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Need help with booking cheapest Business class seat to europe


Fat Bastard

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Going to a wedding in Monaco in June. Taking kids too. Would ideally like to go business class to allow them to sleep (they’ll be 6 and almost 4). Home base is IAH (but would also consider ATL as in laws are there or JFK as I can always enjoy a few days in NYC, but would prefer IAH). Current cash prices are $3500-4500 each depending on how you play with the days. Nonstop is a must. 

 

Now, on to my point balances. I have 290k on my Sapphire Reserve card that have never been allocated and 115k on my Amex Plat card that’s also never been allocated. Any of you savvy travelers who know how to use the alliances/code share partners have any advice on how to maximize the points and minimize my cost?

 

I’d like to fly into cdg but not opposed to flying into Istanbul, Amsterdam, or Athens either. Not so much London. TIA

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Yes, I want to spend at least 3 nights in Paris with the kids. I anticipate spending 3 nights in Monaco, 3 nights in Paris, and 5-6 nights in 1-2 other cities to be determined. Istanbul has always been on my bucket list as have the Greek Isles. 

 

I figured 3 nights in Paris, fly into Nice and drive to monaco

Edited by Fat Bastard
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Go to Flyertalk and read thru the different airline forums. 

Not sure what your points will equate to miles but summer to Europe in biz is hard for 1 much less 3-4 on awards.  I know on AA metal it is almost always 200-300k miles per person. The saver fares (100-150k) are like unicorns. These are round trip prices. 

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Plug and play city pairs on Google Flights, and straight up check directly with carrier websites for their sales, since you are only concerned with long haul route.
 

Also check the mid-market cities.  I routinely shave 1k/seat in J/F starting from Budapest, which is only a few hours away where we visit family, anyway. 

 

Boston, Stockholm, Dublin, etc, are the cities often involved with good fares, going off memory

 

Using the miles is a tricky one as often that will be more restrictive, so tough chance to land rev tix + award tix for same flight.

 

Consider buying 2-for-1 deal through Amex.  Involves buying full-fare (rather than discounted bucket fares) but split across 2 it might make sense.  On Turkish miles and smiles I've cashed in on buy-1-redeem-1 business seats, where otherwise they don't allocate seats for pure redemption.  So check if your program have these esoteric awards.

 

Lastly you have in-carrier mileage upgrades, which may make sense.  And in-network upgrades, requiring full-fare buckets, which almost never make sense.

 

 

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Can you get there through Madrid?  I did business class from Madrid to Dulles for 32k Avios. Sometimes Amex has a 1.4:1 for Avios bonus.  Get British Air Avios. Create Avios account with Iberia. Transfer BA Avios to Iberia. Profit.  Not sure about from Houston. 

ETA:  Thats a touch under 23k Membership Rewards points for that business class flight. 

Edited by VABuckeye
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So, what I’m saying is that you want to look at partner airlines for the redemptions. American is going to cost you 57500 miles on a Saaver (if you’re lucky enough to get it) all day long.  British Air has horrible fuel surcharges.  Therefore I use my Avios with Iberia and I get to spend a night or two in Madrid which I love. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Don’t know if you’ve booked yet, but we booked last weekend by transferring AMEX point to Air France — 1 point to 1 mile ratio.  We got 2 round trip nonstop business class from DFW to CDG for 224,000 points (with taxes and airport fees we paid about $1000 total).  Same trip on AMEX points (has we tried that) was over 3x the number of points.

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Great advice so far. Thanks. I didn’t have any intention on those 400k points getting me all 4 tix but if it could shave my nugget from $14k to 10.5 or 7k would be much easier to swallow

Dude. You are talking about $1,000 an hour for your family to be on an airplane. Shaggy 1% or not that's wack. The kids will be amped up to be on a plane but then crash regardless of what section they're in. Fly coach.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/13/2019 at 9:37 AM, gmr548 said:


Dude. You are talking about $1,000 an hour for your family to be on an airplane. Shaggy 1% or not that's wack. The kids will be amped up to be on a plane but then crash regardless of what section they're in. Fly coach.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

Agreed, put the kids in coach and use the rewards for a business class seat for yourself

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Why not consider premium economy? Unless they're the biggest kids in history, a 6 and 4 year old will have no problem sleeping in coach seats. 

