How I Scored Round Trip Business Class Flights to Asia for My Family of Four Using Points – Incredible Value!

Flights to Asia: Bucket List Qsuite Redemption

2024 consisted of a 2-month trip to Asia for our family. Our itinerary includes the following stops:

• Nepal

• India

• Singapore

• Vietnam

• Thailand

To get us there, I really wanted to book Qatar Airways epic business class, Qsuites. To find out how I booked these flights using flexible points via JetBlue, check out this post. Additionally, you can read our review of Qatar Qsuites here.

Here's an overview of our Qsuite flights to Asia:

Q-suite availability is best if you can book a year out, but if you've been around my blog long, you might have realized we don't typically plan that far in ahead. We like to be, shall I say, flexible, so it was about 4 months out when I was searching. Our plans weren't solid at the time, but they were solid enough to start looking for redemptions. I also knew that JetBlue point redemptions are completely refundable, so I knew I could rest easy that I could get my points and taxes and fees back (of course my points would be stuck in JetBlue, but I was ok with this as I was determined to fly Qsuites somewhere at some point and JetBlue is a great redemption option).

While availability 4 months out is already limited, finding four award seats for Q-suites together, is very unlikely at even a year out, so I decided to search for 2 seats, and we would split up. Again, reference this post for how to do this.

After some persistent searching for several days, I was able to find 2 different flights with 2 seats available and to sum it all up, here's our epic Qsuite redemption:

• My oldest and I flying Qsuites from JFK to DOH

  • Total cost was 210K points plus $107.80 in taxes and fees

    • One flight was booked via JetBlue 70K points and $7.95 in taxes and fees. This was a saver award, meaning it costs the least number of points possible.

      • Points were transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards

    • One flight was booked via Qatar Airways directly and cost 140K points plus $99.85 in taxes and fees. This was not a saver award as I could not find 2 saver awards for any of the dates that would work for us on the same flight. Luckily our oldest is 12 years old and was able to be booked on his own itinerary.

      • Points were transferred from American Express

• My husband and youngest flying Qsuites from ORD to DOH

  • Total cost was 160K points plus $15 in taxes and fees

    • Points were transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards

From DOH to KTM, we booked a few different things. My oldest and I left the states several days before my husband and youngest, so we decided to add on a regional first-class leg on Qatar airways so that we could experience the Qatar Airways first class lounge and service. I definitely recommend doing this if it works with your itinerary and you have the points to do it. It was an incredible experience, and you can read our review of the lounge here as well as read about how we spent our layover in Abu Dhabi here.

• Here is what I booked for my oldest and I. I booked these flights via Qatar Airways partners, Alaska and American. I used seats.aero to search for availability. I will include a few screenshots of a similar search on seats.aero below.

  • First-class flight on Qatar Airways from DOH-AUH via Alaska Airlines

    • Total cost was 30K miles and $45.30 in taxes and fees

      • Alaska Airlines miles are difficult to earn as they had limited transfer partners (previously only transferred from Bilt) until recently. Now, due to the new partnership with Hawaiian Airlines, as of the time of publishing this article, you can transfer Amex points to Hawaiian Airlines and then to Alaska Airlines. At the time of redeeming for this flight, I had to buy the miles for a cost of $610, which was less than the cost of the flight itself, so a good value.

  • First-class/Business class on Qatar Airways from AUH-KTM via American Airlines

    • Total Cost for this flight was 60K miles and $143 in taxes and fees

      • I earned these miles from one AA credit card sign up bonus.

        • We flew first-class from AUH to DOH where we were able to spend another 10-hour layover in DOH. We spent the night in the first-class lounge and also were able to explore the business class lounges in the morning. Then we flew business class from DOH-KTM (no first-class is offered on this flight). The business class product on this flight, while not Qsuites, was fantastic.

• My husband and youngest flew directly DOH-KTM after a 10-hour layover in the DOH airport where they stayed in the Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge-The Garden.

  • Business Class on Qatar Airways DOH-KTM

    • The cost for this leg for them was 88K points and $75.50 in taxes and fees booked via JetBlue

      • Points were transferred from American Express and Chase Ultimate Rewards

Booking Details

One thing you might have noticed is that I utilized a variety of programs to book our flights, and I also did not necessarily book the flights via the cheapest option available. One thing to consider is that you have to book via programs you have points available in. For example, it would have cost us less points to book the DOH-KTM leg for my husband and youngest via American Airlines or Alaska Airlines, but I didn’t have miles available for those programs and I don’t have points that can transfer to these programs. (Keep in mind, as discussed above, there is currently a way to transfer Amex points to Alaska via Hawaiian Airlines, but it is unclear how long this option will be available, and it was not available at the time of booking these flights). For that reason, I booked their leg via JetBlue even though it cost more points, they were points I had available as you can transfer Amex, Chase, and Citi points to JetBlue. In this hobby, you have to work with what you have and also strategically earn points that will transfer to partners you can book through.

I know booking these flights might seem complicated, but it is totally possible to learn how to do this. Let me know in the comments what questions you have, and I will try to answer and also use them to write future blog posts as well. Additionally, my free Quick Start Guide to Travel Hacking includes a page on transfer partners for 4 of the major banks and this article helps explain why and how to earn flexible points.

