help, don't know what to do

I really need some help. I don't know what to do for the best.

I am looking for flights for next august for 3 adults and 1 child (kids are 13 and 10)
I want to fly man to mcc - we are going to drive zion, bryce. grand canyon. death valley, yosemite, then to san fransisco.
I then fancied a week on a beach so I thought we could fly down to florida, then home mco to man. we don't want to do too much hopping on and off planes

I am struggling. the only reward flights from man to mcc are all upper class. I phoned flying club and they suggested man to atlanta and then mcc. there are reward flights from london to mcc in ec. but I have to then buy 4 one way tickets from man to lon and no more little red.

I have just over 250k miles to spend, and want to fly the cheapest way.

I also have 2 free upgrades through my amex.

ahhhh the return flights are there but for how long, the outbound flight I don't know what to do. book the lon to mcc and use the upgrade if it becomes available? but then I need to buy the flights from man to lon at some point. or just hang fire and hope that pe or ec seats turn up on the man mcc flight?

how long should I wait.... Iknow piece of string...

so if anyone has any suggestions of the best way of doing this i would be really grateful

where is MCC?

sorry las vegas

Sorry that I'm not answering your question about the best use of your miles but I would ask if you have thought of ending your holiday on a beach in California rather than flying over to Florida ?

In 2008 we had a big family celebration over on the west coast and initially flew to Las Vegas (McCarran Airport!)

Like your plans, we also travelled to Zion, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite and then after a couple of days in San Francisco we fly over to Florida. This was a long flight (via Atlanta) and to be honest, although we truly love Florida, it was a big mistake. Given the chance again, we would have spent a relaxing week anywhere along the LA coast or taken a short flight to SanDiego rather than drag everyone over to Florida. For a start the weather in California will be better than Florida in August

You might want to look at flights into LA as that route has more reward options.

Enjoy

I also apologise for not answering your questions, but have you considered whether that's the best time of year to visit those places? I do have some experience of California touring as that's what I'm doing right now! I'm writing this from a hotel room in South Lake Tahoe as part of a Northern California tour with my wife (Lake Tahoe is stunning, by the way, as is Yoesmite where we were a couple of days ago).

August in Las Vegas, and especially Death Valley, is HOT. Vegas will be over 40 deg C of dry desert heat and in Death Valley it will easily reach over 50 deg C (it was up to that when we were there at the end of September a few years ago). The driving distances involved are also considerable, which may not be much fun for kids.

August can also be a disappointing month for San Francisco as it's generally cooler due to the sea mist that can obscure views of the Golden Gate Bridge. September is usually regarded as the better month (it was gorgeous last week ), although I guess your dates are probably dictated by school holidays.

I also apologise for not answering your questions, but have you considered whether that's the best time of year to visit those places? ... I guess your dates are probably dictated by school holidays.

Wer're in the same situation - constrained by school holidays - and have done the trip SM is proposing a couple of times during the summer holidays with teenage / near teenage offspring. It perhaps isn't the optimal time to do it, but we never had any problems (though when they say "switch the AC off" when driving in Death Valley, do so....) and enjoyed both trips greatly.

Paul

id look for a beach near your flyhome destination - may down to San Jose or Monterey

id look for a beach near your flyhome destination - may down to San Jose or Monterey

San Jose is landlocked south of San Francisco... Maybe you mean somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of beaches around that area though.

A complaint that there's only Upper available for reward flights? Wow. For the miles, consider at least Gatwick to LAS as Upper, for the clubhouse. The small cabin of LAS is great too...

Reward flights for economy are pointless. The fees is largely the cost of an economy ticket. If you mean using the Economy to PE upgrade, then people wait for the reward seat sales to use these more efficiently. Saving a bit of money.

Of course the best value use of miles is using them on Upper, with 250K miles, you can perhaps see if you can get some sort of Upper over/PE back combination with miles, but miles and money isn't usually great value. Buying an upgradable economy ticket, and using the miles to Upper (80Kpp can get you upper both ways, but probably not what you want to do if money is the criteria). Consider checking flying starting from Dublin, currently 1200 quid for right dates upper to west coast destinations.

That might work better for school holidays, ex-DUB fares have weirdly been good for the holiday period (typically covering end of June to end of August).

