gofarhaveacigar

Hello,

I'm fairly new to FT, but not too new to the credit card game/mileage redemption (thanks to other forums earlier). My other trips haven't capitalized on United's Open Jaw/stop over allowances, and I'd like to use them to their full advantage on this upcoming honeymoon trip.

Anyway, I have a honeymoon coming up next September (dates are pretty set in stone, but the trip is pretty far from now so I think I have a good shot at getting a decent award ticket).

I have 135k miles available for 2 tickets (Economy Saver - don't particularly care about 1st or Business class seats).

Destination: France. Main focus of the honeymoon will be southern France, so flying into Nice (or out, but preferably not both)

Origin: NYC or Washington DC

Thoughts? Where is an ideal place to take advantage of a stopover? Munich (on Lufthansa?)

PTY1K

I would suggest Istanbul on TK. Daily flights to Nice (not sure if this is seasonal though).

noah

I think it depends more on where you want to go than the "best" place for a stopover. Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Zurich, Istanbul & Lisbon (and probably others I'm forgetting) are all possible and easy places to stop as you can fly nonstop from NYC or Washington on United and/or *A partners, and then you can fly *A onto Nice without much hassle -- assuming award availability. Add in the ability to get to Nice fairly easily on low cost carriers and you could pretty much stop anywhere with an open-jaw ticket into the city of your choice and out of Nice and either a LCC , train or established airline ticket to get you between if *A award is not an option.

For a short stopover, I like Amsterdam, Berlin, London. Istanbul might be fun as well -- Washington to Istanbul, Istanbul to Nice, and then Nice back home.

gofarhaveacigar

One possibility I looked into is
JFK > MUC (stop over) > NCE (open jaw) > CDG > FRA > JFK

For some reason I can't look at 9/6 departing dates yet - they aren't available on United's website. ANy reason why? I thought award airfare was available at T-14?

gofarhaveacigar

One "issue" with flying in and out of Nice is that we are going to be taking the train around southern france for 1.5 weeks, so we would have to get back to Nice on a long train run at the end of the trip. I was hoping to do an open jaw between Nice and Paris, or another French city that has a flight back to the US.

I don't really have use for a stop over at the origin, come to think of it, as I won't be able to take much time off work within 330 days of booking (which would require flying sometime in October/November), as I'm looking to book the flights in the next few weeks.

aacharya

330 days out normally. You're not there yet.

You can of course do an open-jaw for the return.

noah

In France, all roads lead to Paris, and all train lines, so flying into Nice and out of Paris is a good plan. You can do a stopover and an open-jaw.

That said, unless you have exhausted Paris, I'd say that your time is better spent in Paris at the end instead of adding another city which will involve airport transfers etc.

Having traveled extensively in Southern France, I also highly recommend traveling by car. Limiting yourself to the train will significant limit how much of the countryside and small villages you'll be able to visit.

gofarhaveacigar

I haven't been to Paris, but my wife to be has. We'd prefer to spend only a day or 2 in Paris (maybe take advantage of the 2 Hyatt nights), as I'm looking forward to a more relaxing honeymoon rather than spending a lot of touristy time in Paris.

I'm not too keen on renting a car. We did so while driving around northern Italy, and it was more hectic than it was worth to try to figure out where to park, trying to figure out where we could and couldn't drive, etc. Plus, I plan on spenidng 75% of my waking hours with a bottle of wine in my hand

I'm hoping the coastal villages (even the small ones, which have train stations) will be enough to keep us occupied. We may look into booking bus tours/trips inland to visit some of the local scenery.

aacharya

Not to be too condescending, but you have a lot to learn about the real Paris if that is your impression.

I do echo that Nice is just amazing, but you could do a lot of wine drinking in Paris - cheap - and not touristy. Ask anyone in any of the higher numbered arrondisements. (Well, maybe not the 16th).

gofarhaveacigar

I guess my mindset is I'd rather not be in a large city for a bulk of the trip, I'd rather save Paris for a separate trip all together.

3Cforme

If urban northern Italy is your driving frame of reference, know that rural southern France is a vastly different experience. If you're really going to focus on wine you'll want a driver (or a hotel within stumbling distance).

gofarhaveacigar

It wasn't urban northern italy. We ended up taking a car from Florence into a country side town just south of Cinque Terre, and then taking the car from there to Venice, stopping at a few bigger towns along the way (Pisa, Verona, Lucca, and the Ducati factory). The driving itself wasn't very difficult, it was just trying to figure out where we could park (and where to park so that we could get into the cities, since a lot of the cities did not allow cars).

Our plan was to start in Nice, and then work our way down to Marseilles, and then head up to either Lyon and double back to Nice to fly out, or head from Lyon to Paris and fly home.

Red Raider LV

Munich in September is fantastic. Read: Oktoberfest. Of course, that's more bachelor party material and not so much honeymoon. Although, any wife of mine would...

gofarhaveacigar

That's one of the reasons I'm suggesting it

WineCountryUA

you need another day or two. Partner flights seem to show a few days prior to UA flights. You can book 9/5/14 for (some) UA operated flights today. However, even then not all award class will necessarily be available. Some will show up later where later is a few days to never.

Remember Oktoberfest is the last half of September.