I flew PE from HKG to DFW direct. I was dreading it, but the flight attendant kept the booze flowing, and next thing I knew I crashed out against the window for an 8 hour nap during some boring movie. 

I actually slept better than in business on the way out there. 

 

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On 12/16/2018 at 9:41 PM, HornOnTheBayou said:

He probably saw the thread title and then had to consult a doctor because his erection lasted more than four hours. He'll be around as soon as that is resolved.

Haha. Just saw this thread.

Since you have exact dates that you need to travel, it would help if you would share them. There are 2 easy answers on the solution: 

1. Transfer points to miles and book that way. You don’t have nearly enough to do this round trip for 4 people;

2. Look at reward availability for your dates and figure out who can accommodate you. If the price is right, you can buy a Coach ticket and then upgrade with miles.

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1 hour ago, Spankytoes said:

Haha. Just saw this thread.

Since you have exact dates that you need to travel, it would help if you would share them. There are 2 easy answers on the solution: 

1. Transfer points to miles and book that way. You don’t have nearly enough to do this round trip for 4 people;

2. Look at reward availability for your dates and figure out who can accommodate you. If the price is right, you can buy a Coach ticket and then upgrade with miles.

He may have the points (or close).  See my post above.  Chase and AMEX both transfer 1:1 to Air France.  Our total for DFW to CDG, business class, was 112,000 points per person non-stop round trip.  Air France flies out of IAH, but haven’t checked the points

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2 hours ago, Spankytoes said:

Haha. Just saw this thread.

Since you have exact dates that you need to travel, it would help if you would share them. There are 2 easy answers on the solution: 

1. Transfer points to miles and book that way. You don’t have nearly enough to do this round trip for 4 people;

2. Look at reward availability for your dates and figure out who can accommodate you. If the price is right, you can buy a Coach ticket and then upgrade with miles.

 

Turkish is selling IAH-IST-CDG , single 2-hour layover each direction, with 12-13 hour segment for long haul... pretty much perfect itinerary outside of a direct flight.

3000 USD wide open all of June.

Easy.

 

Upgrading with miles is about the worst deal in the world, often requiring full fares as base with lots of miles and/or cash co-pay. 

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I just booked Austin to Europe in July, one way on AA, Biz class sAAver for me and the Mrs for 57,500 each, the kids coach sAAver for 30k each, for a total of 175,000 AA miles. It took me hours fucking around on the internet to find this unicorn of a fare but it was worth it

now I gotta find a way home. 

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45 minutes ago, ohchaucer said:

That is not my experience with Turkish relative to AF, Luf, or the ME and Asians, but YMMV (literally).

Excluding ME3 I've done a ton of them - probably 10 trips for TK - and to be frank it's basically all the same.  In F you can pick favorites between fully closed suites, private lounges, limo transfer in tarmac, etc....in J the experience is largely the same.

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19 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Excluding ME3 I've done a ton of them - probably 10 trips for TK - and to be frank it's basically all the same.  In F you can pick favorites between fully closed suites, private lounges, limo transfer in tarmac, etc....in J the experience is largely the same.

Agree mostly.  The main complaint I had was with the food (on a handful of biz class TK to Instanbul).  Definitely analogous enough that if the cost is less on TK, it's worth doing.

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21 minutes ago, ohchaucer said:

Agree mostly.  The main complaint I had was with the food (on a handful of biz class TK to Instanbul).  Definitely analogous enough that if the cost is less on TK, it's worth doing.

Were you served something spoiled? If there's one thing that they do best, it's the catering.  The second being the lounge when it's not stupendously crowded

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La Compagnie  flies an all business class plane from Newark to Paris (ORY) or Nice (NCE) which isn't far from Monaco (I've driven this route) for only $1600 though you'll have to get to EWR (UA has non-stops from AUS) though there's a risk when you book separate tickets.  I know you wanted to offset with points/miles so this may not work for you but perhaps others will find this option useful.  It doesn't seem to show up on the big travel sites.

We're Texas.  Their 1% is our 10%.  Don't fly coach.  Haven't tried PE.

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And I'd stay away from SkyLux.  Looks like it can work and save you a bundle but if anything goes wrong or you need to make a change then it's a PITA.  There's also the chance that your ticket won't exist when you show up at the airport (they sometimes use other people's FF miles to book your ticket).  Too risky. 

 

Use ExpertFlyer to help you find flights you can upgrade or have a better chance of a waitlisted upgrade going through.

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