tygran37

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this... hopefully it is and please tell me / move / delete as appropriate!

I am trying desperately to find flights for September 2019 from CLT to ATH. I would also love to build in a stopover but I understand I may be getting too ambitious as I just can't make that itinerary work in J, however I can make it work in economy. So lets just focus on getting to/from Europe in J at an acceptable cost.

My dates are not super flexible. I have 5 nights booked in Santorini (9/17 - 9/22) and there is no wiggle room with the hotel. Those dates aren't likely to change. I want to spend 2-3 nights in Athens on one end of those. I would like to stop somewhere else for another 3 nights but that's a bonus add at this point. I'm mostly concerned with finding flights that work for getting to/from Europe in a decent J product reasonably.

How should I best approach this? I've learned alot in the last couple years but am nowhere close to a master. I'm having trouble finding *anything* in J that is acceptable (ie not ridiculous mileage and/or surcharges).

I have about 250k each UR and MR banked currently. I'm aware I'll likely need positioning flights form Charlotte and/or within Europe.




As a seperate but related question I will also say that I did find a great economy flight on (mostly) lufthansa with a 3 day stopover built in. Perfect days/times and a spot very high on my stopover list but it's all in economy... 60k + $125 on United. Any thoughts on that? CLT->MUC->CPH->STOPOVER->ATH, then ATH->MUC->CLT.

snic

The best way to do it is search for transatlantic legs to europe and from europe separately. Intra-europe award availability is usually pretty good, and if for whatever reason the are no flights to/from ATH and the TATL arrival and departure airports in europe, flights within europe are pretty cheap (in Y).

So, beginning with *A, start playing around with looking for e.g., IAD, JFK, EWR, ORD, IAH, YYZ, YUL flights to wherever *A airlines land in Europe. Keep in mind oddball airlines like Brussels, LOT, etc. If you find something, see if you can find a UA award flight from CLT to the departure city. And then repeat for the other direction, keeping in mind that the european departure airport doesn't have to be the same as the arrival airport. I'm most familiar with booking on *A, particularly via UA, and that will probably give you the most flexibility - but of course there are other UR partners.

There may also be some *A airlines that don't show award space on UA or AC websites even though it's bookable by calling UA - not sure about which ones, but you can google it.

Happy

Star Alliance is your best bet.

Your MR pts can be transferred to Aeroplan (instant).

Aeroplan only charges 50/55K one way to Europe, and a r/t allows you 2 stopovers and 1 destination (the turnaround pt).

However Aeroplan charges YQ (the airline surcharge dubbed scam fee) on certain airlines, LH is one of the worst.
But Swiss does not incur YQ. So as Aegean.

As suggested, find your TATL flights both outbound and inbound first based on your time frame. Then build around it and make it an itinerary.

To utilize the 2 stopovers and 1 destination with Aeroplan you need to call to book. Website only allows one stopover and 1 destination.

Oh, Aeroplan has no routing rules, only the MPM restriction. But United would only allow you to book anything its website dishes out, anytime you use multi city to build your itinerary, the website would charge you more.

christianj

We have used points to go to Greece twice over the last couple of years and also have a third trip booked for June of this year. Coming from the US, you are likely going to have to book an award stay into ATH and then pay to fly Aegean to the islands! I have found it virtually impossible to book award tickets in J to get to the islands. This year on the way over we did find LH in Business Class flying JFK-MUC-HER but we are flying back out of ATH and doing the island hoping either via Aegean or by ferry. If I were you, I would look for flights in/out of ATH and then spend two nights there and take a quick 30 minute flight over to Santorini on Aegean. I would then ferry it to Mykonos from Santorini and fly back from Mykonos to ATH to return to the US from there. We have really come to like Crete as well and keep going back. Here are the two past itineraries we did and the one we have planned for August of this year:

1. Fly to ATH (on BA via London), 2 nights in ATH, fly to Santorini with 2 nights, ferry to HER with 5 nights on Crete, fly to ATH and overnight there to fly back to US. (on BA via London)
2. Fly to ATH (on Swiss via ZRH), 1 night in ATH, fly to Mykonos with 4 nights, ferry to HER with 5 nights on Crete, fly to ATH and overnight there to fly back to US. (on LH via FRA)
3. 2019 - Fly to Crete on the LH flight mentioned above (via MUC) and 5 nights, ferry to Santorini with 2 nights, ferry to Mykonos with 3 nights, fly to ATH and overnight there to fly back to the US on the direct flight ATH-EWR with Emirates.

So based on past experiences, I would look at UA and BA/IB as the best options for using UR points to get to Greece. Just be aware that BA is going to have much higher fuel surcharges! (might be worth looking at IB availability due to lower fuel surcharges.

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

tygran37

This is incredibly helpful thank you.

I am considering spending my 3 extra nights in Greece as well and doing a different Island (in addition to Santorini) and was considering Crete... You appear to really like it! Mind if I ask where you have stayed there and what about it keeps bringing you back?

I have *finally* found a J itinerary that appears to work for my dates... Best booking option appears to be ANA w/ MR so I'm going to try to book it that way, fingers crossed this goes smoothly!

christianj

Domes of Elounda via Marriott/SPG hands down with The Blue Palace in second place. We stayed at the Blue Palace on our first visit, tried Domes of Elounda on second and loved it so much that we booked the Domes again for this year! Here's a link to my post in the hotels master thread:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/29955008-post111.html

All of these hotels are about an hours drive away from Heraklion so you will need a car service or a rental car if you fly or ferry to Heraklion. There is also another MR/SPG option in Chania called Domes of Chania that I have been meaning to try but since we like Elounda we keep going back to that area.