LAX - Italy
 

My wife and I are planning to go to Italy next summer. Our plan is to collect enough miles to fly business or first (something we rarely do). I'm trying to figure out the best airlines to consider with a combination of luxury and points value, so that i can be more focused on my points collection.

I was leaning towards alitalia since i've heard they recently upgraded and they fly direct. The downside is the fuel cost and i'd prob rather use more points than spend cash if i could.

I already have about 130000 delta miles, but i'm also building points miles in citi thank you, chase and amex.

Would love to hear what people think

Brad

i think you have enough miles for you to go one way. i think you will need 300-400 K points to bring the wife along. also, if this is the delta i grew to new and love, first class on mileage is right up there with hell freezing.

Alitalia in business class on a direct flight would be great. Business class award space on the LAX-FCO route is hard to come by, though. If you want to book that with more miles and less cash, use DL to book the award. I believe it's 125k miles RT in business, but no fuel surcharges. Just ~$150 in taxes.

If that doesn't work out, looking for AA F/J awards LAX-JFK, then connecting to JFK-MXP on AA would also work. AA's business class isn't going to be as good as Alitalia's, though. AZ gets a bad rap, mostly for ground services, a terrible website, etc - but once you're in the air, it's very good. Probably the best business class food to Europe.

Since you already have 130k DL, you have enough for one ticket. I'd try and get that balance to 250k and book an AZ business class award, if you can find the space. West coast business class to Europe award space is generally rare on any carrier. But at least with DL's partners, you could fly direct on AZ or one stop on AF. I really enjoyed my last business class trip on AF. And if none of that pans out, you can buy a coach ticket to an east coast gateway and connect to a business class award.

EDIT: I see you said next summer. Award space in general is going to be tight, have a backup plan if you can't get a business class award. Economy might even be difficult, as summer is peak tourism season for US to Italy.

Thanks PWMTrav. Good info. and i'll look into booking via delta. Also good to know that those awards are scarce in summer. i assumed, but wasn't sure how bad. trying to get out in June if we can.

Keep in mind you can book one way awards with DL now. You have the miles for 2 business class tickets out, so you could call DL and book those now if you find availability for your dates. Then figure out your options on the return - doesn't need to be the same airline - and then plan how to quickly acquire the miles so you can book it (or pay for the return ticket).

The bad news is that I don't see a single day in June with 2 business class seats on AZ LAX-FCO. BOS-FCO has 3 seats most days, so doing that with a connection is a possibility. I checked Air France and there's no LAX-CDG space at all that month either.

If you can do July, I'd jump on those AZ seats quickly. If not, start searching other west coast-europe gateways to check for space. The fallback option can be BOS-FCO, but that would mean you're spending 5 hours on a domestic connection, which even in first class will be considerably less nice than a European carrier's long haul business class.

So awesome. I really appreciate your help. this is my first time trying to use points for overseas business, so all the feedback and advice is truly appreciated