JM3737

Hi All,

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed! My husband and I are planning an early spring trip to Italy and France. We will fly into either first--doesn't matter.

Since we're flying from the West Coast we'd like to find a cheap price on business class seats. We don't really care about fancy things other than the fact that you can lay down/have some more room.

We have looked at Condor airlines a bit because they're the cheapest--we probably cap the cost per ticket at 2000-2500.

We don't have any credit cards that accumulate rewards in the form of frequent flier miles, but are open to that--though maybe it's too late? Unsure of when we need to book to get a good deal/still have availability.

We are pretty flexible on dates--can go any time mid-April-beginning of May. Would probably prefer to leave the last week of April. Most fare sales I see don't extend out this far.

Any advice is much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

LondonElite

Welcome to FT, JM3737!

Before someone comes along to tell you that FT isn't a travel agency, I think the best advice I can give you is to check various widely-used websites such as Kayak and Google Flights to get a better idea around pricing. Play around with dates and number of stops, and so forth. Be flexible, avoid both the European and American holiday periods (Easter), obviously.

Unfortunately you just missed a very generous BA premium fares sale, but these pop up every no and again for every airline, usually without much prior notice, so there's a bit of gambling there about when to book.

Ultimately I think you are going find that business class seats are going to be well upwards of $2,000 each (I'd guess $3,000+), so there really won't be much of a bargain going on unless one of the aforementioned sales is on. I don't think credit cards are going to do a great deal for you at this stage.

JM3737

Thanks for the quick response!

Wondering how one can find out about these sorts of sales other than checking every airline's website daily? So sad to have missed out on this one

dukerau

You can follow The Flight Deal on twitter (though they send even mediocre deals IMO) or sign up for emails from one of the major point bloggers that broadcasts these types of deals (View From the Wing, One Mile at a Time, etc.). The recent BA one was covered on nearly every blog.

Some of the low-ish fares from the BA deal (not as low as they were during the deal). Such as (all in April-May time frame, widely available):

CLT-CDG $2,191
CLT-FCO $2,489
CLT-DUB $1,854
PHL-DUB $2,153
DFW-CDG $2,627

All of these are on AA, so you can take advantage of the AARP discount by booking through BA (partners with AA). Sign up for AARP (anyone can join for $16/year). Then you click a link on AARP's website to save on BA flights. You get $400 off business class round trip. So the above CLT-DUB is $1,454. Then you'd have to book a separate flight PDX-CLT. The bad news is that there's only one non-stop daily, and it's a red-eye, meaning you'd have a 12 hour layover in CLT.

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.co...beria-flights/

I think the DFW-CDG is a better option for you. Even though it's more expensive, you can take a morning flight PDX-DFW and catch the DFW-CDG. It looks like PDX-DFW is $450 round trip, but you can hold off on that part if you want to wait for better fares. So all in, even at $450 for the domestic part, you're looking at $2,700 PDX-DFW-CDG round trip. Then pay another $250 or so to get to Rome and back to Paris. So sub $3k, and on AA (though it is angled flat business class). If you do this make sure to leave plenty of time on any connection that involves separate tickets as you are responsible if there's a misconnection. If your separate ticket connection is from AA to AA/BA, then AA should cover you, but better not to chance it.

Or you can wait and hope for another fare sale. I would probably wait and hope for a fare sale rather than pay close to $3k for what I laid out above. Especially if you're willing to pay a little extra. Oh, and that AARP trick works for all AA/BA/IB business class tickets, so if you end up just paying without a fare sale, if you can find reasonably priced oneworld tickets, it may help you out.

JM3737

Thanks so much for all of this information! I really appreciate you taking the time to look all of it up.

I will do a better job of keeping my eyes open for fare sales for sure. Fingers crossed one happens--I agree that it'd be easier than piecing something together.

How long do you think we can wait before we should just book something?

Thank you again.

Gardyloo

Three suggestions...

First, pay attention to the "premium fare deals" board here on FT - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/ You never know what will come up.

Second, right now American Airlines is having a sale on purchased frequent flyer miles. You can buy 110,000 miles (a round trip to Europe in business class costs 100,000) for around $2150, then turn around and redeem them. If you have AAdvantage membership numbers (you'd need to sign up anyway) you can put the seats on hold while you buy the miles. Note many trips will use British Airways over the Atlantic, which will expose you to expensive additional BA fees; however you might be able to find AA-operated flights which will cost much less out of pocket. https://buymiles.aa.com/en/buygift

Finally, look at flying out of Vancouver BC. Presumably as a result of the weak Loonie, business class prices are fairly low from YVR, for example KLM or Air France to Rome (via Amsterdam or Paris) is coming in right at US$2500 for most of April. When you count the miles earned (around 15,000 for business class) it's a pretty good deal.

Again, welcome to FT!

JM3737

Thanks so much Gardyloo!

I will give this a lot of thought and talk it over with my husband.

How long do you think we should take to think it over/wait for a fare sale before doing something alternative (like flying out of Vancouver)?

As a reminder, we're planning the trip for late April/May.

Thanks again!

Gardyloo

Frankly I have not seen a fare deal in a long time that results in business class fares on major airlines (by which I mean major US or European carriers and not the Condors or Icelandairs) for less than $2500 per person from the Pacific NW.

Often fares in business class actually are cheaper in the high summer than during the "shoulder" seasons of spring and autumn, due to actual business use falling during summer vacation periods. Even then, I don't ever recall seeing business fares below $2500, but I won't pretend my memory or knowledge are super extensive.

JerryFF

I cannot imagine that you will find even the best sale on one of the major airlines for less than $3000 roundtrip in business class from any west coast city to Paris or Rome for travel this spring. If you can get a fare for $2000-2500, it would be my opinion that that is the best fare you will find.

Finkface

I picked up a Z fare in July for a trip in September of this year YVR-CDG-GOA (Genoa, Italy) for $2600 roundtrip in AF business. I found it on ITA so I would just keep checking the sites that some of the other posters have mentioned. I also agree with Gardyloo and JerryFF that you will be hard pressed to find a good J product (not a Condor, etc) for less than $2500-$3000 unless there is another stellar sale like the BA one that just passed.

MSPeconomist

I'd guess that business class PDX-EU RT regular "deep" discount fares would be about twice this, at least for DL flights. Except for special sales, prices last summer seemed to start at close to $4000 with it being closer to $5000 for some routes. YMMV.

Note that BA charges huge fees to reserve seats in advance, including for business class. If you want to sit together and/or get decent seats as a nonelite on BA, it's wise to pay to book specific seats.