saeswank

fly to LAX and then switch to AF from LAX to PPT. You can then catch a 10 night cruises on the Tahitian Princess. My wife and I just got back last month. AMAZING!!! Much better than Hawaii. Coach in AF was much better than I expected.

BamaVol

Welcome to FT. Congratulations on finding someone to spend your life with.

Paris.

sc flier

Congrats!

I might suggest going about it the other way around. Start by figuring out which Marriott properties interest you and then figure out which ones you can get to with your miles.

This is more in line with what I do for my vacations in which I want to stay at a Starwood property.

swdke suggested "any Hawaiian island," and there are some places on Oahu that are outside of Honolulu/Waikiki. But I would exclude crowded Honolulu/Waikiki as a romantic honeymoon destination. A nonstop to Maui or the Big Island would preferable. Connect in HNL only if you have to.

It may help us advise you if you share your home airport with us (a nice thing to put in your FT profile) and your anticipated length of stay. I live on the US east coast and wouldn't have as much interest in a honeymoon-type vacation that requires a redeye flight to get home. From the east coast, I don't have much interest in going to Hawaii for less than 7 days at a time.

MilesPlease

Hi all,

As a recent accumulator of SkyMiles 120,000 since Jan, I'm trying to figure out if my wife-to-be and I can get to France from Boston at the end of June (after the 23rd, specifically).

I've started to read up on Award booking advice, but would love to get a reality check. It seems that 2x 50k for skysavers would get us to Europe, but what is the likelihood of snagging SkySavers? I'm willing to call at any hour of the night to improve my chances, but it looks like we'd have to figure it out by July 28th?

Lastly, we're thinking of going somewhere quiet like Provence or Nice, can anyone weigh in on a good, out of the way, destination?

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

PS Any good Marriott recommendations would be appreciated as well

obscure2k

Welcome to FT and the DL Forum, MilesPlease
A quick search of the DL Forum showed this thread:http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=572629. There are several threads which deal with the topic of Skysavers. The best thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the "search" function.
Some more FT Tips:
For answers to your questions on Nice or Provence, there is a great forum in The World (Western Europe). Suggest looking at the Western Europe forum. Always good info there; particularly regarding France.
For questions re: Marriott-- take a look at the Hotel Forums (Marriott). The Marriott Board is a lively, active forum and I am certain that you will find good information.
Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage and again, welcome to the Delta Forum.

John C

I spent part of my honeymoon in France recently and the absolute highlight of our trip was the Chateau de Bagnols. I cannot recommend it highly enough as an out of the way retreat that you will remember for a lifetime. It is also well located as a stop-over on a drive through the wine country between Nice and Paris (which is what we did). The private balloon ride over the vineyard is expensive, but can be scheduled in advance and makes a nice romantic exclamation point on an already perfect stopover. The service is first class+ and the building itself is nothing shy of remarkable. Highly recommended!

The Marriott properties are not nearly as remarkable, but are fine. Both the Riviera/Monaco and the Champs Elysees properties are at good locations. The hotels themselves feel slightly vanilla but there is plenty to do nearby in cities that both will invoke a lot of envy among anyone looking through your photo album.

We did the drive in a Mercedes with a nav system which was the only way to go. The Avis forum on this site can point you to some good discount codes that make it pretty affordable.

Good Luck! And feel free to contact me if you have any questions about any of the specifics of our trip.

wjudge

I called at midnight Monday night looking for flights to either MPL or NAP for June 7 - we want to go to both, and don't care about the order, and there was nothing - the agent told me to keep calling back to check as Air France and Alitalia ( ) have not loaded their award seats yet...nada on Delta. Last year, I had no problem booking direct flights to/from Europe in BE (into FCO and out of CDG) in January for June. It's a crazy, crazy world!

sweetdaisy233

Need some help with honeymoon planning! (We are only taking a 3-4 day mini-honeymoon.)

Requirements:

--Need to depart from Atlanta to X Destination and return from X Destination to NYC (doesn't matter which airport). Nonstop preferred.
--Need to use either Amex Reserve Companion Certificate (therefore flying in L,U,T at short distance, or F at long distance) *or* PMUs (therefore flying in something K or above)
--Open to Caribbean, Bermuda, Latin America/Central America,or Europe

Having a HARD time figuring out where Delta flies F from Atlanta to X Destination - most appear to be business. Is it true I can only use my Amex Reserve Companion Cert in only L,U,T, or F?

Please help! Thanks to the experts in advance!

AndyTLe

IIRC, the AmEx Reserve Cert is L, U, T or A.

3Cforme

Delta's interactive route map is a very powerful tool for this. Select Map Settings for 'Only show nonstop flights' and go for it. There are many destinations served from both ATL and JFK/LGA.

http://delta.innosked.com/

Yes, long-haul (intercontinental) premium class of service is likely to be Business, branded as BusinessElite, not First.

turnpike17

Ok, actually were honeymooning in Koh Samui, but we have to get to BKK via DL, which I know you go through NRT, however, getting to NRT we have multiple options. We are leaving from TUL on Sat, Feb 5 2011 early and it looks are choices are the 777LR from ATL, the 747 from DTW, or the 333 from SEA, which I actually think continues on the BKK. We are going to try and use some SWUs and right now the flights from ATL and DTW are Z0, but the SEA flight has Z5. Will the ATL flight eventually release Z inventory, or is that pretty paid business heavy? Also, we decide we cant upgrade, which plane would be better? Thanks guys.

DaddyRabbit

The 77 or 333 are best. The 74s are ancient NW metal and do not work for me. I will not fly on them. As a DL DM, I avoid them like the plague.

timetosave

I'd recommend the 77L... although it will likely be the toughest to get the upgrade on. I returned from BKK last week and Z availability on the NRT > ATL leg didn't open until ~3 days before (DTW, MSP, SEA all had more availability earlier).

A few options:
- Sounds like you are already planning on at least purchasing an M fare. Consider a B fare (should be completely flexible) and secure the SEA upgrade. Then if/when Z opens up on the ATL flight switch to that.
- Wait until ~3-4 days before the flight to purchase the ticket and hope that Z is open up then.
- Configure an alert with EF for when Z opens on the ATL flight... but I think the chances are slim that this Z will open up very early.

turnpike17

I hadn't thought of that.... thanks for the tip. Buying a B fare sounds like a very plausible option.

CarmenOM

Here's a similar thread I started a couple of months ago on the various coach options to NRT. I got a lot of helpful advice.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...light-nrt.html