I'm planning a trip to the UK next summer (2015), looking to fly business class using my Delta miles. As many of us know, the UK imposes shockingly high taxes and fees for departing passengers, based on (in part) the class of the ticket and a crazy distance formula. Since I live on the US west coast, the fee for a business class seat is in the neighborhood of US $550 - mind you, that's just the government fees, on top of what the seat costs (in this case an award seat). That's crazy. I'd like to avoid that, to the extent possible.

There are ways to beat (well, mitigate) these fees: make one's way to a different, less fee-crazy departure point on the continent, and fly the return leg from there. Or fly a short hop (on a separate ticket) to Ireland, then continue on for the TATL from there.

I'm looking for suggestions for beating as much of the departure penalties as possible, that meet the following criteria:

• total cost involved would be less than just eating the full fee from LHR
• consumes the minimum amount of time possible (we already have a short vacation; I don't want to eat 2 or 3 days working my way to Istanbul...)
• Allows me to use Delta miles to book the return trip, ideally to SEA (home, so the best option), or perhaps PDX, YVR, SFO or LAX
• has aircraft on that route with a decent business class seat (lie flat for the long TATL to the US west coast)

I've heard AMS has lower departure taxes, but they still seemed surprisingly high ($375 is better than $575, but it's still crazy).

Any other ideas? Thanks!