Originally Posted by
Yoshi212
As much as I dislike spending time in Paris I think you're rushing it a bit too much to actually enjoy your honeymoon. Maybe selecting another city that will involve less travel time to get to Crete would help. Doing separate tickets on the return can be risky especially on such an important trip.
Originally Posted by
LondonElite
Paris: Either give the city a proper chance or don't bother at all. Fly in / fly out businessman style will not be very rewarding, especially after a long haul flight (whether F or otherwise). I think you need a minimum of three or four full days (i.e. a minimum of four nights) to be able to experience the city.
Originally Posted by
dukerau
I must echo what everyone else has said about Paris. You're spending basically 1 full day there. With the LH F itinerary with intentional long FRA layover you'll arrive late and tired into Paris. Your day 4 plans have you on 2 flights to get to CHQ that night, so you'll probably have a noon departure from CDG at the latest. So that day is almost a full travel day with getting to the airport, security cushion, etc. I know Paris is a romantic honeymoon destination, and I truly do like Paris, but to me spending that time in Athens would be much better. Unlike Paris, you can reasonably spend a day and change in Athens and feel like you've seen most everything (I've done it). Also, it's naturally on your route.
Originally Posted by
Finkface
The only thing I would add to it would be an extra day in Paris as it is a magical city and one full day is not nearly enough. But if time constraints/budget won't allow it, then one day is better than nothing.
Originally Posted by
jbeckett
I think that you're trying to do too much with the Paris side trip. You'll be traveling on day 1, 2, 4, and 8, so you'll only have four days that you're not dealing with airports. Your four hour FRA layover is on day 2, and by the time you get to your hotel in Paris you'll be ready to sleep.
What if you just went straight to Athens, and spend the two nights there? I agree with the previous posters that if you have never been to Paris, the time you have there is not sufficient. Save it for another trip when you can relax a bit and have a few days to enjoy it.
These are all excellent insights and I hadn’t even considered the short time in Paris would be almost not worth it. LH does have twice daily direct flights to ATH from FRA, so that would still work with the rest of the planned itinerary. If we stick to the Greek Islands, Paris is now out of the picture, Athens is in!
Originally Posted by
LondonElite
LH F: You must enjoy casinos and/or have steel balls (or a set of horseshoes rammed somewhere!) What is your backup plan if you don't get seats? Imagine that you've booked all your hotels, paid for your intra-Europe flights, and no LH F is available? That would be pretty stressful and I can't imagine your wife will be too pleased about that. I'd book something else and hope that LH F comes up and cancel the former.
Originally Posted by
dukerau
In terms of having a backup for LH F, I would encourage you to book the best "satisfactory" United award itinerary you see. LH J, UA F, etc. Then if/when LH F opens up within 2 weeks, pay the $75 change fee that UA Golds are charged to switch to it. You'd have to pay a $25 close in booking fee anyway, so $50 extra per person is cheap insurance to have something in case your plan doesn't all come together for LH F.
I think having a backup using United miles on the best possible seat as soon as the United schedule opens up would be the way to go. Business saver on LX or TK is moderately available, and if worse comes to absolute worst, economy is always bookable. Ideal? Far from it. But honestly we’ll be grateful to be taking the trip in the first place!
Originally Posted by
LondonElite
Intra-Europe flights: I would buy these in cash. They're not very expensive, and even flights to Greece are not that long. If you want to mess around with points, fine, but understand that you may end up pay almost as much in charges as you would in basic airfare.
Originally Posted by
dukerau
For your intra-Europe flights, don't mentally lock yourself into using miles. 15k miles one way + high European airport taxes often make cash more appealing. And by "cash" that can mean using Arrival points or booking via Chase using UR @ 1.25cents each (if you have Sapphire Preferred) or 1.5cents each (if you have Sapphire Reserve). Huge added benefit that you wouldn't be flying on separate tickets. For example, I looked at a random date in April for CDG-CHQ and the cash cost is $222. If you have Sapphire Reserve, that can be booked for 14,800 Chase points, easily beating United's award price.
These are both excellent points, and to be honest I never once considered booking actual travel through the UR portal. Even with the Sapphire Reserve’s 1.5 cents/point (which I have), I was under the impression that it was a losing proposition, and that transferring points to partners was the way to go. This actually opens up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to the actual destination. I had confined my search to areas where IHG or Marriott had a ‘destination’ property, and then cross-referenced that with how to get there using my United miles. Removing either the hotel or flight constraint from the equation means we can start to explore other destination options.
Originally Posted by
dukerau
Am I missing something? Why are you locked into United miles? You have over 300k Chase points, so you could fly SQ F by transferring the points to SQ.
I tried to find availability on SQ’s site for award travel, and wasn’t able to find much of anything confirmed, and the little I did find was waitlisted. I don’t know if availability opens up the closer you get to the travel date, but sending my points to SQ in the hope that something opens up at some point leaves me open to having a bunch of SQ points that I can’t do much with. With United, booking partner awards on LH/LX/TK/etc is relatively easy and pretty open (at least as of right now), and I have a whole bunch of United points that I can utilize on top of anything I need to top-up with from my UR balance.
At least, that’s my train of thought. If I’m missing something, please let me know! SQ F or Suites is a super dream of mine, but it is seemingly unattainable with miles at this time.
Originally Posted by
dukerau
Are you dead set on F instead of J? Few airlines fly F between US and Europe - UA, LH, LX, AA, BA, EK, SQ...maybe I'm missing a few, but with Chase points and avoiding fuel surcharges, you are limited to UA, SQ, and LH. Many more fly J and they're nothing to scoff at. In particular, consider TK (70k UA per person), DL (62.5k Flying Blue pp), LX (70k UA).
Absolutely not dead set on F (or any other aspect of the trip for that matter!) J is definitely a good backup option if LH F falls through. However, I personally consider the extra 30K-40K points per person (70K in J vs 110 in F at the saver level) worth it in this instance, not only for the flight itself but for the FCT in FRA.
Originally Posted by
Productivity
Other than that, congratulations on a well researched plan.
Originally Posted by
Finkface
Number 1, kudos for your very detailed and researched post.
Number 2, while others will chime in on points use/routing etc, I will just say as a female, if my husband planned this trip for me, I would be over the moon. The only thing I would add to it would be an extra day in Paris as it is a magical city and one full day is not nearly enough. But if time constraints/budget won't allow it, then one day is better than nothing. The time in the FCT would be the icing on the cake for me.
But overall, I would be thrilled with this trip given your wish list, time constraints and budget/available points.
Thank you! I hope my wife-to-be feels the same! I’m sincerely appreciative of the guidance everyone has given thus far.
Given everything I’ve said up to this point, if anyone has any additional ideas with this specific itinerary, or even suggestions on completely different destinations that I should research, I’m all ears!
Again, thank you all so much.