Hi!

Planning a trip to Europe and I see plenty of award availability on the outbound but not much inbound for December travel (Dec. 12th out and 18th in).

My route is AUS-NYC (stopover 2days) - CDG - Revenue ticket to FCO - FCO - AUS.

I planning to do a stopover at New York as a gateway city for two days then continue on to CDG. (December 9 or 10 then to Paris on the 12th arriving 13th).

Then book an one-way revenue ticket to FCO on the 14th and leave the 17th or 18th but there's no award space on these dates. (the last is 16th but with BA which I'm trying to avoid).

In total it's 20,000 miles one way which I think is great value but not seeing much award space on the 17th or 18th.

Any recommendations? I'm guessing mid-December is a hard to get award season?

Can I use AA miles for the Paris-Rome leg?