LAX->TPE->KTM for $179.80

by rc

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Crazy thing is, if I had done it right, the two one-way tickets combined should have cost me $29.80!

Making it happen:

1. Sign up for Chase Sapphire Preferred, spend $2000 within the first 3 months, pay it off, get 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points which converts directly into 40,000 United Airlines miles. Make sure your Mileage Plus account is linked properly.

2. The SFO (San Francisco)->TPE (Taipei, Taiwan) flight is 32,500 reward miles and TPE->KTM (Kathmandu, Nepal) is 25,000. If I only wanted to layover in Taipei for <24hrs, then I could have made the SFO->TPE->KTM trip just 40,000 reward miles total. But I didn’t want to leave La Madre hanging, so it’s 2 weeks in Taipei! I had to get the additional 17,500 reward miles another way.. Luckily I had ~8000 points already in Chase Ultimate Rewards (had been using a Chase Freedom card for a while), and I had ~10,000 reward miles in my Mileage Plus account (“expired” miles since I hadn’t touched them in >3 yrs). I paid the $50 fee to re-activate those dead miles. And voila, I was in business.

3. Pay the $29.80 taxes/gas fees. Online there’s a lot of resentment over this additional thing, but I’ll let them duke it out with the airlines.

4. My booked flight was SFO->LAX->TPE. However, I  wanted to stay in Las Vegas with El Padre and sister before departing, so I paid another penalty of $100 simply to remove the SFO->LAX leg of the flight. Yes, you can’t just forfeit legs of your itinerary without incurring a fee. Caveat: if I had done this 21 days in advance, then I would have been good. Damn dissertation threw me off there!

5. Dad loves driving. I’m driving with him Las Vegas -> Los Angeles tomorrow morning, eating DTF （鼎泰豐）there (yes, I catch the irony), and off to Taipei I go.

The aftermath:

1. Because I plan to come back to the States, I needed miles again. To amass enough miles for a return ticket, I took advantage of the Chase MileagePlus Explorer Card introductory offer of 50,000 reward miles after spending $2000 within the first 3 months. I just payed it off a few days ago. I’m good.

2. The great thing about these cards is they both don’t have any international fees, so I’ll still be using them throughout my travels.

Winning.