Originally Posted by
sharimargolin
Thanks guys, I appreciate the tips. It seems like there's barely any way to get to Athens on AA without going through London or making it a 2- to 3-layover trip, unfortunately. I think my next avenue of research will be getting somewhere in Europe on AA that can bypass a London layover and that always has cheap EasyJet/Ryanair/etc. flights to Athens.
Flying through LON in and of itself is not a bad thing. For example: on 10/2, there is at least 1 seat available on ATL-DFW-LHR-ATH. Because AA operates the transatlantic flight, the taxes, fees, and surcharges total just $99.50. Similar for US Air flights (multiple days have ATL-PHL-LHR-ATH). AA doesn't fly to ATH from the continental US, and US only does so from PHL, and that's a hard award seat to find. You're going to be looking at 2 layovers, but I don't see why you would prefer combining an award (of likely at least 1 layover since you're flying oneworld from ATL) + EasyJet/RyanAir.
Also, you can just have the award get you straight to Santorini. On 10/1 (and many other days), there is ATL-ORD-CDG-VIE-JTR with taxes, fees, and surcharges of just $61. I don't think it's likely you're going to avoid 3 stops on the way to Santorini no matter how you slice it if you're planning on using AA miles out of Atlanta. Might as well have it all on one itinerary.