Awesome forum.
I'd like to plan a trip to either Paris or Rome for next year with my wife and son (22 months now). I'd like to go for about 2 weeks. We have enough HH points that we can stay for free using our points.
We currently are Diamond status with HH using HH Amex and citi. We also have the Chase Sapphire Preferred. We also have a Delta Skymiles Platinum. We never carry a balance.
I've never flown to Europe so I don't know what the best airline is to fly there. My plan is for 1st class. I couldn't fly that far in coach. I"m a tall guy 6'1" and a 52 jacket with bad knees that can't stay at a 90 angle for 8 hours.

Our choices for airlines are:
Air Tran Airways
American Airlines
British Airways
Continental
Delta Air Lines
Lufthansa
US Airways
United Airlines

I won't have a problem meeting the spending requirements, so what are the better international airlines and best options for achieving this? I have 2 different business that I can use for cards to help out.
i was looking last night at it appears i'll need about 150k for each person and each direction. Does that sound about right?

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Welcome to FT!

I assume that you mean Business Class, not First Class. Although a few carriers offer three classes of service to Europe, many only offer Business and Coach.

What time of year? Are you willing to connect somewhere, or do you only want nonstops to/from Europe?

And of course, all three of you will need valid U.S. passports.

Since you're in Philly US would be a reasonable choice for the easiest connections. Maybe not the best airline, but they have a very underrated international business product that is lie-flat. If the time of year isn't too much of an issue US offers off-peak Business awards for 60k to Europe in January and February. I just checked the US website and there is availability for a lot of dates next month to Paris.

Thats 120k for 2 passengers - not sure what redemption rates are for babies....plenty of ways to get US miles, starting with the US CC which gets you 40k+ automatically. There is the Grand Slam promotion which will get you the other 80k you need for a very reasonable amount. They also offer buy mile/share mile bonuses.

To put this in perspective - two Delta coach tix will cost you 120k and you'll have a hard time finding award availability.

1) I'd be ok with Business class. I thought international would have had a 1st class.
2) We were thinking maybe in the Spring or Summer.
3) Non stop is better but ok with 1 stop
4) Passorts are already taken care of.

1) We're looking for Springtime.
2) When you say 120k is that RT or each way?

Thanks in advance

If you want nonstop from PHL to either Paris or Rome, I believe your only choice is US to Paris with no FC. If you plan to go in high season, it will cost more miles and you might need to be flexible about dates. Since your child will be over 2, you will need three tickets, with no miles discount for the child. 300K miles RT per person would be considered an expensive redemption, but the prices in miles for tickets depend very much on the airline whose miles you are using and the dates and routes you pick. Finding three tickets at the same time for the same flight is not necessarily easy.

Would you consider alternate airports to save miles? Air France generally has great business class availability at 100k/roundtrip out of Dulles (and maybe NYC?) direct to Paris, and their 380 is an incredible flight. You can either get through Amex MR or through partner rewards with Delta miles. I think if you book direct with AF you can get first class (but not through partner rewards) but I don't know about availability.

Those are round-trip flights. You SHOULD be able to find DL award availability too for AF flights and probably KL as well, but I wouldn't count on DL availability. If you book these flights through DL instead of through AF/KLM you will save probably over $1000 in fuel surcharges. In fact I just randomly searched a 'Springtime' date of April 11 returning on the 18th and there is availability in business class for 100k round-trip + 133$ taxes JFK-CDG. There are 3 business tickets available on the AF9 flight on the way out at the saver level.

So that will be 300k + $400 or so for all three of you using DL miles. AF flights are good, even better if you can speak French.

Hilton points are another story, and from your post it seems you have a lot of them. Check out the Hilton forum as they have had some serious devaluations recently, and I can imagine that they will make staying in Paris much more difficult. The Rome Cavalieri is a wonderful property.

While there recent change to Avios points was a pretty significant de-valuation for a lot of routes, Philly to Europe made out relatively decent at least from a points perspective. 120,000 round trip each (360K total) will get you first class seats on BA. Sounds great...but what's the catch you ask? Taxes and fees.

Will cost you around $2700 total in taxes and fees plus the points which is steep. But considering a first class BA tix probably goes for around $12-$14K depending on time of year etc....360,000 points and $2700 for 3tix that are would probably cost around $30,000 plus if you bought them from BA...might seem like a decent proposition.

Also, BA allows stop overs. So could book the award tix, travel to France..."stop over" for a week, then go back to the airport and continue on to Italy for week #2...all on the same itinerary.

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"Also, BA allows stop overs."

Not anymore. BA now charges for each separate flight flown.

BA would be a good choice if you go get their credit card when they have a 100k offer, current offer is 50k. Good thing is you can pool your points, so have your wife also open one, and If the 100k comes again find another family member and get them to open it for the points.

Next spend 30K on the card in a year and you get a 2-4-1 companion certificate so you only need 1/2 the points.

