Need tips for redeeming miles--first day to do it and upgrades?

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Hi--I'm toying with our frequent flier miles for our Hawaii trip next year.

We have enough for one full ticket....and possibly with transfering my miles to my hubby's account...could get two tickets (though this will be $325 to transfer the miles...but still amounts to a less than half-price ticket). We would have to wait 2-3 months to do this as we are still a bit shy of the mark.

There are 4 of us traveling.

The other option is to just purchase 4 tickets..and then attempt to upgrade all 4 to first class. How hard this would be to do? I have friends that were successful in upgrading their tix for the both of them to Hawaii. This is sooooo tempting to me!

We will be traveling in October, 2006. Estimated departure dates between October 12 and 14th. Staying for 7-10 days.

If anybody can calculate when the 330 date is for me. I never get stuff like that right.

Also--I can use miles on Northwest or Continental (I think that is the other one)...Northwest's base price tickets tend to be cheaper and Cont tends to me more..but I'm not sure that they allow a codeshare to use miles to upgrade so easily.

Thanks!

Please help!

Thanks!

 

[NancyIL]

My experience has been with using FF miles for coach tickets on American Airlines. You will either have to call and have the outbound flights put on hold for 2 weeks until you are within 330 days of the return flight, or wait until 330 days before the last flight home before reserving the roundtrip. How close are you to having enough of your own FF miles to get another free ticket? Rather than "transfer" miles from one account to another, it might cost less to just buy the miles you need. If you have hotel points (Marriott/Hilton/Starwood, etc.) in your name, perhaps you could transfer those to your FF account.

We've never used FF miles for upgrades.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

It is half the cost to transfer the miles. ($.01 per mile as opposed to $.02xxxx per mile). I am within 10K with both accounts combined. I am about 35K off with just one account.

I called to ask of chance of upgrade. It was (I believe) a pass off call to another country as the person was very difficult to understand. Based on availability.

Will they know before I buy them (as i am requesting the reservation)--if it is available. I don't want to buy tix I can't upgrade if that makes sense.

 

[CarolA]

With some type of upgrades they do know as you buy them.

However, on some airlines you have to buy certain fare classes for guarnteed upgrades so make sure you ask about that... For example, I have some DL upgrade certificates (not mileage based) that I have to buy more expensive tickets to use..