Spain/Portugal/Gibraltar - Barcelona for our 6th anniversay?

Hello everyone! I am new to FT and although I have read MANY posts and threads I am still uncertain about how and where to correctly pose a question and requests for advice and help. I hope this is the apporopriate place!

I am hoping to surprise my husband with a trip to Barcelona in October. We took a bump on AA and have $350. apiece in travel vouchers. I am not sure what the best way to go about planning this trip would be. Should I book AA both ways or perhaps use our vouchers one way and fly a different airline back? We will be flying out of Seattle. I don't know where to begin. Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!!! Thank you in advance for any help!

:D

I think as a general rule, buying a one way ticket to/from Europe is not a good idea. Most of the fares are based on r/t purchase and one way is usually astronomical.

You could do a perfectly timed JFK connection on the way there, and maybe fly BA back.

If you can find a well priced SEA-JFK-BCN-LHR-SEA, that would be what i would go for.

Sample itin:


AA268 SEA-JFK 737-800
07:05
15:30

AA66 JFK-BCN 767-300
17:35
07:10

AA6291 (BA) BCN-LHR A321
11:40
13:00

AA6128 (BA) LHR-SEA 747-400
15:10
16:40

If the price is right, that's a solid itinerary.

Thank you jpetekYXMD80! I REALLY appreciate your help!!! I will most definitly check into this suggested itinerary. Fingers crossed I can pull this whole thing off!!!;)

No problem, hope it works out. Right now, i'd expect about $1000 for that. There's likely to be some compelling fall fare sales at some point, but its a little early for those.

No problem, hope it works out. Right now, i'd expect about $1000 for that. There's likely to be some compelling fall fare sales at some point, but its a little early for those.

I just pulled up some sample fares via Expedia for random days in October, and it looks like BA/AA are offering a round-trip flight for around $1100.

I agree that there's likely to be a fall sale at some point, but trying to time that is a bit like trying to time the stock market - not likely to be very fruitful.

Coming from NYC, I wouldn't expect to find r/t to Barcelona to drop much below $800 except perhaps in the dead of winter during the lowest of the low season. Figure that the flight from Seattle would probably add around $200 to the price, the current fares seem pretty reasonable to me.

In any event, Barcelona is a wonderful city. Sounds like your husband is a lucky man! :cool:

or perhaps use our vouchers one way and fly a different airline back?

To follow up on what jpetekYXMD80 said, booking one-ways is usually not a good deal at all when it comes to longhaul cash fares. [It is often a different situation when redeeming airline miles.]

I agree you will almost certainlly get better value for money booking a return. And as you have AA issued vouchers, that obvioulsy suggests you should look at booking with AA. [Obvioulsy checking the value you are getting agaisnt best prices you see elsewhere doing flight searches.]

Now, I don't know what the terms and conditions are with your AA vouchers? Do they need to be used only on AA metal flights, or just under AA fight numbers? Or can they be used with any thing booked through AA?

AA, BA and IB have a transatlantic joint business. As such they will sell you each others services quite happily - they shared the pooled revenue for the transatlantic bit.

Additionally, they will code share onto each other services both transatlantic and also elsewhere. So will find that BAs flight BCN-LHR is available under an AA flight number as well.

As such, even if your AA vouchers restrict you to AA flight numbers (don't know if this is the case), there should still be lots of options available.

For any questions about them etc, the AA section on FT will probably get you a wider audience.


Another thing to keep in mind is whether you are looking for stop overs, etc?

Some fares will allow them, others not. And it can often be that cheaper ones do not. But even if the fare did not allow them you can sometimes get yourself a almost 24 hour connection somewhere etc. In this UK less than 24 hours would also avoid air passenger duty (connections less than 24 hours no UK air passenger duty is paid, needs to be offical connection, not two things you have bought separatley).

If you had wanted to stop over for longer anywhere, then the order you do things can make a difference. Again, using London as an example. If over 24 hours APD is payable as part of the taxes. But it is higher on long haul flights so a stop over on the way out (where you are then boarding a shorthual to BCN, etc) could make more sense than on the way back.