NYC-Paris-LAX to coincide with house swap

[Whitney]

Hi Forum,

Would any of you have a suggestion as to what my best options might be? My boyfriend and I live in So. Cal. We are somewhat new to this hobby and haven’t yet positioned ourselves as well as we will in the future. We have made an agreement to “house swap” with a family I France this summer. We are excited at the idea of getting free housing and car through the house swap and would really love to get free airfare as well.

We have a couple of constraints (of course)

· Family reunion in NYC during the weekend of July 17-19. We would like to then travel on to France, From NYC on Sun 7/19.

· We told the French house swappers we would leave our car for them at LAX, to pick up on 7/18.

· We already have transportation into NYC. So, basically, we are looking for

o Sun July 19 fly NYC-Paris

o Sun Aug 2 fly Paris to LAX.

· Due to my limited vacation time, I (Whitney) can not alter my dates too much – maybe return 1 day later on Mon Aug 3. Randy (the boyfriend) could return at even a later date, as he is not as constrained by vacation time.

· We are very flexible in other areas – such as going on separate planes. At least 1 of us needs to return to LAX to pick up the car at the end. But the other one could fly into any So. Cal airport.

Below are our points amounts. In the short time I have been doing this, I have learned that once we get this settled, I am NOT spreading my points collection around as much. I am expecting 50,000 more AA and 30,000 Citi thank you points in the next couple of months (I have met the requirements to earn them, just waiting for them to post).

who acct miles
whitney AA 71,239
whitney US Airways 40,515
whitney Virgin Atlantic 36,444
whitney United 10,004
whitney Delta 8,946
whitney BA 4,937
whitney capital one 2,520
whitney Marriott 1,849
whitney SW 949
whitney Hyatt 705
whitney Citi thank you preferred -
randy amex points 51,079
randy Chase Saphire 50,857
randy SW 37,240
randy marriott 14,424
randy american 4,917
randy United 1,227

Any advice?

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[italdesign]

oneworld is the alliance where you have the most miles. It also happens to be the worst alliance for US to EU. Here's what I would do if I were to book this.

-Book both of you one way in coach for 30k AA miles a piece, if you can find availability. Keep in mind AA partner Jet Airways flies EWR-BRU.
-If you find business class availability after your US miles combine into AA, change to that. AA doesn't charge for date/route change as long as your origin and destination remain. Note that this, and other rules, can change any time.
-For the other direction, look at Star Alliance using UA miles. Transfer from UR.
-Another option is DL. DL, AF, KLM, VS, and maybe a few others all fly to EU.
-Also try your luck with BA, which can be transferred from UR and Amex. In addition to oneworld partners, Aer Lingus is a BA partner that has low fuel surcharge, but you have to call.

See which option has availability and go from there. Note that EU to the west coast award seats are difficult to come by, and you are starting rather late. Though maybe not as bad in coach.

 

[Whitney]

Thanks, Italdesign. I booked a bunch of separate, one way segments and got us where we want to go at the times we want to go. next time, I am accumulating Chase Saphire points - they seem to be the most flexible

 

[Whitney]

OK. we are set. Not having been strategically collecting miles for the past year or so, my boyfriend and I had a hodgepodge of accts. But, we were still able to book flights, on the dates we want, from LAX-NYC-Paris-Lax for a grand total of $120! (due to he hodgepodge, we are flying on separate flights, but that is ok for such a great deal!)

We are visiting my family in NY - so that is free. We are doing a "home swap" in France so that is a free place to stay and a free car and so our total transportation and lodging, for 15 days of travel: $120!