Also, weird chose of route for that, I think (not done this, but looked at planning this).

For instance, Grand Canyon is South East of Vegas, and there's a big bloody hole in the way, so you have to go the long way around, and that typically means a 5 hour drive to the South Rim, the most popular spot. Then getting back around it, if heading east puts you more in a position of "where are all the roads". For instance there's no major roads heading that way. Then it would place for you for a 7 hour drive to Bryce Canyon/Zion, and then. well, you'd not be going via Yosemite (interestingly, there's more national parks north of this, Canyonland and Arches and stuff, Iooked at Denver to Las Vegas as a nice route).

If you wanted Yosemite, it looks like head through Death Valley (properly hot at that time of year), and head up to Yosemite. It would be an either/or. If not seen Grand Canyon, then maybe a helicopter visit to west rim in that route in Vegas...

ok, thank you all this is just what I need, although the waters appear slightly muddier!!

the propblem is the uc reward flights are from man and I feel robbed as there is no club house there.
london to las vegas reward flights are all eco.

no reward flights into lax or sfo at the mo!!

id look for a beach near your flyhome destination - may down to San Jose or Monterey

Monterey is awesome, if you saw Big Blue Live on BBC a few weeks ago, that's where they filmed it. We did a whale watching trip there last week and saw around 60 humpback whales, several hundred common dolphins and around 50 Risso's dolphins.

how do you check flights from dublin,

ok, thank you all this is just what I need, although the waters appear slightly muddier!!

the propblem is the uc reward flights are from man and I feel robbed as there is no club house there.
london to las vegas reward flights are all eco.

no reward flights into lax or sfo at the mo!!

The best clubhouse by far is Heathrows. So if its clubhouses, you'd want to fly SFO or LAX.

Gatwicks is nice, champers, cocktails, brekkie but not the jacuzzi, pool table, three course meals of the Heathrow one.

Manchester gets a lounge, its just a priority pass lounge, so the basic brekkie and drinks. But if it suits you... We did it, closeness to us was good...

However, the benefits of the Gatwick/Manchester flights is the small cabin, 14 Upper seats means it feels much more like BA first. In the nose of the 747. That in itself is the big difference. Always loved Heathrow flights on the ground, but the cabin crew are overworked and stressed in the air, so the I've suffered the worst service on those...

So its not all Black and White there...

blimey its hard work this. thanks for the club house info, I don't think we will be flying uc very often, or ever at this rate, so if I do I want to have the privilege of the full works. so I have thought I might try and fly out of london and home via man. oh but that still leaves the internal flight down to london!!

but if we stay btween la and san diego instead of flying to florida might make it easier too

[honey lamb]

how do you check flights from dublin,

Expedia or ebookers or opodo or similar websites

id look for a beach near your flyhome destination - may down to San Jose or Monterey

San Jose is landlocked south of San Francisco... Maybe you mean somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of beaches around that area though.

doh meant santa cruz

Also, weird chose of route for that, I think (not done this, but looked at planning this).

For instance, Grand Canyon is South East of Vegas, and there's a big bloody hole in the way, so you have to go the long way around, and that typically means a 5 hour drive to the South Rim, the most popular spot. Then getting back around it, if heading east puts you more in a position of "where are all the roads". For instance there's no major roads heading that way. Then it would place for you for a 7 hour drive to Bryce Canyon/Zion, and then. well, you'd not be going via Yosemite (interestingly, there's more national parks north of this, Canyonland and Arches and stuff, Iooked at Denver to Las Vegas as a nice route).

If you wanted Yosemite, it looks like head through Death Valley (properly hot at that time of year), and head up to Yosemite. It would be an either/or. If not seen Grand Canyon, then maybe a helicopter visit to west rim in that route in Vegas...

North Rim is an option - If paying for flights, then I would look at flying to Salt Lake & driving south, picking up the various mentioned sites on the way to Vegas, then North West through to Yosemite, taking in Death Valley & then onto SF.

Ive done the South Rim Drive - there & back to vegas in a day (also taking in Hoover Dam) - not a drive I would be in a hurry to do again. It was probably about 13 or 14 hours door to door.

Absolutely boring to drive. I couldnt even be bothered to stop at the ghost towns like the one the Disney film Cars was based on. Ive driven SF to LA & onto Vegas, Vegas to South Rim, Boston to Niagara & Niagara to Washington.

