Paying 1% Credit Card Surcharge on $500k just for points?

[Caversham04]

Another thing to bear in mind when considering choosing DC is that there is a strong suspicion that AA will devalue in the next year. This may well change the maths of its benefit

Also worth making absolutely sure that there isn't a maximum points earn per month / year on whichever card you choose........ I'm fairly sure that some of my CC's have a ceiling on points earn (not that I'll ever reach it)

 

[Johnstone]

Legroom - Citi Prestige looks very enticing, except that it's a personal credit card. If they reject my business transactions, then I would have wasted $700 in credit card fees!

 

[Mattg]

any award flight, save for BA, is cheap through AA. BA flights (and of course Iberia) charge fuel surcharges, others don't. so from australia you could fly cathay Pacific to europe, or Japan airlines, and it will be cheap like the USA.

but... availability is the problem. the advantage of QF is the ability to book Emirates flights... which seem to have more availability. but then you're slugged with qantas imposed charges. while qatar airways is oneworld, you can't book a flight to Europe from Australia as a single award via AA. It must be priced as two awards.

I was having a look at this recently and found availability between Australia and Europe using AAdvantage miles was very thin. A couple of things that did work though were MH via KUL (only bookable over the phone but a fair bit of J availability according to the operator which one cannot see online) and also QF/BA via HND, SIN, HKG or even JNB. The BA flights do attract those annoying fuel surcharges though as others have mentioned.

 

[drron]

Mel_Traveller - you're definitely right - there's no point on spending good money to chase flights which might not even be available. For example, I was searching up business reward flights on QF and Virgin to Europe in October and there seem to be very few.

Medhead - You're right - the main reason I think the SPG route looks enticing is because of the conversion to AA which seem to have significantly lower taxes when travelling to the US. I'm hoping another airline will have low taxes to Europe, but will need to do more research on this!

The problem with Aadvantage is that it is really difficult to get awards in premium cabins to the USA unless you travel via Asia and then you have to pay for 2 awards.Still good value IMHO.
However they are much easier to get premium cabin awards to Europe-PE,J and F on BA show up on line.Again fairly easy to get indirect awards to Europe AY on line,CX,JL you have to ring but AA have removed the phone fee so that is good.
AA have already devalued.You basically no longer see milesAAver awards on International AA flights.The anytime awards are pathetic value.
So AA is not the standout program it was and there may certainly be further devaluation in 2016.However that is likely to be moving to earning on dollar paid rather than miles flown so doesn't impact on those who are only looking for awards with CC points.

 

[Johnstone]

The problem with Aadvantage is that it is really difficult to get awards in premium cabins to the USA unless you travel via Asia and then you have to pay for 2 awards.Still good value IMHO.
However they are much easier to get premium cabin awards to Europe-PE,J and F on BA show up on line.Again fairly easy to get indirect awards to Europe AY on line,CX,JL you have to ring but AA have removed the phone fee so that is good.
AA have already devalued.You basically no longer see milesAAver awards on International AA flights.The anytime awards are pathetic value.
So AA is not the standout program it was and there may certainly be further devaluation in 2016.However that is likely to be moving to earning on dollar paid rather than miles flown so doesn't impact on those who are only looking for awards with CC points.

There is a massive fuel surcharge for AA to Europe via BA, so probably better to go through CX or JL.

SPG also allows points transfers to numerous other Airlines at a 1:1 rate, but haven't done enough research to see which of the other airlines have low surcharges for Australia-Europe and Australia-US flights.