mia

The risk is that these would be separate PNR's and in the event of a flight delay or cancellation you may not be protected if you miss the connection.

JGfromOC

Travel insurance can help here - especially if you purchase with your DL AMEX and fly within one alliance. In the event of a delay or cancellation, the airlines will take care of you. Never had any issues.

TTnC4me

Both these will require an Aagent to book. Is it safe to trust their system to find the best route, or is expert flyer a must? Lastly, will it simply be a matter of which flights have the most Aaward availability for choices, or is one preferred over another (for fees maybe?)?

mtkeller

Why pay cash for the domestic AZ flights? They're bookable with DL miles, although you'll have to call to get them. Since you get a stopover and an open jaw on DL awards, there are lots of options. Further, there are additional possible departure points beyond DTW/ATL/JFK. ORD and IAD are ST gateways that could be of use. (ORD has AF seasonally, DL to CDG other times of the year, and AZ to FCO. IAD has AF to CDG and KL to AMS.) Don't rule out YYZ or BOS either. CVG has faced some cuts since the merger, but it still has enough routes that an international gateway served by a ST partner is one flight away.

JGfromOC

If the OP is looking for the cheapest reward tickets, then DTW, ATL and JFK will (generally) be the best option via DL - that was the point I was trying to make. Personally, I wouldn't use miles for a positioning flight and certainly not on a domestic AZ flight, but again, that is just me. For what those will cost you in miles you aren't getting much value.

Basically, what it comes down to for the OP is he is trying to churn credit cards to get to Europe on the cheap - at least that's how I read his question. If that is the case, then he isn't going to have enough miles via any one offer to get all his flights on one PNR - he'll need to pay out-of-pocket at some point for flights.

civico

You're right, you need an agent to book them since you can't do so on AA. I wouldn't trust their system to find you the best flight, but you don't need to pay for Expert Flyer.

Here are the three free things I'd suggest you use to find AA availability:

Qantas's website- Qantas's site will search all OneWorld partners. This post explains exactly how to use Qantas's site to search and gives a video tutorial.

Award Nexus- Free for all Flyertalkers, this is a great tool to search for OneWorld, Star Alliance, or Skyteam. This post shows you how to do it.

AwardTravelr- A new kid on the block, this is a really easy interface to use and is super convenient. You'll be allowed to check all 3 alliances as well. One thing to note is that since it is new, it might not show all partners. I noticed a few weeks ago it didn't show Air Berlin for OneWorld partners, although that might be fixed now. I use this as my first place to go, and if I find the flights I want here, I don't bother with the other two.

mfidelity

I'm based out of CVG and have had good luck (2 trips in the last 12 months) getting Saver award tickets using United miles to get to Italy. CVG>IAH>FCO. It's a short train ride from Rome to Florence.

If you are 12 months away you can get UA/*A miles easily by signing up for a United Explorer card and through the US Air Grand Slam promotion this fall - assuming they do it again.

Tizzette

Second the plan to fly CVG to Rome, then train to Venice or Florence. The distances aren't far so the hours on the train are pleasant, it doesn't really take longer than flying when you factor in the waiting around, you'll see more of Italy. When you arrive by train you'll be in the city, not way out at the airport.

mtkeller

You do realize that partner flights have more availability than DL flights and always price at LOW (as opposed to the medium or high that DL flights often come up as), right? That means that DTW/ATL are likely the worst redemption options, as most of the flights there will be DL flights. It's much better to fly on a partner. Since OP doesn't have many options TATL out of CVG, there will be a need to get to an international gateway, and I'm pointing out that broadening the search from DTW/ATL/JFK is likely to save miles.

I wouldn't book a separate award ticket for AZ domestic flights, but DL doesn't price by segment on awards, so the domestic flights don't cost any more miles. CVG-ORD-FCO-FLR is the same miles (assuming CVG-ORD is available at low) as ORD-FCO or JFK-FCO (assuming you can find JFK-FCO at low on DL…much better odds of getting that on AZ metal). If OP gets enough miles (other than BA, given their pricing by segment) to get across the pond, OP will have enough miles to get to a specific location in Italy and not just to FCO. On ST, the easiest thing may be to fly to FCO/MXP from the US and then add on an AZ domestic segment for no extra miles. However, AF and KL fly to many Italian cities from CDG and AMS, so it may be easier to connect there. I'm not terribly familiar with the *A destinations in Italy, but presumably getting to FRA/MUC/VIE/ZRH should provide a number of options for connecting to Italy as well. Again, those connections will not cost the OP any extra miles.

sk3

You say you will be booking your flights in the next 12 months - but I am unclear when you plan to fly (if posted already, I apologize, I didn't see it).

Currently AA has not yet loaded in their JFK-FCO and ORD-FCO flights for next year, which is a big departure from their historical pattern, and both these routes are only currently available until the end of October/beginning of November. See this AA Forum thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...me-2013-a.html

If these AA flights do become bookable, the taxes/fees for roundtrip tickets have been ~$45, regardless of class.

Using IB to fly to FCO, via MAD, there is now being charged the YQ surcharge, albeit much less than BA's. My recently booked tickets cost ~$205 including the phone ticketing fee. Some on the AA forum have predicted that IB will eventually charge BA's exorbitant fees. See this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...surcharge.html

I'm very flexible with my award bookings and have been using AA miles for years to get to FCO. However, I now wish I had UA miles since I've seen decent availability for their 100k RT J class seats with minimal taxes (~$45) - which is most definitely not the case with AA. So for flights into FCO at a nominal cost, I would not recommend AA.

However, AA's JFK-MXP is currently showing very decent availability for next year in Y and J (40k and 100k for RT) and costing $40.90 RT, regardless of cabin. And of course, from MXP you could easily take the train to Venice or Florence. Or if you decide to book 2 one-ways and only use AA for the outbound to get you to Milan, then it will only cost $2.50 plus the miles (when flying AA metal, it's the return international flights that impose the ~$40 fees).

sk3

I just checked AA.com for CVG-MXP 330 days out, and see decent availability in Y and J for the MileSAAvers. You'd fly CVG-JFK on an American Eagle ER4 unfortunately, flt 4277, and connect to AA flt 198, JFK-MXP, flying on a 763. (That's a 2 cabin plane, and I find the 763's almost lie-flat seats in J pretty decent for TATL overnighters - I'd go for the biz class award if at all possible for you).

fjord

I'm based out of CVG and have used the US Air winter award sale. Not sure if you want to travel during the winter but a round trip is 35k and ~$100. Did it twice, connects either in PHL or CLT.

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...wardchart.html