Originally Posted by
igneous
what about a decent business/first class to italy from the US east coast?
have 150k+ Amex points
somewhere between 80-100k avios
at the very least I think I'll be ok with business first one way and economy on the way back, but I'd rather round trip.
I thought I remembered seeing Alitalia round trip business being reasonable?
Alitalia used to be a low price for biz round trip to Europe at 80k but it's 100k now. And still ~$850 pp in fuel surcharges... You may can make this happen now that you mention the Avios. Do you have an Iberia Avios account that has been open for > 90 days? If so, you could move the BA Avios to IB Avios, and IB has a pretty nice award chart for business class flights on IB. For example, JFK or BOS to MAD is 50k one way on peak dates and 34k on off-peak. ORD or MIA to MAD is 62.5k peak or 42.5k off-peak. And as long as you avoid the winter holiday season and mid-June through Labor Day, most dates are off peak. Your parents could continue on from Madrid to somewhere else in Europe for pretty cheap - economy one ways range from 4.5k to 11k depending on distance and peak/off-peak.
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...m-bright-spot/