Please forgive me if there was already a thread about this. I read back through the most recent pages and didn't see anything that describes what I am looking for. I also don't have a specific airline in mind so that is why I put this in the general board. Please forgive me and move it if I picked the wrong forum to post.

We are taking our honeymoon to Europe for two/three weeks in June or July and I would love to fly first/business class. Departure city is Miami/Orlando(about the same distance from me) but could be any east coast city as I would take a cheap flight to a better departure city if it meant saving money on a great flight. I have never nor has my wife ever signed up for or saved/used airlines miles. We have always just flown on whomever had the cheapest tickets.

We have a few short trips planned that we could book on a specific airline to accrue miles and we could both sign up for credit card offers to get bonus miles if need be before June. Which airlines or programs do you think would work best for what I am trying to accomplish?

As I am very new to this so please ask any and all questions that would help fill in the blanks for any information that I might have left out.

I would say that your best bet, since you don't have any program affiliations and the time of year you want to travel, is to just pony up and pay for the tickets.

Getting a reward during the summer is nearly impossible on most airlines for those who have the miles already in their accounts and want to book early. You don't have anything, and you're really only about 6 months out. Even if you want to get an unrestricted award, which is double miles, you're talking about 100k miles per ticket - it's not likely you can do it, no matter how many credit cards you sign up for

For now, I would set up fare alerts on www.kayak.com for first class fares to the destinations you prefer. It's not unusual to find there may be some good fare deals for first coming up for the summer.

Sorry, but that's the best I can think of.

Welcome to FT TTBHG

If you're willing to do everything it takes then this is my advice. Each of you apply for 2x personal AA Citi Bank Credit cards through this link. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-up-bonus.html (each card will award you 75000 miles after you spend $4000 within the first 6 months) That there will be 300,000 AA miles and the 16,000 miles it took to spend. (Or 158,000 AA miles each) This will afford you 2x roundtrip tickets in First Class (MileSaaver at 62.5k each way) to Europe. (Among other destinations) Leaving you with each 33,000 miles. If spending $16,000 between the two of you sounds too intimidating - I understand your concerns but via another thread on this website (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-shipping.html) you will be able to acquire the spend in no time at no out of pocket cost to you. You're out of pocket cost for everything I explained here should only be booking fees/taxes for each ticket. (Amount depending on where you go)

Use www.aa.com to check award availability one month at a time. I put in MIA-LHR June 1-8 and there appears to be quite a bit of First Class Milesaaver seats open (Make sure you put 2 adults)

Keep in mind the above suggestion is one of many different ways to accomplish what you're trying to do. Please PM me if you need any assistance at all. Everything I've described above I've done personally so I can go in details with you from personal experience.

An easier but somewhat riskier option would be to accumulate enough AA or UA miles for a business class upgrade (through credit card signup bonuses or whatever), then buy your coach tickets normally and upgrade them with miles plus a co-pay. It's more of a crapshoot, but it should work reasonably well so long as you are traveling when there won't be many paid business class travelers in the air (e.g. in the middle of weekends).

Alternatively, take a Cunard cruise out of New York, enjoy a quiet week in your luxurious cabin at sea...

Hello TTBHG - An additional way to accrue AA miles is go to BankDirect.com and open a milage zchecking account in each of your names. You each get a sign-up bonus and you can earn 1 mile each month for every $10 on deposit. In addition to the citicards suggested above, open a Starwood american express account for each of you and you earn 25000 SPG points that can be converted to 30000 AA Miles. PM me if you need the lings as well as a referral to Bank Direct

I'm currently planning my honeymoon as well - it'll be a little earlier than yours though - going in Feb.

I second the suggestion to do the Citi AA cards for massive miles. Even though there's not much chance of it, I'd still suggest you check the fare pricing for your tentative dates to make sure you'll be getting the most value for your trip. I'm pretty sure you won't find revenue F seats to Europe at a better value than free seats, especially if you don't travel often.

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

I would suggest, however, that you may want to rethink "first class," as most first class cabins nowadays are designed to isolate passengers from each other. If you want to actually sit together, business class is a better idea.

Do you have any specific destinations in Europe in mind? Europe is a big place and different airline alliances have different amounts of coverage. (Although it is usually easy to fill in gaps with purchased tickets from low cost carriers.) This might make it easier to recommend a preferred alliance, although I would say that American is probably your best bet right now due to the large sign up bonuses on credit cards.

You WILL have to be a little crazy to make this happen in the amount of time...but that's what Flyertalk is for. And there still are no guarantees that there will be seats open when you are wanting to go. You say June or July...do you have any flexibility to go a little earlier, like May, or later, like September? Those are less peak times.

Also, while this isn't what you asked, you may want to consider paying for the flights and accruing hotel points to use at nicer hotels. The flight itself is a short part of your trip. Someone already mentioned SPG which is a nice option. Check out the Priority Club forum too, sometimes nice hotels go on the "pointbreaks" (discounted award) list, although you probably can't book those til much closer.