Hi all - I appreciate the sage advice I read here from time to time.

This is the continuation of a thread I started in December.

I have 207k family miles and want to book a trip for 2 from the US to Barcelona w/ miles. Since Barcelona is Europe Zone 2 and would require 120k miles per person I'd settle for Europe Zone 1 London or Paris for 100k miles/person. It's just $210/person to get from either London or Paris to Barcelona so not a big deal (cheaper ideas, anyone?).

However, even though I have 200k miles for 2 "free" tickets from the US to London or Paris the cheapest taxes I found was $1440 Seattle->Paris (RT) on my dates for the two of us. WOW! Is there any cheaper way to do this trip or is this just the "reward" of being a loyal flyer and I should be thankful?

Taxes on the same flight in WT are $1059 so only slightly better.

I've heard everybody say the best deal to fly CW on miles it to buy WT+ and use MFU but the WT+ ticket is substantially more than the taxes so the miles savings isn't worth it to me.

Any thoughts on how to reduce the taxes?

Thanks all,

RunningMan77