Hi. Apologies if this gets complicated, I will do my best for it not to. The high-level idea is for me to spend the holiday season in St. Petersburg, Russia, but I'd like to make a stopover in the U.K. on the way. The important dates are as follows:

12/18 - earliest I can leave
12/21 - have to be in Manchester for my two favorite teams' match (MU-WHU)
12/22 or 12/23 - get to St. Petersburg
1/5 - latest I can fly back

Points to spend:
Marriott: roughly 50K
American Airlines: 47,xxx
United: 62,xxx
SPG: 11,xxx
Delta: 21,xxx
Avios: 4K
Flying Blue: 5,500-ish

The flight back is the least of my worries. I can grab a business-class one-stopper from Helsinki for 50K United miles plus $70 or so. Where it gets complicated is in the first leg of the trip. So far I have two clearly identified options:

1. 20K Economy MilesAAver (the transatlantic bit)

Leave Dec. 18 or 19

AA 2810 (9:05-10:55 DTW-LGA)
AB 7451 (17:40-6:55 next morning JFK-DUS)
AB 8746 (15:20-15:40 DUS-STN)
Train to Manchester
Watch the match
Either go back to London and take a direct BA LHR-LED flight for about $350 or one-stop from MAN (via most likely Helsinki) for around the same $ or another 20K points (business class)

2. Around $600

Leave on same dates, 18th or 19th.
Somehow get to Chicago
Fly Aer Lingus 1-way to Dublin
Spend a day in Dublin
Somehow get from Dublin to Manchester (probably also on Aer Lingus)
After that - same as option 1, but most likely back to London for a day.

Option 2 is a bit more fun as I've never been to Dublin before and helps me avoid flying in a CRJ700 and a DH4 (there's just something about small planes I can't stand), but it costs more actual cash. Obviously, neither is a particularly graceful solution, but that's why I am asking the collective wisdom of FT in hopes you guys might find a more creative way. Getting to 50K miles on AA would get me a few more options in business class (and potentially one fewer connection), but I'm not sure I want to gut my entire account.

Advice on budget places to stay in England/Ireland is also much appreciated.

I am also not entirely sure I understand how the Saver award works with AA and if it's possible that flights that aren't available on it right now might open up later (in particular on BA as those options seem to be few and far between) and whether or not it's worth waiting a month or so to book.

So, all told, many more questions than answers, but the community has been amazing in the past, so here's hoping for a few better solutions. Thanks!

Hi highlanderfil, welcome to the Europe forum.

I see you haven't had a strong response to this query so far. As the Europe forum is more about the destination than how to get there, and as your query involves miles from multiple airlines, I'm going to move this thread over to MilesBuzz! where a more expert audience can help you out.

stut
Moderator
Europe Forum

Thanks. Doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot better here, either, but it's early days yet.

Can you fly out the 17th instead of the 18th? If so, you might be able to book a United R/T award with a stopover in FRA. Looks like the 17th is the last day with award seats prior to Christmas.

So the award would be DTW-FRA(stop)-LED-DTW. Between 60k and 100k depending on how much Y vs. J you want. (The cleanest routes seemed to have Y going over and J coming back.)

FRA-MAN-FRA would be about $250 for LH nonstops.

That avoids a big NYC transit/hotel hassle as well as a London transit/train hassle. Bonus for avoiding both the NYC area and Chicago, two places I wouldn't want to unnecessarily inject into a winter trip. (I mean, I know you gotta start in Detroit, but no need to make this worse than necessary, right? )

All of that said, it might be tempting to just buy DTW-MAN (or LON) -LED-DTW via the most direct routings possible. Any decent winter fares loaded yet? Seems like you're flying far enough ahead of Christmas to get decent fares.

I probably could fly out on the 17th, but the problem is that I don't see a direct route available - 1-stoppers only. Did you see a direct flight? If I'm one-stopping (and then catching a flight to MAN anyways, so effectively 2-stopping), I may as well go DTW-PHL-MAN (or a similar 1-stopper to LON) for 30K miles and consider my options on the way back. Actually, that doesn't look too terrible... Just have to figure out a place to stay for a couple of extra days, then.

Buying with cash is an option, but Delta direct is over $1K for just DTW-LHR-DTW...

I would strongly suggest that you use an award booking service to assist you. We have a list here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ices-list.html Fees runs from ~$99>$150. Holiday travel is difficult at best.

Is there one you would recommend? I contacted a few of them, but it looks like the majority aren't taking new requests...

No, I didn't see a direct routing. It was sounding like the cash cost of getting to/from LED was going to be high, so that's one advantage of doing the United R/T award with a stopover. Plus it sounded like other options were going to entail a day transiting NYC or London or both...I'd hate to waste that much time unless those cities interest you.

You'd have all of your expensive segments (TATL and to/from LED) covered in the base award, and you'd only be buying the side trip to MAN, which is cheap.

But really, I'd first think of cities that actually interest you...I wouldn't recommend someone drop in a 2-day Frankfurt stopover if they have zero interest in Frankfurt.

Got it. So what I'll likely do is buy the DTW-(ORD)-DUB ticket with cash, spend a couple of days (although, more like a day and a half if I leave on the 18th and land on the 19th) in Dublin (have never been before), then hop over to Manchester for the match and then make my way down to London. Then I'll fly LHR-LED on BA, unfortunately also with cash, but that's the only nonstop. Going back, though, is where my miles are going to be most useful as I'll likely fly TLL-DTW on a Business/First discounted award with United.

As much as I'd love to make the entire trip on miles, it just doesn't seem practical and I definitely don't want to fly to Frankfurt on anything other than a non-stop if I'll be flying to MAN anyways.

But, just for giggles - did you have a set of flights in mind that you looked at? Maybe actually having a routing in front of me will give me pause. Because thisis something I'd like to see illustrated and I wasn't able to replicate a 60K mile deal... I've found 80K flying back from LED on the 5th of January but not 60...

If you found 80k, that sounds like one way in Y and the other way in J. A lot of my awards are mixed-cabin...that's no biggie.

I forget the exact routing...something like DTW-IAD-FRA-LED-VIE-IAD-DTW. Seems like it was VIE one way and FRA the other.

It sounds like you're interested more in Dublin and London though. I can't blame you: both have a cool vibe to them in the weeks leading up to Christmas. ^ I'm sure Vienna would too but I think when I looked, it was the return segment...FRA was outbound. (I know nothing about Frankfurt to be honest...just that Flyertalkers don't exactly wax poetic about stopovers there.)

I wouldn't have a problem with that (actually, I'd prefer it going right back to work the next morning) except I don't have 80K. I'll trymaybe it will work itself out.I've been to Vienna - not terribly impressed. I've also been to Frankfurt more often than I care to mention.

UPD: did you try each leg individually? I'm trying to do that and it's giving me an error...

I booked my return ticket for now with 50K United miles and $62: TLL-FRA-DTW in Business class. So now I just need to find my way TO the continent.

Booked Aer Lingus ORD-DUB (12/18)-MAN(12/21) for $635 and MAN-FRA-LED for 12,500 United points. All told, not too bad.