Your advantage is that it's all personal travel. This mean, usually for most people, that you can alter your travel schedule according to fares. For instance, business class fares SFO-FRA from Sep 2 to 5 were $2700. This trip would give you 17,000 EQM's and a nice business class vacation in Europe. Also, travel to Europe during the winter is low season, so they will usually have sales then. I always think reading the FT MR section is good, even if you don't do a MR per se, you may be able to get a nice fun trip out of it. I do use Yapta, also, and I've found it's somewhat helpful.