Originally Posted by
arcticbull
I agree, YQ/YR is an incredible pain in the ....
So since you'd be saving some $800 per ticket, you may consider flying into a different european city on an airline that doesn't chart YQ, and then buying a cheap round-trip on a european low-cost carrier.
(1) Fly UA from JFK to literally anywhere in Europe
(2) Buy a round-trip rail or LCC ticket.
That way you can even consider your arrival city a free stopover. Spend a day or two there if you're flexible. What dates are you looking at, out of curiosity?
FWIW, UA charges $0 YQ/YR, LOT (LOT) charges only ~$320YQ, and Turkish (TK) charges ~350YR. This is much lower than Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian's $806YQ.
See if you can make something out of that. Try a multi-city itinerary, or a round trip to a different european city in combination with a low-cost carrier. It is, after all, only the transatlantic leg that will set you back any big money most of the time.
Ah here we go. Seems like you have just a little experience dealing these... pleasantries. Time wise I'm looking at a 4-5 day trip in Croatia for either weekend in mid-July. Departing 7/12 and returning 7/18 had availability on Lufthansa, as did 7/17-7/23.
From looking now I'm seeing a JFK-MUC seat on United available on 7/12, but not much coming back. Any idea which JFK-europe routes on United would have the best summer availability?
Don't like the "buy a connecting ticket separately" because of the 3+ hour layover you need to pad in, but its looks like its the only real option.
Just checked out Air Canada as another option for transferring Amex points to, but apparently they're getting slammed with fuel surcharges over there now too.