Europe O ticket miles redemption valuation
 

JFK - ATH with layover in AMS. Is 120k miles pp each way a decent redemption valuation? Business O tickets. 480,000 miles RT.

Is there a creative search method that would yield better results?

Sadly yes. 240K miles each for a RT business class redemption is pretty much the new "low-level" award these days.

You can sometimes find 180K RT for a nonstop, but I think adding a European connection raises the price.

120K each-way is the partner (over the water) low-level rate to EU. They are bookable as one-way's and require a 60-day advance purchase. DL metal low-level rate is 105K each-way (210K roundtrip), but require a roundtrip booking and 90-day advance purchase (and OZ award bucket availability which is very spotty right now). There's some limited availability if you book out near EOS. You can overfly ATH on partners to TLV for 85K each way.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...95d2bead4f.png

Every time you respond to one of my posts I am always blown away by your search results. One of these days will you clue me into your search tricks?
This is what I landed:


JFK AMS | Sun 22May2022 | KL 642 | ARPT O
AMS ATH | Mon 23May2022 | KL 1575 | ARPT O 2A

Total Taxes, Fees & Charges: $23.50 USD
Total (2 Passengers) 240,000
$47.00


ATH AMS | Sun 29May2022 | KL 1572 | ARPT X 17D
AMS JFK | Sun 29May2022 | KL 645 | ARPT O 1K

Total Taxes, Fees & Charges: €301.73 EUR
Total (2 Passengers) 240,000
€603.46

Unfortunately, the 240K RT above is the lowest you will get when flying partner metal over the Atlantic to EU. You can keep checking back and hope Delta opens some OZ award bucket on their own flights in order to get 210K roundtrip rate on DL metal over the Atlantic, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I see some availability in April into early May, but nothing really showing after that until the Fall.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...943e69eb42.png

The fees/taxes are very different if you book 2 one ways vs a RT. I don't know why, but whenever I look at a delta one way originating in Europe to the US there is a "Carrier Imposed International Surcharge" of something like 250 Euros. Book a round trip and the surcharge goes away. The miles difference is the difference between a Delta flight and a partner flight.

It's also the case that the fees are much higher if you book a TATL RT originating in Europe. The big fees apply to tickets originating in Europe regardless of whether they're OW or RT.

Most likely there will also be a schedule change allowing free rebooking to the DL nonstop JFK-ATH.

That is what I am hoping for this far out. What has been your success rate?

Its anything over 120 mins that qualifies?

120 mins is just what allows refund. Even small time changes usually allow free rebooking IME.

All my ATH trips (both coming and going) resulted in free rebookings allowing JFK/ATL-ATH and vv.

Gave it a go. Worked for the outbound.

I was thinking about doing the same for next summer…will it easily let me rebook from connection to nonstop online?

Was not straight forward (over the phone). Took about an hour between the platinum desk and the ticket desk.

Somewhere on this forum someone said for every hour of rewards flight time you spend the equal amount of time booking the ticket. I lean to agree.

Great. Much better than 3 hours in Euro Business! 👍

In trying to plan for a Europe trip next fall/winter, I looked at mileage tickets from my home airport (CLT) to various places in Central Europe roughly in the area I’ll need to be. I did find a few (VERY few) round trips for 200k. I noted CLT-FRA and CLT-MUC as having a few options at that level. Note that this does hit all of the conditions you gave - round trip, 90+ days advance, near EOS. But there was some availability at level marginally below the 105k each way.

Did not check on award flights from other US starting points - don’t actually have a signed contract for the job yet.