Getting to my wedding plz help
 

Hi there,

I worked my ... off last year to get AA EP and two SWUs for me and my fiance. Turns out I can't find a single flight to my wedding to use them on. I also have a ton of miles!

Maybe someone can help?

Trying to get from Washington DC to Barcelona on either the 8, 9, 10 of October and fly back around the 24th.

I have SWUs on AA as well as 530k Chase Points, 450k AA points, 250k Amex points.

If someone can help I'd be eternally grateful!

Have you looked for SWU availability on flights to London? Flights from Baltimore, NY, Philadelphia?

If you're willing to pay the BA surcharges, here's an option for the outbound, no SWUs necessary:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1cbad16f6a.png

If the OP has -- or can get -- the Amex Platinum card, he could check to see whether Amex's International Airline Program is offering reduced Business Class fares for the OP's route and dates of travel. Although the Amex Platinum has a high annual fee, there currently are sign-up bonuses of up to 150,000 MR points that would more than offset the fee. (Sometimes you have to visit the Amex Platinum landing page more than once in a day to see the 150K offer; lower offers might appear initially.)

If you're willing to pay BA surcharges on an award for the outbound, for just a bit more you can book a one-way on TAP Air Portugal in business from BCN/MAD to the US with cash.

To BOS - $989 - https://www.google.com/travel/flight...4AVDA3JkD3vnw5
To NYC - $1047 - https://www.google.com/travel/flight...9EgxA6SuJn3h58
To DC - $1102 - https://www.google.com/travel/flight...RQD3e6f9JLPkX7
To YTO - $968 - https://www.google.com/travel/flight...AnjfK2UpBPXeX9

Those TAP cash fares can be paid for with Chase pay yourself back at 1.5 cents per point.

Cash fares can be booked through Chase Travel at $0.015/point for Sapphire Reserve cardholders, but Pay Yourself Back does not currently reimburse travel purchases:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...ua-2024-a.html

For the SWUs, that's likely lower season for BCN, so you should be able to use SWUs, but don't expect them to clear until day of, sometimes even at the gate.

Looks like OP disappeared. 3 days not been online since posting the question.

I hope you find tickets to your wedding. 👰🏻🤵🏻

Ask your fiance what she wants. Connecting in LHR is a pain and might not be worth it. With 14 days check other cities in Spain - car rentals are cheap and the train system fast.

I have been doing this for many, many years and run a website on the subject. Yet I have no idea what an SWU is.

I do not like the jet lag problem flying to Europe. So I usually fly to another city in Europe, enjoy that for a few days (usually a walking tour to keep me awake), then fly to where I want to to go. Example: San Francisco to Zurich, 2 nights there (free at a Holiday Inn Express), with a ferry trip down the Rhine between those two nights. Then a flight to Dubrovnikfor a 2 week tour. Return from Ljubljana.

SWU = System-Wide Upgrade
. . . . . . (on AA and, long ago, on UA)