International traveling and maximizing miles is not for the faint of heart or those inept at calculating numbers ... I'll just start this blog with that realization.   Remember for you newbies to Travel with Teri B., please click on any text in bright colors for informational links!

As I was saying, one must be very ambitious and aware of how airlines work to snag those precious award seats.   I am proud to announce I am the new "possessor" of two business class seats on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong for next year's trip using my American miles.   Unfortunately, American does not allow the purchase of economy seats and using miles for upgrading on their partner airlines.  But I've flown Cathay before and loved it.

The other long leg of this trip is obviously the return journey from one of the 3 other locations we'll be visiting (Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul).   While exploring options again with the folks at American Advantage (many of whom are very good), and studying closely a map of Asia, it turns out a  bit of crisscrossing is necessary instead of going from Hong Kong in some logical direction of north and then west.

                                                                    

I finally found out that I can fly non-stop from Shanghai to LAX on American; the flight leaves in the evening allowing for an additional full day of sightseeing, and the miles are less than from either Seoul or Beijing, both of which involve an additional stop.  So as soon as the Starwood miles I transferred to American kick in, I'll finalize my business class seats for the flight home and then wait until the fall to book the couple of internal flights and start looking at hotels.  So love Starwood -- they actually award bonus miles when transferring points to American (am I special or is this offered to everyone ...?)  The hubby accuses me of spending way too much time on this endeavor (miles/points that is), but to me these are real savings and not  "mystery" savings as he is so fond of saying!  Plus award seats are few and far between so one must be a bit aggressive to get them ...

No, I am not an expert on miles.  For that, I have been relying on a daily blog from  The Points Guy -- you know, one of those obsessive flyers who will get on a plane just to bulk up his mileage account.  I, for one, have both a day job and a life so that is over the top in my world.   Having said that, his information has been very useful in earning/maximizing miles for these big journeys.  And for all of you who are interested in the nitty-gritty of airline operations and why it's so expensive to fly, read this current edition of The Middle Seat, a regular column in the Wall Street Journal.  The article goes a long way to explain how difficult it is for the airlines to make a buck ...