christmas holiday season, so business seats are available for points. I just checked this year, 26th – 28th, plenty of business seats on multiple flights with BA, the same in reverse the following week. There’s even First on a couple of days.

[bm_999]

sorry to sound stupid but MR – what points are these? trying to get used to all the anacronyms lol

[MrWhite]

Member Rewards – the reward points on Amex (non-BA versions)