MilesBuzz! - Leisure traveling seeking advice on FF miles to Europe

I'm an infrequent traveler (3-4/year) with about 25k Delta Skymiles. I'll be traveling to Spain next April, and was wondering if any of you have suggestions on ways to maximize my small amount of miles for my trip, seeing as how I don't have enough for a free ticket.

Thanks in advance.

And, in an off topic moment, I wanted to say thanks. I just stumbled upon this site a few hours ago, and have found it to be incredibly helpful! My original plan had been to buy the remaining miles I would need, but after reading posts for the past few hours, I’m not so sure that’s the best idea. Or that Delta is the best airline for my trip. So, keep up all the great advice!

Fares to Europe in April are still pretty reasonable. A ticket right now appears to be about $542, although I would expect that you can get it lower between now and then (maybe in the $450 range), and offers a high FF miles earned/dollar ratio. many on this board would probably tell you, therefore, to buy this ticket, and save your FF miles for other times for a ticket which might cost more, but yet not earn as many miles. If you have the ability to do that, it is probably good advice.

Djlawman

I booked a flight on AA for departure Jan 17 for a week from ORD - MAD for $459. The price has since gone up but I think it will come down again. I will be using 10K AA miles to fly from Madrid to Malaga. I think you are better off paying for a flight, earning miles and getting enough miles for a future trip. You need to see if you want to stay with Delta, or another airline from your home town is a better choice. I don't think it is a good value to buy the miles you need because you will paying money and not getting any miles for the trip. I would watch for specials and look for other ways to add to your delta account such as getting an AMEX skymiles card with a 10K bonus offer - talked about elsewhere.

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Ms.DtG

you are going to need 50K miles on DL, and then they may not have an award ticket available on your route, date and time. So you can struggle to get another 25K points or just pay cash. Check www.economytravel.com (http://www.economytravel.com) and other consolidators.

To get the miles, you can get the DL credit card which will get you 10K, and then either buy a lot of stuff like savings bonds or maybe open some new brokerage accts. You could get the hilton cards and transfer miles from HH to DL, although its not a good exchange rate.

Pgary, has a good summary of most of the offers. do a search for his name.

I do about one spring Europe trip per year, and January seems to be the "sweet spot" for buying March-May tickets, at least for Paris and London (don't know if Spain is different).

Also, the Spring airfares are sometimes teased up with bonus miles and additional online booking bonuses.

In 2001 and 2002, we were able to go from the Midwest to Europe for under $400 R/T per ticket, earning a lot of miles, and upgrading the westbound segments with AA's one-way awards. (Overnight segments: we just made sure we reserved "good" coach seats.)

The Skymiles card is a good idea, and you can always earn yourself more miles by taking a less-direct (but still legal by fare rules) route if it's available.

I agree with those who say "buy the ticket and earn the miles". You should be able to find a very decent fare during that period. Net back the value of the miles you would earn on the paid ticket against the fare (just pick a figure like 1.5 cents per mile). Now, take those same miles and ADD them to the number you will need for a free one, because that's what you will be giving up. Multiply THAT by 1.5 cents per mile? See what we mean? Doing things like this correctly greatly leverages value. That single trip could put you at least a third of the way toward elite status, too.

No matter what you decide, have a great trip!