Hi, quick question about your first point...when you say calendar year, do you mean that by the end of December 2018, I should hopefully be able to find some award flights on United's site for ATH-JTR in July 2019?

I can really find any award flights on United's site to get to JTR from places in Europe for next July.

If you could get on an AA flight from the USA to LHR, and then a BA flight to Greece, (and vice versa) you won't pay the same fuel surcharge fees. The flight from the USA to England and England to the USA on BA will incur the highest fees. On AA metal, it will drop dramatically. I was just on the ATH/LHR/LAX flight in business class. The fees were not prohibitive, about $130 if memory serves. ATH to LHR on BA, LHR to LAX on AA. The problem is that there's nearly always availability on BA metal, and the same routing on AA metal is much scarcer, because nobody wants those BA surcharges.

OP, The intra-Europe flights in Business class are actually in Coach seats at the front wit the center seats blocked. Food and drink are OK though. The LHR - ATH flights are much longer than the FRA , ZRH, or VIE flights to ATH. Plus LHR stinks IMO. (And I dislike that BA has made all experiences ugly for me) I prefer the shorter flights from *A hubs.

If you cannot find award space on A3 for the short haul, you can often just buy those for about US$100 instead.

Enjoy Greece. I'll be back there in March.

I am really lost on this one...I've been searching for days trying to find business/first class award tickets for next August or September. Does United ever have those Business Saver Award fares available? Is there a 'trick' to finding them? Thanks

Maybe I should just fly economy....the main reason for wanting to fly business/first is so that I have a better chance of being rested upon my arrival.

I think the challenge is finding space into your home airport. I just searched for ATH-ORD, both using UA and AA miles. I found business space relatively easily that was in business class all the way. However, when I added DSM, I was unable to find anything using UA miles. I did continue to find good availability using AA miles, albeit with that nasty fuel surcharge. Also, sometimes it was in coach from ATH-LHR. Or it was into IAD and out of DCA. But there are possibilities so take a look again.

Sandiego1k, did you happen to see any Business or FIRST Saver Award fares? If so, do you recall which departure month you were searching?

I may have been under the wrong impression that I could find 150,000 mile r/t business award seats for this trip.

I searched on AA.com the third week of Sept, one way, ATH-DSM. I'm attaching a screen shot. Business saver is 57.5K one way. Business anytime for the same week ranges from 110K to 180K one way.

Hmmm -- I'm seeing a ton of space if you search ORD - ATH and then just separately tack on the other pieces. Both OS and TK look widely available on the outbound and a mix of LX, OS, TK, and UA on the return.

140k RT/person if you use partners in both directions.

Also seeing a little bit of ORD - JTR and DSM - ATH which would get you down to only one cash ticket.

Example:

August 12th:

DSM - ORD (UA Y)
ORD - IST - ATH (TK J - both flights on 77W)

More difficult to find ATH - DSM available. Point being you need to get creative. You should be searching ORD / EWR / IAD - ATH or ORD / EWR / IAD - JTR and see what you can come up with and you may have to separately purchase a positioning flight on one end but the space is definitely there if you look for it (as noted above, virtually every day in August and September has ORD - ATH space open at the 70k partner J level)

It doesn't seem like there is much of a difference between Business/First MileSAAver vs. Business/First Anytime (except that Business/First Anytime requires more miles. It looks like the main difference is that travel embargo dates can affect Business/First MileSAAver.

At this time the AA site says: "Travel embargo dates There are currently no travel embargo dates on American." Are Travel Embargo dates something that I should be worried about? What could cause a Travel Embargo?