Europe 2015: what miles to collect

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LowHassleMS

Level 2 Member
I want to take my wife to Switzerland OR France OR Greece for labor day 2015 (1st week of Sept). I'm based in SFO and I'm usually constrained by vacation time. So I prefer to take direct flights that leave on Th/Fri and get back on Sun/Mon.

I'm trying to figure out what would be good mileage currencies to collect for a biz/coach award.

These are my priorities in order:
- low mileage or fuel surcharge cost
- direct or 1 stop flight
- miles that can be collected easily with MS
- business

This is what I've right now:
100k Alaska
150k AA
90k UA
60k lufthansa
240k us air
100k flexperks

Unfortunately the good stash of AA/US miles is not useful b/c of fuel surcharges. The UA program is good for coach awards and has direct flights to CDG, MUC, FRA, ZRH (Swiss) & CPH (SAS). I can use AS miles on Air France. I tried random months and I see some availability, and I may be able to collect 200k AS miles.

I have club carlson points for hotels and will have some hilton free nights as well. Any other hotel program that works well for Europe?

How should I go about planning this trip?
 
Hutch

Hutch

Level 2 Member
Make a stop in PHL and you've got CDG and ZUR on non-stop with decent available on US Air metal with miles you have already
 
F

f0xx

Level 2 Ninja
TBH. I personally wouldn't blow miles unless I got at least a week worth of travel.
I know you said your constrained by time... But majority of your time will be spent in the air and to/from the airport.
 
L

LowHassleMS

Level 2 Member
we were thinking about doing 3rd or 4th Sep Th/Fri to 13th or 14th of Sept (Sun/Mon). Only one country so that we minimize transit time.

I know many will think it's a waste to go that far and see only one place but I can either go for 10 days or not go at all..
 
M

McRingRing

Level 2 Member
I'm not sure what you mean by the US/AA miles not being useful due to fuel surcharges. I recently booked BWI-CLT-CDG in business on US with AA miles. It was 50,000 miles and $5. It would be a little more coming back, but not too bad or any worse than UA. Just avoid BA. If you went to France you would have a ton of options from SFO connecting through ORD, DFW, MIA, JFK, PHL or CLT with US/AA miles and low surcharges.

Since you are in SFO, accumulating UA miles would give you a lot of flexibility for this trip if you couldn't book US/AA roundtrip. Also, if you decide on Greece, UA gives you the most options with Aegean.

IMO the great thing about miles is that you can afford to take shorter vacations without worrying about the cost. Most of mine are 7-10 days and I never get home and wish I hadn't gone because I spent a lot of time on a plane!
 
L

LowHassleMS

Level 2 Member
thanks for the suggestions about connecting thru CLT or PHL. I will keep an eye out for us air availability. Connecting on east coast increases the travel time from 11 hrs to 16-18 but it's better than not going..
 
Matt

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
It's a good length of time, I think that f0xx thought you were going for just the weekend.

As for planning the trip- hard to say if you are going to three random places- once you narrow down on somewhere you can get seats for hopefully we can share some ideas- I did Switzerland recently, and have been to Greece a few times so can help.

You are a bit limited by wanting to go rightwards from SFO- so it will be a long flight, but you can probably get a shorter turnaround than 6hrs (I would guess) from a hub on the east coast.

I've flown swiss and UA biz from NY and they are both good enough to ZRH in J and survivable in X.
 
L

LowHassleMS

Level 2 Member
I looked into the flights and I think I will have to value schedule more than anything. to catch flights to europe from east coast, generally departing in the evening, I need to leave in the morning from SFO . Wheres there are a couple of flights that leave in the evening from SFO so I gain some extra time (night time). Swiss has a 7:25 Pm departure for SFO-ZRH. and Lufthansa has 9:10 PM for Munich. Air france has a direct @ 9:20 Pm. It costs 32.5k alaska miles.

These seem to be better options than connecting on east coast.. I will rough it up in the flight and relax at the destination in a nice hotel. Still a bunch more research to do.

I have started doing some research on the hotels side. Looks like Club Carlson is a worthwhile program for both paris and switzerland. Radisson blu lucerne is recommended by many. Greece seems pretty hard to do on hotel points. The waldorf astoria in versailles looks good. And I maybe able to use a couple of fairmont nights in montreux.

But there is a lot more to figure out.
 
L

LowHassleMS

Level 2 Member
I just looked at the flight cost @ ITA. Direct flights are under $1400 so I think it makes sense to keep flexperks points as a back up option as well. I would need about 70k flexperks per person to get a flight for $1400. Flexperks points are easy to accumulate with grocery store MS. 70k points would perhaps cost me $350.

European airports also charge high taxes so there is still >$100 to shell out when booking awards.
 
T

taxicabnumber

Level 2 Member
Do you have status with any airline? There have been some decent J sales the past few years (think the <$1500 SJC - Europe *A deals from this past spring, and I think there were some Skyteam sales too). You could generate FlexPoints like mad (Kiva!) and make a speculative mileage booking for now, which you could then cancel with reduced/no penalty (due to airline status) if another sale came around. You'd then use FlexPoints to pay for two revenue tickets instead.
 
A

asthejoeflies

Moderator
Staff member
Hi- Why do you think US/AA charge fuel surcharges? That should only be the case if you're flying British Airways. Just putting that out there since that's where you are more miles rich, though the convenience of a direct flight is tough to beat as well so won't fault you if you go that route.
 
cloudsurfer1

cloudsurfer1

Level 2 Member
If you have decent way of getting a stash of UR's/UA miles, Austrian flies a 777 JFK >VIE . I haven't flown it personally but booked it for my in-laws in biz last year. They loved it...great food, great service. (It's still on my "to-do") I couldn't check availability into Sept yet but availability was wide open in biz until the end of the UA calendar. Usually not too hard to make connections onward from VIE.
 
C

Crazy 4 Rewards

New Member
I'm planning a similar trip for April 2015 (with my 4 kids). I already book the flights from BOS to CDG with AA Miles and paid $5 per ticket. For the return I booked Zurich to BOS also with AA and Paid $60.50 per ticket. During spring you only need 20,000 AA miles each way and to avoid the fuel surcharges I booked AA flights (BA flights are a lot more expensive).

I want to stay a few days in Paris and I really really want to go to Lucerne, Murren, and the Jungfrau area. In Paris I booked a Hyatt Paris Etoile - 15,000 Hyatt Points per room per night

The Frequent Miler did a similar trip and posted some reviews in his blog.
 
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