First Class on BA is one of the Best out there from PHL. Also you can have a stop over in London coming or going or both. Also go see Rome and Paris, why not they let you book into Rome and then Return from Paris or were ever else they fly.

Only thing is you pay about 800 a person for tax/fuel surcharge for redeeming the points, but the first class tickets could be 10-15k a piece so well worth getting this planned correctly.

Welcome to Flyertalk.

With a roundtrip business class ticket to Europe costing about 100,000 miles each, the airline you fly will be largely dependent on where you can accumulate this large quantity of miles and who has availability. Do you currently have a large frequent flyer balance on one carrier? If so, that's the airline (or its alliance partners) to pick! If you don't have a large balance, you'll have to get busy signing up for credit cards and getting the large (usually 50,000 mile) sign up bonuses.

Considering this is your first trip, I would HIGHLY recommend you leave your child with family if you can. A two year old isn't a lot of fun to travel with (as a parent of 3, I know). You will have a MUCH better time with just your wife, and it will make EVERYTHING you do in Europe so much easier. It will also make finding business class award seats much easier, and you'll save 100,000 frequent flyer miles.

For what it's worth, I think it's best to wait until children are at least 8 to take them to Europe. Oh sure, you can take them earlier, but they won't really get much out of the trip, and you'll get a lot less out of it.

Interesting...I actually typed & then erased a suggestion for the BA 2-4-1card because I thought it would be hard to make the argument of 240k miles (depending on destination) plus $2700 vs. 300k miles and $300 on AF. For two people (120k miles, $1600) I think it's a good deal, but the addition of a third person makes it a tougher sell to me. Granted, it's first vs. J....but it's also a connection vs. direct flight.

Mondog1, you may want to start diversifying for the next trip, however :-)

Also, point well made on Hilton for Paris - I've seen ADT for 40k and then over 300k?? You might want to consider an apartment esp. if you're there for a week. While it goes against the grain to spend actual cash, you can lessen the blow by using a credit card While Caveleri is great, it's a bit outside of Rome and with a young one, you may want to be close so you can easily pop back to the room. I'd consider Starwood if you can for Rome.

It's pretty easy to find biz/first availability on star alliance (US Air, Lufth, UA, Cont, etc.) for 100k miles for roundtrip. I suggest you go to continental.com to look for award availability. If you find what you want, have yourself and your wife sign up for the new UA Explorer card. That, along with your Sapphire cards, should give you the points you need.

Sorry, I was reading as Paris AND Rome, so assuming a week in each city. So, it sounds like you have your airline options (just be sure to book 330 days out for your best selection). And, I'd strongly suggest Spring vs. Summer--fewer crowds, much more comfortable weather. If you do go Air France, try to get the 380 if they fliy it out of Philly.

One other option if you pick Paris, since you have two weeks. London is only a two hour train ride (do an open jaw airline so you only have to do it one way), and your Hilton points will serve you well there. We loved the Waldorf Astoria (and I had lost my Diamond status). If you find Hilton points a challenge in Paris, you may want to consider the Capital One card if they come out with another big bonus, and use the points to pay for an apartment.

OK, I've read through the responses, and I feel that any suggestion for BA is just useless because of the FEES that will be associated with the award. This is after all, an AWARD for yourself, and not the British government.

That being said, I do like the suggestion for booking a Star Alliance award through US Air, as they don't charge the crazy fees. Plus, you can surely find a routing on UA F that will get you there reasonably quickly. LH and LX have gotten a bit tricky to find in F, and you'll probably have to have 2 stops to make those work from PHL. If you're willing to take the quick ride to EWR that should make it easily possible.

The same goes for the AF tickets I was mentioning earlier. Those will be 100k each in C and will be easy as well, most notably from JFK.

You can stock up on both DL miles and US miles rather easily. In addition to CC spending, there are frequent transfer and buy bonuses. Recently I took advantage of the DL 100% transfer bonus, which for 330$ turned 30k into 60k, which is essentially a 330$ ticket to Europe in Y. NOTE: you won't read this kind of trick on the blogs because they are too good for Y. Anyways, once you've picked the airline you want - Whether it is AF, UA, LH, or whatever, you need to concentrate on that one to make sure you have enough points. It's not as hard as you think it is, and spending 200k to get 200k miles isn't the way to do it.

Personally, I enjoy flying on AF and KL a lot, and have stopped flying AA this year because they are much better for me (and I don't get 25,000 miles when my flight is delayed 1 hour). I'd take that flight from JFK which I pointed out earlier, even if it's only in C. Flights to Europe aren't that long - only 6 hours on the way over and 7.5-8 on the way back. I can understand needing F on a long once-in-a-lifetime trip to Bali or Shijiazhuang or whatever, but not to Paris. It's not that bad.....even in Y, between the dinner service and breakfast, two movies makes it fly by very quickly.