\nThese are the types of resorts I think of when I think of Bali<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently a reader reached out to me and asked “Help! How do I get to Bali using my 90k AA miles next month?”<\/p>\n

Let’s break down some key points from the reader:<\/p>\n

\n
1. I know the reader is based out of NYC.<\/em><\/li>\n
2. I know using both American Airlines & Cathay Pacific are OneWorld partners, so hopefully Cathay has enough award availability for partner bookings.<\/em><\/li>\n
3. You want to book award travel next month?! Well, I hope you’re a bit flexible. Award travel is usually booked 6 months in advance, especially if you want upper cabins. Lower cabin availability is usually extremely low. Fortunately they are a bit flexible.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   So instead of searching around online this time, I simply contacted AA’s award desk at 800-882-8880. Follow the prompts that bring you to a live agent for international award travel, and hopefully you get an agent that’s bright enough to figure this out with you. If not, hang up and call again.<\/p>\n

   This is what the agent found for me:<\/p>\n

   1. Departure<\/strong>: New York (LGA) – Chicago O’hare (ORD) – Hong Kong (HKG) – Denpasar (DPS)
   \n2. Return<\/strong>: DPS – HKG – JFK
   \n3. 70,000 miles total (35k each way) in economy, and a total of $114.10 (taxes + phone booking fee)<\/p>\n

   Here’s the full itinerary detail the agent put on hold for me. AA can hold reservations for up to 5 days using a record locator number. After 5 days, it expires and the award becomes available again.<\/p>\n

   <\/a><\/p>\n

   Is this worth it? This is how I try to make sense of it. You’re using 70k AA miles to save $1300. That means you’re getting about 1.85 cents\/mile.<\/p>\n

   Is $1300 worth the inconvenience of going with the award itinerary vs the paid itinerary? That is the $1300 question you have to figure out.<\/p>\n

   As far as hotels go, the person informed me they had some Hyatt points, so I remembered Hyatt introduced cash & points. Although I never used them, I was interested to see what kind of value I could get through that redemption.<\/p>\n

   <\/a><\/p>\n

   Some Hyatt hotels were in the $200-$300 USD range, or 12k-15k\/night, or as you can see above, the cash & points rates. After doing some math, it seems like C&P are a really good value.<\/p>\n

   Hyatt’s points have always been\u00a0more valuable than say Marriott and IHG. A lot of times you can easily get 2-3cpm using their cash and points award chart. Don’t forget you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) points over to Hyatt if you have a premium Chase card product (Sapphire\/Bold\/Ink). Great value there.<\/p>\n

   Ok reader, the last thing you need to do (other than book)\u00a0is bring Jet. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   These are the types of resorts I think of when I think of Bali Recently a reader reached out to me and asked “Help! How do I get to Bali using my 90k AA miles next month?” Let’s break down some key points from the reader: I know the reader …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,14,23,39],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/bali.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2048,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions\/2048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}