Hi all, first time poster here. I am looking for award booking help/tips/suggestions. My husband and I will be flying from Kansas City (MCI) to Italy (Rome/Milan/Venice) either 11th-19th April 2019 (give or take) or August/September 2019 making use of Labor Day somewhere in there to save a vacation day. Our original plan was August/September as it's still more than 330 days out for award booking, but the possibility of going in April also just opened up. I have read TONS of blog posts touting suggestions on how to fly super first class from say New York to Milan, but none that I can find focus on exactly how one gets from the Midwest to Italy in Economy or Premium Economy. Business class would be awesome as we’ve never done that, but since we don’t have a ton of points we'd rather have more free flights than one really nice one. However, for this long flight we were thinking Premium Economy would be a good splurge? I've done hours of searching (AA, Ibiera, BA, Qantas, Singapore, Asia Miles, etc) only to find awards really don't exist (even I was being super flexible), routes don't exist, etc. Is it not possible to book a round trip award from KC to Italy? Do we need to fly roundtrip on Southwest (have Companion Pass) to an international gateway (ORD, PHL, CLT, JFK etc) and then book a round trip award flight from there to Italy? We aren’t looking for any fancy stopovers or open jaws, etc. We don't have a lot of time and want to spend as much time in Italy as possible. Husband has 158,000 Amex points, 55,000 Chase points and 75,000 American. I have 120,000 Chase Points and 89,000 American. I was targeted for Platinum membership through Sept 2018 which came with seventeen 500 mile upgrades. (Not sure if those go away when Platinum goes away or those are mine to use. And if they're mine, I don't know a 500 mile upgrade means or how to use it). I've found that you can't search Premium Economy on American website. When I search BA, all it gives me is BA flights that route through London which are $$. I read Iberia has a good premium economy but couldn't find seats. I searched Qantas and found no routes, etc. It’s one brick wall after another. Please help me!!