Nancy Porras

I am a total newbie so, I apologize in advance for any inconvenience . I am hoping to get some input .My plan is to travel to Europe(London) first so, that I can reduce cost . I have a platinum Amex with 70k points would it be wiser to transfer this points to an Airline or a hotel chain ?This trip is for 2 leaving either from NY/NJ depending on the cost to London staying for a day or two and experience London then Mykonos/Santorini and back to NY/NJ. I also have 4x 100 AA gift cards.Any itineraries would help or even advise if this is ideal and what are my best options since I have to travel in July which is the highest season for sky rocketing prices.

LondonElite

Welcome to FT, Nancy Porras! This is a vibrant community with many resources to help travellers.

First a few housekeeping items, you've posted this request three times, which is against FT policy. I've gone ahead to alert a moderator to this.

Second, you really don't have enough miles for this trip. Depending on which Amex partner you transfer your points to, you'll need as much or more than you currently have for a single economy ticket to Europe (I'm not even sure you'll get to Greece at all this way, which is usually in a higher Europe category). Flying through London will incur significant additional fees for part of the journey, though there are many cheap budget airline offers from London to Greece. I suggest you buy tickets for cash and continue collecting points until you have enough for a proper trip.

It is generally not wise to transfer to hotel programmes for stays in Greece, as I expect the places you want to go won't have many such options.

Others may be better placed to offer on the ground advice for Greece.

JBord

Not to mention that hotels in London tend to be quite expensive, especially when compared to Greece.

If the OP wants to see London, then go for it. If she's doing it just to save money, that's unlikely to work, just go straight to Greece. If she's looking to build in an inexpensive stop to see another part of Europe, I'd suggest a more affordable hub city like FRA or MUC.

xooz

To level set, OP has enough points for one coach RT, maybe to ATH from JFK on Aeroplan as an example. So you could book one award and one paid ticket RT to Athens if you were lucky on timing. Hotels and shuttle flights to/from Santorini would be needed also. So if the goal was to reduce the cost of the trip, looks like some success can be achieved.

Nancy Porras

Ok thanks to all ! I guess ill probably try to use this points for PUN since I have another trip would like to do in Oct. In your opinion I was amazed by an article I read on Finnair for a business class. Since I haver never had such a lengthy flight is paying for such airfair really worthed and stick to maybe an Air B&B or would it better to have a nicer hotel stay ?

Ldnn1

Not necessarily in July and when compared to Mykonos/Santorini... Hotels there can be horribly expensive!