griffindodd

I'd like to plan a trip through Europe next year for myself, wife, 4yr old and 1yr old (in lap).

We will be starting out from San Diego. We'd like to travel during off-peak season between March 19 and April 7th

Currently I have 93,000 United Miles and 53,000 US/AA Miles. I'm open to picking up Avios miles if it makes sense for the Euro connections.

My plan is to use United's routing to try and stop at...
- Chicago (2 nights/3 days)
Then in any order
- Paris (3 nights/4 days)
- Rome (3 nights/4 days)
- Vienna (3 nights/4 days)
- Malta (3 nights/4 days)

Return flight on AA back to San Diego

I think I know I need to avoid the UK for connections as the taxes seem to be insane. I'm wondering how best to structure the United part of the trip to get the best value out of their 30k 1-way usa-euro fairs. Also picking teh right order of destinations to put us in the ideal position to leverage 20k 1-way off-peak AA for the return trip.

griffindodd

Looks like I am best off booking a return trip with United from San Diego to Paris via Chicago for a Total of 180k miles and $396 in fees then once in Europe I guess it's smarter to just pay cash on the cheapy discount hoppers to do a little loop.

Trying to use AA out of Europe slams me into BA and London tripling my fees and taxes.

beachmouse

If you do have some interest in London/the UK, keep in mind that they get you when you're leaving the country on taxes rather than both ways, and booking your transatlantic stuff as an open jaw, say ORD-LHR then FCO_ORD can work out well. I had a look at ORD-LHR one way for this September, and it's $5.60 tax plus 30K United miles for that routing.

And short haul out of London and on to Paris or Italy is usually relatively cheap because it's an extremely competitive airline/airport market and the airport departure tax on short haul flights out of there is generally not too bad.

farbster

Just because you could do something, doesn't mean you should. I would strongly recommend against seeing all of those cities during your trip. I would cut the number of cities in half and stay twice as long in each.

You will have to deal with time zone changes, schlepping baggage, schlepping kids, checking in and out, packing and unpacking.

You might also consider doing a vrbo or airbnb for your stay, especially if you stay a little longer in one place and want a little room to spread out.

Indelaware

Remember that with UA, you can have two stopovers on a RT reward - one on the outbound and one on the return. But, neither of these stopovers may be in the US. Is it essential that you do a stopover at ORD? Perhaps you might be happy with just a 23h59m connection there -- or two, one inbound and one outbound?

You might try:

SAN-ORD UA
(OVERNIGHT CONNECTION AT ORD)
ORD-CDG UA
STOPOVER
CDG-VIE OS (DESTINATION)
VIE-FCO OS
(STOPOVER AT FCO)
FCO-EWR-ORD UA
(OVERNIGHT CONNECTION AT ORD)
ORD-SAN UA

Total cost 60,000 UA miles r.t. per person -- if you book it right, e.g. economy saver.

You can then purchase in a ROM-MLA RT for cash. EasyJet and Vueling both fly the route. With good timing, you can get for well under $50.00 r.t.

griffindodd

So outbound could I make my flight go from San Diego to Vienna with a requested stopover in Paris?

On the way back I'm thinking of going to Barcelona, so maybe I could book outbound out of Rome with a stopover in Barcelona??

griffindodd

How about this???

19th - United: San Diego >Chicago>Paris (Stopover)
24th - United: Paris>Vienna (Destination)
----------------------------------------------------------
27th - Euro Carrier: Vienna>Rome
------------------------------------------------------------
30th - United: Rome to Malta (Open Jaw)
---------------------------------------------------------
2nd - United: Malta to Barcelona (Stopover)
5th - United:Barcelona>Chicago>San Diego (Destination)

Does my stopover have to be the connection that shows in the route on the United web site or can I pick my own stopover? For example flights to Vienna from San Diego only look like they connect in Frankfurt, Munich and Amsterdam but I don't really want to visit any of those cities.

dukerau

UA only allows 1 stopover, not 2. You can stopover anywhere you want, just have to get award flights to/from the city you want to stop in. When you book, you'll use the Multiple Destination search. You put in your route as if there were 2 "destinations", e.g. SAN-CDG / CDG-VIE / FCO-SAN. That would be a stopover in Paris en route to Vienna, open jaw return from Rome. Play around with UA's search engine and you'll get an idea of your options.

griffindodd

OK so is this a bit better? I thought I could have 1 stopover and 2 open jaws on a RT? This route worked when I tried some sample dates and came out at a glorious 60k RT $109 Taxes, just wondering if I can squeeze one of my other cities out of this with the 2nd open jaw??

19th - United: San Diego >Chicago>Paris (Stopover)
24th - United: Paris>Vienna (Destination)
-------------------------------------------------------
27th - Euro Carrier: Vienna>Rome
30th - Euro Carrier: Rome>Malta
2nd - Euro Carrier: Malta>Barcelona
--------------------------------------------------------
5th - United:Barcelona>Chicago>San Diego (Destination)

dukerau

You can have 1 stopover and 2 open jaws. You can't have 2 stopovers. If the first itinerary you posted priced out, was one of the "stopovers" less than 24 hours? That's the only way it should price. Both itineraries you've posted only have 1 open jaw, so I don't know what you mean by maximizing via 2 open jaws. If you got the first itinerary to price at 60K, you should be able to book it. Either one of the stopovers isn't > 24 hours, or you found a glitch. I would bet on the former.

If you really want to stop in ORD, you could use 10K BA Avios to go SAN-ORD, then use 60K UA for ORD-CDG-(stopover)-VIE,open jaw, BCN-SAN. That's using 2 open jaws and a stopover

Mwenenzi

For travel in Europe look at trains and low cost carriers
You need to factor in the time and money to get to airports vs central city airports
Be very careful of baggage fees with Eu airlines.

Indelaware

Oh, yes, another change I don't like.


Where one connects is irrelevant. If one wants only a single connection between SAN-VIE, one would have to fly either SAN-ORD-VIE, SAN-IAD-VIE, or SAN-YYZ-VIE. If, however, one enjoys racking up the airports (as I do), there are scores of options to get to VIE (not just FRA, MUC, and AMS). Just find space into any European airport and then look for a connecting flight to VIE: AMS, BRU, TXL, CGN, CPH, CDG, GVA, HAM, LHR, MXP, ARN, WAW, FCO, ZRH, & IST are all places to look at when constructing connections.

OS is also resuming MIA-VIE so you may find seats open on it. If you are no longer needed to go through ORD, look at SAN-IAH-MIA-VIE.

griffindodd

I'm happy with one stopover in Paris on my way to Vienna with united so that's all good with me.

Coming back out of Europe, I nearly have enough AA miles for 3x 20k tickets back to the states but I'm still struggling to work out how to book that Award on airlines that have no fuel surcharges in the OneWorld Alliance.

I understand that I need to look at the various carriers coming out of Europe and then find a connecting flight from a OneWorld hub in the US back to SAN. Once I have found those two flights will I have to then call AA and have them book it over the phone?? Will I still qualify for the 20k Award fare for the whole return journey?

Indelaware

One cannot do a stopover on a UA one-way award; a round trip is required.

griffindodd

Yeah I just learned that when I went to book the tickets. I'll have to hold out and wait until I have my minimum 180k United Miles.

Good news in the mail last night, my wife got targeted for 50k/1k by Amex Rewards so we'll be jumping on that sweet deal for sure.