Airplane Travel Question

I dont post often, but I think this is in the right place in the forum. If it's not, please feel free to move.
With Covid restrictions gone now, I've been able to reschedule a planned vacation to Australia and have started looking at flights. The general question I have now is is it worth it buying a refundable business class ticket just in case the prices drop significantly. Right now I'm looking at roughly 9200 for regular business class and 9800 for refundable business class for the dates I'm looking at.

If it's important, its United Polaris next February. Not necessarily looking to purchase right now, but if it protects me against a price increase, and I can get it refunded and rebuy with a decent price drop, should I?

Is there a change fee if you buy the 9200 seat? If so, it might be worth it.

I would buy the $900 coach seat on Fiji airlines but I am cheap. I have made that flight a few times and of course it sucks but it would still suck in First Class.

If you can't write it off I don't see how you could justify a 10-11X higher price ticket, I'd go for the DRich $900 deal. Even with money to burn I wouldn't do it, but sometimes I am able to write off such tickets, get them free with credit card or miles rewards or charge them to a client and then I don't care.

Plus if you're traveling with someone, that's not just a nine grand difference but eighteen. You could put that whole eighteen grand on Bank at Baccarat in Australia and at least have an almost 50-50 chance of coming away with a good sum. The excitement of that hand win or lose would be more fun than the hours spent in business class versus coach.

My last trip over, I ended up flying Air Tahiti Nui when Qantas cancelled my flight entirely. I thought the business class service was decent. Of course, you'll have a stopover of about 4 hours in Tahiti, if flying from LAX. No spirits, just wine.. if that's important to you.

It probably would still suck in Business/First; but my reasoning was twofold: 1) It will be a once in a lifetime trip for me. 2) Since I'm a bit on the larger side, I was thinking if a lengthy flight was gonna suck either way, maybe at least I could be comfortable while in the air.

Quote: MDawg

If you can't write it off I don't see how you could justify a 10-11X higher price ticket, I'd go for the DRich $900 deal. Even with money to burn I wouldn't do it, but sometimes I am able to write off such tickets, get them free with credit card or miles rewards or charge them to a client and then I don't care.

Plus if you're traveling with someone, that's not just a nine grand difference but eighteen. You could put that whole eighteen grand on Bank at Baccarat in Australia and at least have an almost 50-50 chance of coming away with a good sum. The excitement of that hand win or lose would be more fun than the hours spent in business class versus coach.
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I've got some miles I could use that would offset the cost. And it is just myself on this trip. But to get DRich's deal, I'd have to get to that airport first. I'm sttuck in the Midwest, so it would mean an additional ticket to whichever airport I would fly out of; and although I'd like cheap, sometime the simplicitiy of one ticket is nice as well

Use miles. Best value is for overseas first class …usually I get a ticket for 100k miles that would have been $8000

Easy to get 200k miles per year just by opening a few new credit cards. Cancel them as soon as mileage bonus is credited

What’s more, award travel is usually very flexible with changes and cancellations. Usually no fees

The majority of Sydney flights from the midwest will be routing through Los Angeles or San Francisco. Quantas used to fly out of Dallas but I don't know if they still do. I don't think United fly's direct from Chicago anymore and you would end up going through California or Texas.

Quote: DRich

. Quantas used to fly out of Dallas but I don't know if they still do. .
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They fly out of Dallas to Sydney and Melbourne. Also a Houston flight to Sydney on Qantas as well.

Quote: Ace2

Use miles. Best value is for overseas first class …usually I get a ticket for 100k miles that would have been $8000

Easy to get 200k miles per year just by opening a few new credit cards. Cancel them as soon as mileage bonus is credited

What’s more, award travel is usually very flexible with changes and cancellations. Usually no fees
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May I ask which airline/s you typically use for an award like that? I've got 113k miles through Capital One, but dont necessarily want to create accounts with all their transfer partners just to see what the cost is in miles for flights if I dont have to. Do you know of a general webpage that would list some charts?

Quote: SoulChaser

Quote: Ace2

Use miles. Best value is for overseas first class …usually I get a ticket for 100k miles that would have been $8000

Easy to get 200k miles per year just by opening a few new credit cards. Cancel them as soon as mileage bonus is credited

What’s more, award travel is usually very flexible with changes and cancellations. Usually no fees
link to original post

May I ask which airline/s you typically use for an award like that? I've got 113k miles through Capital One, but dont necessarily want to create accounts with all their transfer partners just to see what the cost is in miles for flights if I dont have to. Do you know of a general webpage that would list some charts?
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Sadly, if not most, probably all, airlines seem to charge miles and points based on the cost of the flight. If you tell us which airport you will be flying out of we may be able to help find some deals for miles. I don't think Capital One transfers to many American airlines so you may have to book through a partner airline. If you book from the Capital One travel website you can book any airline but the points will only be worth once cent each. Hopefully you can do much better than that.

A good website to understand point redemption is called ThePointsGuy.com

Quote: SoulChaser

Quote: Ace2

Use miles. Best value is for overseas first class …usually I get a ticket for 100k miles that would have been $8000

Easy to get 200k miles per year just by opening a few new credit cards. Cancel them as soon as mileage bonus is credited

What’s more, award travel is usually very flexible with changes and cancellations. Usually no fees
link to original post

May I ask which airline/s you typically use for an award like that? I've got 113k miles through Capital One, but dont necessarily want to create accounts with all their transfer partners just to see what the cost is in miles for flights if I dont have to. Do you know of a general webpage that would list some charts?
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Open cards with American, United and Delta. Those three combined are partners with nearly every major airline in the world. I have well over one million miles with them and I don’t even fly much. Qantas , for example, is part of the OneWorld group so you’d use American miles for that