SkyTeam member Vietnam Airlines flies non-stop between the U.S. and Vietnam – four-times weekly San Francisco – Ho Chi Minh City service – with an Airbus A350. There is fantastic business class award availability right now for this flight, for up to 4 passengers per flight, whether looking for trips right away through eleven months from now. You can use this flight to connect onward in Southeast Asia (or, if you’re willing to pay the requisite miles, even beyond).
- San Francisco (SFO) – Ho Chi Minh City (SGN), 10:50 p.m. – 4:30 a.m+2, Vietnam Airlines 99
Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) – San Francisco, 6:30 p.m. – 6:40 p.m., Vietnam Airlines 98
This has been a tough flight to get award space on in the past, but @findflightsforme flags great availability, though it’s fairly expensive through most partner programs. But anyone with transferable bank points can access these.
Booking:
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue: 100,500 points + ~ $250 each way (Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt transfer partner)
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: 140,000 points + ~ $250 each way (Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt transfer partner)
- Korean Air Sky Pass: 77,500 points + ~ $250 each way
What’s great is that while these awards are expensive if booked through Air France or Virgin, both are frequent transfer bonus participants. My balances in each were recently boosted by 150% bonuses moving Bilt points which takes out the sting a little bit. Citi currently has a 25% bonus on transfers to Flying Blue.
Search availability on the Virgin website using their award calendar, book through Air France KLM unless you have the Korean Air points. Some of you have points left from transfers made with Chase before Chase lost them as a partner, and those are close to expiration anyway.
Vietnam is worth a visit in its own right. Using this as a jumping off point to travel elsewhere in Asia is great, or to connect. I’ve visited much of the country and found it worthwhile on every visit.
Presidential Palace
Pho Hoa
Hyatt Regency Danang
Once you book, @findflightsforme flags that you can input your reservation number on the Czech Airlines website (or Air Europa website) to get the Vietnam Airlines reservation number and use that to assign seats.
At the risk of sounding negative. I guess the availability is something to note but it’s still 201,000 plus $500 roundtrip with AF/KLM points. That isn’t a real giveaway in my book.
I suppose if you are flush with Marriot points you could do 3:1 to Skypass and wait for those to post with them.
Never done these trips at all,so not sure if this is good deal or not
You can book roundtrip with 136k ANA. miles + taxes. Of course there are some issues with ANA booking such as non-immediate transfer and the need for family account if booking for partners, the convenience for nonstop and complete roundtrip with wide open availabilty may worth a consideration.
Love me some Pho. What is the best time of year to visit ‘Nam so you don’t hit the monsoons?
Also would help to know if these seats are 100% horizontal lie flat all aisle access. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend 100k per flight for angled seats that require stepping over someone.
@Boraxo, I spend a lot of time in Cambodia which is just next door to the southern part of Vietnam so the monsoon season should be similar. This time of year there are rainstorms in some parts. The heaviest rains usually are in August and September but sometimes October is quite rainy. Once in a while the first half of November has a lot of rain. My experience of going to Thailand in November for many years is that the area south of Bangkok can still have rainy periods but traveling hundreds of kilometers north will find drier conditions. I suspect that that is the same in Vietnam with the exception of the areas close to the ocean which may have rainy weather longer.