Next week I’ll be flying from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne in business class comfort and it will only cost me $1000 for the one-way trip.
The first leg from KL to Sydney will be in one of Malaysia Airlines’ brand new A350 business class beds, which I’m quite looking forward to trying – I do love the A350! – followed by a short hop to Melbourne in Qantas business class (on a Boeing 737 … meh).
When booking this trip a few weeks ago, I was very happy to see that an award seat was available at such short notice through Qantas.
But what I wasn’t very happy about was the cost: a whopping 81,000 Qantas Points plus $286 in taxes and fees.
Fortunately, since both Qantas and Malaysia Airlines are members of the oneworld alliance, I had an alternative and much cheaper way to book: using my stash of purchased American Airlines Aadvantage miles.
American Airlines is one of the few oneworld airlines that allows you to purchase frequent flyer miles at a decent cost.
Those miles are then redeemable for award seats in the usual way, including with partners like Qantas.
For my booking next week, the cost through American was 40,000 miles plus $70 in taxes and fees.
Taking into account what I paid for the miles, the total outlay was around $1000. That’s a lot less than the value of 81k Qantas Points plus $286 (at least to me!).
I always maintain a healthy balance of Aadvantage miles for occasions like this. Flying between Australia and Asia is one of the best uses of Aadvantage miles.
If you’re interested to know more, check out my guide for buying and using Aadvantage miles here.
American Airlines is running an attractive promotions on purchased miles until 15 December.
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