Success Story and a Quick Question
Lurked on this sub for time and have learned a lot, so figured I'd share a success story.
I've been a casual in the game for about 15 years, having made about ~6 international redemptions up front. So a reasonable level of baseline knowledge, but not nearly as much as the pros.
My girlfriend has a three week sabbatical over the back half of December and into January. She's heading to Oceania. I, as a lowly bartender, most certainly do not have three weeks, paid or otherwise, lol. I do have some American and UR miles so I set about finding a way to to meet her in Melbourne. After some time searching, likely sub-optimal routes/strategy, I signed up for the paid version of points.aero and was able to, by pure luck, find a flight out of Houston (via DFW) to Melbourne in business for 80K Aadvantage miles on Qantas. The routing isn't great, but I don't mind. I'll have to reposition from Chicago to Houston, then fly from Houston to DFW, layover overnight, then direct to MEL.
Current itinerary is:
December 25th - Work 11 hours bartending, Late flight to reposition to Houston, find cheap hotel
December 26th - AA3848 IAH to DFW, 8:18pm - 9:49pm
December 27th - QF22 DFW to MEL, 6:25pm - 5am (+2)
My question is, is it possible to remove to the Houston to DFW leg. Naturally I'd just rather reposition to Dallas and save myself a late night Christmas Day flight and night in Houston. I'm calling to see what their customer support says, typing this up to kill time while waiting the queue lol.
Even if I can't I'm still pretty thrilled to have found a business class seat to that part of the world during that time of the year. It appears the flight is nearly 18 hours!
We'll be departing MEL for Paris on January 3rd, and found two seats with Q Suites on Qatar. Spend a few days there, she'll fly home, and I'll likely tool around a bit and end in a city that has a direct flight back to Chicago. That notion is exciting in it's own right as I haven't been to Europe since pre-pandemic times. Maybe take the train to Edinburgh or Munich, or shoot over to Dublin, so many options!! Even a paid economy seat back to Chicago will be no issue at all after those long-hauls.
No real point to this longwinded post other than to say, for the casuals out there like me, hold out hope and use the tools that are available to us, there are still deals to be had for the vigilant!
Thanks to this sub for increasing my knowledge and sharing anecdotal stories over the years.