Deltahater

any suggestions on how to avoid BA on a US-Europe trip for next summer? It seems that no matter what route I pick, I get BA, the occasional Iceland Air and then EK.

BA is my last resort due to their crappy product, high YQ and frequent strikes. Even Condor sounds better.

jinglish

Searching for the off-season, at least, I've found that AA Y availability is pretty good on international routes. It's just a pain to try to get domestic award space to the hubs.

Lake_Hood

My strategy isn't ideal, but it works for me. I enjoy the challenge. Flexibility on dates and destination is key. I am sure others have more efficient ways to do it, but I do the following:

1) Start as soon as possible and pick an ideal date range/destination

2) Start search (one-ways) with the cities where I would like to start/end

3) As necessary, use the fare calendar to identify available dates (high $ fee on the calendar will likely indicate only BA availability). I do this step throughout.

4) As necessary, broaden search to large Europe hubs (or destinations I know AA flies) even if it's not where I want to end up (AMS, CDG, FRA, LHR, FCO, etc).

5) As necessary, search directly from US Hubs (e.g. DFW - FCO rather than ANC - FCO as I know AA has a direct fligh). Worst case scenario, if domestic availability wasn't made available, I would have to be comfortable booking my own US travel (e.g ANC-DFW). I would keep checking for domestic award availability after booking. I may, or may not, be willing to do this.

6) Book whatever works the best, if tolerable, even if the date/destination is not ideal. If I even have an inkling of going, and I found something I can make work, I book it. Factor in size of the hub and availability of flights to your final destination in your booking decision.

7) Keep checking back until you find exactly what you want.

I usually take 1/2 hour a week to check availability. I know expert flyer exists, but I enjoy checking on my own. If you are Gold, you have no change fee. If you are not, you have until 60 days from your departure to make changes. If you were to completely cancel before 60 days, I believe you are only risking your international partner booking fee (I'm not 100% sure on that).

In my experience, I usually get close to what I want. Generally, I end up a bit of sacrificing on dates or destinations. As it stands now, if you're not flying BA, it's going to be hard to get to smaller cities. Your only other options are American, AF/KLM, Condor, Icelandair, Emirates, and Finnair supposedly someday. Air France/KLM has some availability, but it is fairly limited. When I have found space with them, it's usually when I am on step number 5 above. On American, you are going to be stuck to the cities they fly. Emirates is going to give you a long detour. Icelandair has relatively high fees for their product (haven't flown them, but it's my perception). I'm not opposed to flying Condor, and they seem to have decent availability if you are going into just Frankfurt or Munich, relatively speaking.

When I go to Europe, I generally have resigned myself to booking my own intra-European travel. I fly into a hub and figure out the rest on my own. It's not ideal because if a flight is canceled/ delayed, the missed connection is on me. That could be an expensive misstake. I try to mitigate that risk by long layovers, or overnight stops.

robsaw

Also, if you trying to see if AF or KLM has anything, search only into Paris and AMS - THEN look for award connections in Europe separately. If you find something that works THEN use multi-city search option to make the connection and in-bound as a single booking.

Bretmd

The other thing to remember is that AA often releases award inventory in batches. There isn't going to be much for the summer at the 331 day mark, but it's likely that inventory will be released if you are patient. As an example, a lot of summer 2017 award inventory to Spain was released last winter/spring. Once released, the seats get booked quick.