JackDaniels

I am looking to take a trip with my significant other to celebrate an anniversary during the time frame of August 7-17th using MR. We are not set on any place in particular, but we are leaning towards somewhere in Europe such as Croatia, Italy, France, or Spain (in that order). I have 217,250 MR with a 60000 Plat card points advance if necessary to fly premium cabin. Does anyone have a strategy to utilize my MR to get to one of the places mentioned above? I am not opposed to buying 2 average price upgradeable tickets if necessary.

Any input from the AmEx MR gurus would be appreciated. I am a novice as I have only used points in the past for domestic last minute travel.

redtop43

Don't even think about buying "upgradeable" tickets. Fares you can upgrade with miles are often much more expensive than the cheapest economy fares.

Given that you are flexible on dates and destination, this should be doable. You have two basic choices:

1) Look at the list of MR transfer partners and just search their websites for flights you like.
2) Find an award booking service (fees are generally $75-$150 per ticket) and let them do the heavy lifting for you.

Once you find a routing you like, you can transfer your miles and book your tickets. It shouldn't be a problem to get there and back in business class for 100K miles each.

A few things to watch out for:

1) Fuel surcharges - some airlines have 'em, some don't. Delta, which is the main USA MR partner with international routes, doesn't.
2) MR transfers are usually very very fast, if not instant. However, if you find a flight you like and don't have a FF account set up with that airline, you might not be able to book it. Delta allows you to hold a flight for 48 hours if you don't have enough miles in your account. I don't know about other carriers. It would be unfortunate indeed if you found a flight on Swiss, then went to set up an account with them, transferred your miles, and by the time you came back to book, the flight was no longer available. You might take out insurance on that by calling (you'll usually pay a call center fee) and booking over the phone.

I know DL has 100K mile tickets to Paris in August, as I've been looking at flights for that period myself. Again, not every day on every routing, but they are available.

JackDaniels

Thanks redtop43 for taking the time to post.

My reply to your suggestions are below.

True.. If worse comes to worse I do not even really mind flying economy. Also I found some reasonably priced tickets to Europe for ~$3k per person.

I tried this with Aeroplan and was not having much luck finding anything under 210K miles per person in J or F. ANA does not apply. Delta I could not find any tickets for 100K around my dates in J.

I might actually do this. I've had success with this in the past using gleff's services.

I'll keep trying each engine to see what I can find. If I do not have any success again then I guess I will go with the award service.

Thanks again for your reply and if you have any other suggestions then I am all ears! ^

JackDaniels

Good news.. I am showing some better availability now on Aeroplan! Love Amex MR.

JackDaniels

Seems I am unable to use the SWISS award search engine with my newly created temporary account. Any know of a way around this? Also, can anyone clue me in on some of the best MR airlines for travel to Europe within my mileage budget?

DC777Fan

Somewhere there exists a list of *A airlines which can be redeemed via Aeroplan without fuel surcharges. I know UA and US are on that list, and both actually have a pretty good business product to Europe (if you can snag an Envoy class seat on US). Should be 180k-210k depending on your destination and Aeroplan's search engine is usually pretty good. Supplement that with the UA and ANA searches and a paid tool if you want.

Also AF has decent availability and can be booked via DL.

If you have dates in mind, some people might be able to throw you a suggestion or two.

redtop43

It's worth calling DL. I trust their website about as much as I trust a politician who says "I will balance the budget." I won't bore you with my recent troubles (see my thread on "Changing International Award Ticket" in th DL forum if you like) but one good thing to do with DL is start by just checking the over-the-water segments.

You might also consider a "Mini-RTW" on Aeroplan. AP allows a stopover in each direction, so if you want to spend as much time in the air as on the ground in your 10-day trip, that might be a good option. You can get to Asia and back in F for 185K miles, although you'll surely be hit with some fuel surcharges.