Redemption Value

To find the redemption value of your points, you use the following equation:

Redemption Value = Cash Price of the flight-Any Expenses (taxes and fees)/Points Cost then multiply by 100

Example: The total cash value of all of the Qatar Airways flights was $49,000 for all 4 of us. (which is insane and I really hope no one pays that!) The expenses were a total of $1,487 because I am including the cost of the Alaska miles I bought as well as the cost of the positioning flights from our home airport to JFK and ORD. These costs would have been lower if the above-mentioned things had not been necessary, but even still, we paid less out of pocket than we would have for economy class flights and got to fly in an amazing business class product and even some first-class flights. The total points/miles we used was 518K points (I didn't include the 30K Alaska Airline miles because I included the cash cost I spent to purchase them instead).

So, $49,000-$1,487 / 518,000 = 0.0917 x 100 = 9.17 cents per point/mile which is a fantastic redemption value as the average value of American Express points is usually based around 2 cents per point. I am really happy with this redemption!

Flights Within Asia

Within Asia, we are taking 4 flights, 3 in economy class and 1 in business class. 2/4 flights were booked with points and 2/4 were booked with cash. Here is a quick summary of these bookings:

• Nepal to India: KTM-DEL on Indigo in Economy Class

  • Booked via cash through the Capital One travel portal for a total cost of $537 for all 4 of us

    • I used my annual $300 travel credit from my Capital One Venture X card to reduce the cost of these flights, so our out-of-pocket cost was $237 for all 4 of us

  • We are taking 2 trains within India additional flight within India: UDP-BOM

• One additional flight within India: UDP-BOM on Indigo in Economy Class

  • Booked via cash for a total cost of $238 for all 4 of us

• India to Singapore: BOM-SIN on Singapore Airlines in Business Class

  • Booked via Singapore airlines KrisFlyer miles

    • The total cost was 160K miles and $218 in taxes and fees

    • Miles were transferred from American Express

  • We are excited to try out Singapore airlines' business class product!

  • Redemption Value: 2.1 cents per point/mile

• Singapore to Vietnam: SIN-HAN on Singapore Airlines in Economy Class

  • Booked via Singapore airlines KrisFlyer miles

    • The total cost was 54K miles and $225 in taxes and fees

    • Miles were transferred from American Express

  • Redemption Value: 2.5 cents per point/mile

• Vietnam to Thailand: HAN-BKK on Vietnam Airlines in Economy Class

  • Booked via cash directly with Vietnam Airlines for a total cost of $403 for all 4 of us

Flights Home From Asia

Looking For Availability

For our trip home, I was mainly focused on finding availability for all 4 of us on the same day, in 100% business class. I was very limited on the dates for our return trip and I had to get a little creative to book this flight. I again utilized seats.aero for my search. I also did searches on pointsyeah.com and roame.travel, but ultimately, I found the flights I booked on seats.aero.

I was searching pretty wide from Asia as our plans were flexible and we were willing to change one of our destinations to accommodate a business class flight home. One great feature of seats.aero is being able to search multiple airports for your origin and destination. They also have codes that you can use to search multiple airports within a region without having to add them all. For example, my search looked something like this:

You can see I used the code ASA as the origin which captures most of the major airports in Asia and EST, which captures major airports on the east coast of the USA, and my closest home airports of MCO and MIA as the destinations. You can click on Multi-City Codes after starting a search to see more codes you can use and which airports are included. See photos for details.

Flights I Booked

After quite a bit of searching, I found 4 seats available on flights from Bangkok to Istanbul and 4 seats available on flights from Istanbul to Miami via Aeroplan. One trick that not everyone knows is Aeroplan's award flights are based on their somewhat complicated award chart and so a specific distance will cost a specific amount of miles. This is different from other programs that have dynamic award pricing. I won't get into the details in this post but will consider writing a detailed post in the future. Basically, because I found availability on both of these 2 legs, BKK-IST and IST-MIA, I could piece them together for a lesser number of miles than just booking them separately. The key here is that in order to do this, you have to call Aeroplan and book via the call center. By calling Aeroplan and getting the itinerary combined using their award chart, I saved us 210K points and $528. This is why the extra effort matters, and it is really important to research or get help with your award bookings. I would spend the 1.5 hours on hold waiting for my turn via the Aeroplan call center to save 210K points and over $500 any day! Knowledge truly is worth so much! We will have 3 layovers on this flight home, but on the plus side, we will try out 3 different airlines business class products and are hoping to get out of the airport and see something in Istanbul and Switzerland depending on how the travel goes.

Here are the details of the booking:

• Bangkok, Thailand to Miami all in Business Class

  • Booked via Aeroplan by calling the call center to piece together two itineraries with 4 seats of availability

    • Total cost was 350K points plus $628 for all 4 of us

    • Total cash cost at time of booking was: $3842/person and $15,368 total

    • Giving us a redemption value for our points of 4.2 cents per point

  • Here are the different business class products included in these legs:

    • BKK-KHI on Thai Airways Business Class

    • KHI-IST on Turkish Airlines Business Class

    • IST-ZUR on Turkish Airlines Business Class

    • ZUR-MIA on Swiss Airlines Business Class

From Miami, we will rent a car and drive to our home, about a 4-hour drive.

Summary

We used a total of 1,082,000 points/miles and paid a total of $3,436 for all of the flights described above. Remember we are a family of 4, so that comes out to a cost of 270,500 points/miles and $859 per person. This includes round trip business class flights from the USA to Asia for 4 people and 5 flights within Asia. Overall, I am very pleased with these redemptions.

Leave any questions you have below and be sure to check out my free Quick Start Guide to Travel Hacking if you want to get started earning and redeeming points/miles for flights like this!

Examples of my searches and possible awards via different programs