Originally Posted by
BBSHOPSINGER
I have a really important trip in June, 2019, and I'm hoping to use my miles for business-class seats for my wife and me. We are planning on going DEN-CDG, CDG-FCO (1 week later, approx.), and FCO-DEN (approx. another week later). It's too soon to book, but being the fanatic that I am, I've been doing frequent test bookings, both far out and close in. The flights price out correctly when I do test bookings, including 0 miles for the CDG-FCO flights. Right now I could find acceptable flights looking out into April, 2019 (all on partners, no UA availability). I'm sure once June becomes available for booking inventory will tighten up considerably, however.
Here's my question: It would be nice to snag the one-way tickets for each direction as soon as I see availability pop up for my dates. If I ended up booking one-way DEN-CDG, and then later FCO-DEN, would it be possible to call and add the CDG-FCO leg? Since I an only a low-level elite, I don't have the luxury of booking and changing without fairly significant fees, so just booking as a placeholder wouldn't really work for me. Has anyone done this in the past? Any advice? Thanks.
you can only get the intra-EU leg without additional mileage if you book both directions on the same reservation - can’t do it if you book these as one ways. Note booning as one ways have other disadvantages as well - mainly if you need to make changes or cancel, you’ll get dinged for two fees per person. But the one way does have the advantage of being able to secure flights for each direction the day they become available - if space is released.
if you want to do that (one ways) you can and just book CDG-FCO separately. You can probably book that pretty cheap on an EU LCC, or probably even on AF, for that matter. There’s also the option of booking the train. Not sure how long that is, but it’s a different and nicer travel experience, andI bet you can do it all the way on high speed.