Kinda think what the original poster is asking - is a lot to squeeze into 2 weeks (without knowing how long the planned trip is). Almost a day travel, day sightseeing, day travel, day sightseeing... It can be draining!

my plan is/was to land in las vegas, spend a couple of days there. then drive up to zion/bryce and the grand canyon north rim(3 days). then back to vegas then from there across to sequoia 1 day up to san fran 2 days then back down to vegas via yosemite 2 days and death valley over night. then when back in vegas fly down to florida.

so now i might do the first loop bit back to vegas and up through death valley to yosemite to san fran before heading down the coast via to our final destination for a week or so.

Just a few random thoughts at 4am. And no, I can't sleep

Firstly those are significant distances to cover on one trip. I would think twicw (maybe three times) about attempting to fit all that in during one trip. And I am very much one for touring rather than one centre holidays. This is compunded by the fact that it is going to be blistering HOT at that time of the year in Nevada and Arizona. It's not callled Death Valley without reason! Which is why we are going in December- much cooler.

We all have different ideas but for me, I would trim the tour. I would drop Florida certainly and stick to the West. I have done an East, then West USA trip before but would not do it again unless I was awy for 3+ weeks.

As for the flights, I appreciate flying from MAN. It is a convenient and was my "home" airport for years. But I often flew to or drove down to LHR if it meant getting better flights or seats. After all, if you are planning on traversing those enormous distances in the States, whats a mere 200 mile jaunt down to LHR?

Just my thoughts, but whatever you decide, it sounds like a fantastic trip.

I am going to ditch Florida!! I just love swimming in the warm waters , but we can have some surf and whales and stuff this way

I would definitely ditch Florida, the weather in summer is unpredictable and not worth the flight. Having done Florida many times and the west coast three times I much prefer the west coast. You have many options for a beach break. My preferred choices would be Santa Cruz, Laguna beach, La Jolla or Pacific beach.
Santa Cruz, the water is cold here but the teenagers may love the boardwalk with its amusements (ridiculous cheap too, $1 a ride when we went summer 2014), lots of surfing and skate parks plus the redwood forests to explore, we went zip lining in the redwoods near Santa Cruz.
Laguna and La Jolla are both southern Californian beach towns, the water is warmer there ( though not Florida warm) the lovely thing about both is that , unlike most American towns, they are very walkable. You could walk to the beach and restaurants. They are also full of lovely independent shops and restaurants, very few chains. We went on a boat trip and saw blue whales and sea kayaked amongst Dolphins, seals and sea lions.
Not sure when you're planning to book but last year Virgin introduced an extra Tuesday flight per week from man to las which opened up a ton of redemption seats on that route so keep an eye on it. Flying club might also be able to tell you if it's on the cards for next year.

Not sure when you're planning to book but last year Virgin introduced an extra Tuesday flight per week from man to las which opened up a ton of redemption seats on that route so keep an eye on it. Flying club might also be able to tell you if it's on the cards for next year.

do you know when this started and how far in advance were the available flights

this is really helpful planning my trip, but I still can't make a decision about what flights to book. if we book and I get an upgrade with amex can you applying it retrospectively and get the miles already spent returned?

This is compunded by the fact that it is going to be blistering HOT at that time of the year in Nevada and Arizona. It's not callled Death Valley without reason! Which is why we are going in December- much cooler.

Wimp One of the reasons for going to these places is to understand how different they are. Until you've felt the hairs on your arms and legs shrivel in the heat, you haven't lived....

Sorry can't remember when they released the extra seats, it was definitely after January though. I'd look at lax, sfo and las and just book the first 4 that come up and then keep an eye out for your preferred flights and switch if they become available. Your trip is very similar to one we did a few years ago and I found the best way with regards to drive time internal flights etc was train man to London, £12 if booked 3 months in advance, fly out to sfo, drive to Yosemite (3 1/2 hours), drive to Santa Cruz for a few days there (3 1/2 hours), on to Laguna for a week at the beach and a day trip to LA (7 hours) drive to Vegas through the dessert (4 1/2 hours). Then do Zion from there (4 hours) and back to Vegas for the flight back to Man.
I'm not sure on using the vouchers retrospectively, but it's certainly worth giving them a call to ask.