Strategy for Premium Fare DFW to Rome 2023
 

Where in FlyerTalk can I research the best way to get enough points for my wife and me to fly business class DFW to Rome in 2023? Return trip is Athens to DFW. I am only traveling domestic now either AA or SWA. No problem meeting minimum spend on a credit card or purchasing a higher annual fee credit card if that is the best way to go. Thanks!

You can find and pay for an award booking concierge service, there are FT members that run them.

There are multiple ways:
-buying points. For example, Alaska is having sale bonuses now, but I am not sure if it is available to new members
-credit cards. Wait for big sign up bonuses
-fly more often
-use additional earning methods, such as shopping or dining using the airline's portal

Overall, unless one flies for business in premium classes a lot, it's hard to accumulate enough points in a short time span. Also, for redemption, you have to be aware that many a time, only one award seat is available per premium class per flight. For instance, IB usually releases one seat in biz class on its long haul per flight.

You may want to read some of the primers on the blogs on Boarding Area (or other sites) to get a big picture view of how this stuff works. There are also plenty of miles consulting services who can help you use those miles once you get them.

The most reliable path you could find would probably be to work with the Avios families of cards through Chase. The British Airways card offers a 100K bonus, and the other Avios cards (Iberia and Aer Lingus) offer the same bonuses and allow you to transfer to BA. BA offers very good award availability in business class, although it comes with exorbitant taxes, some of which are offset by spend on the card. (AA obviously also flies out of DFW and would be a cheaper option with regards to taxes, but they don't open anywhere near as much space.) You could use SeatSpy to try to find availability on your flights in question. I believe the ticket would be 76K avios each way.

If you spend 30K on the British Airways card, you would get a travel together companion ticket, which would allow you to buy one ticket on miles and get the second ticket's miles covered for free. You would still owe taxes, and you would only be able to fly roundtrip as opposed to the open jaw you're suggesting, but it would be cheaper for you to use the companion ticket to fly DFW-LHR-FCO and return and just book a cheap ticket from ATH-FCO to reposition for your flight home.

Honestly, if you're just looking for this one flight DFW-FCO, it makes more sense to just buy a cash ticket. By the time you get all the points needed, you might not find the desirable award ticket and could very easily get yourself stuck with lots of miles. Plus, a cash ticket gives you much more flexibility when your plans change. I know tran-Atlantic premium cabins are not cheap, but if you have to buy points or spend very large amounts to get the award ticket, personally I don't think it's worth it.

If you decide to focus on BA, you should be aware that in addition to the high taxes and fees on BA award tickets, BA charges those without status to pick seats in advance even in business class. This will cost one to two hundred dollars (TATL) per person per direction/segment, but might be necessary if you want to sit together and/or to avoid really bad seats.