Best use of miles

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone would like a challenge?

My better half and I are looking to book a honeymoon sometime between 18/04/15 and 23/05/15 for a 3 week period. We're pretty flexible on departure dates so anytime between these dates is fine, as it's between the two school holidays when the kids are at school.

I have 95,000 miles to use and happy to use the lot if required. We would want to travel PE but if UC is better use of miles then obviously we'd be happy with that too Our budget is around the £1000 mark with some flexibility.

We want to have the first week in NY and a the final two weeks to MCO.

I was looking at the recent PE reward sale but unfortunately only noticed it yesterday when it was the last day and didn't have any firm plans in place so wasn't able to book (in other words I didn't have time to convince the misses!).

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

I always love a good mileage challenge

Three options I can think of:

1. The main option with the miles and funds available is a straight up mileage redemption in PE for the two of you flying into NYC and out of MCO, which will set you back £820.32 and cost 125K miles.

At the moment there is a buy miles promotion with 25% bonus miles.... if you buy 24K miles for £375 and get the 6K bonus you will have the 125K you need

Total cost 125K miles and £1195.32 cash..... closest I could get to the £1000 budget flying in PE. Can anyone get closer?

2. Another possible avenue is by using companion rewards.... the prices of the flexible fare buckets that allow use of these is not online any more but it is worth asking the cost of S fares (lowest PE fare bucket you can use a companion ticket with) for the flights you want. A companion ticket will set you back 62,500 miles (and taxes/surcharges of £410.16) for the flights you want - I'd expect the S to come in at about £1500 giving a total of about £1910.16 and 62500 miles expended for this solution - not ideal but give FC a call to get a price on the S all the same.

3. Economy to PE upgrades using an ECO flexible fare class - again not available to price up online at the moment, but I would estimate you are looking at about £1800 for the two of you plus 45K miles.

All the above hinges on availability of course

Hope I have been of some help

To add to option 3 above, if you did want to fly Upper Class you're probably looking at a total of £2k or so plus 90K miles if you buy the cheapest upgradable economy fare and upgrade with miles.

That compares to a cash fare of £5k for the two of you (PE cash fare is about £2.5k so the saving's not as great).

Obviously the caveat is reward availability in UC can be scarce, particularly on the return from MCO. But there is some availability right now in early May, and the outbound to NYC isn't an issue - there are Gs on all dates in April/May.

Don't forget to factor in the price of the internal from NYC to MCO as well. JetBlue's coming in at about £70 each midweek.

Thanks to both of you. All options above sound good enough to explore further!

Much appreciated.