Boy, was I wrong about how sophisticated I thought I was concerning frequent flyer travel. And now, after reading these boards, I'm sprinting to 2MM on AA, bemoaning 500,000 MR points that could have gotten me to lifetime platinum so much sooner. Thanks, fellow obsessed mileage hounds.
Anyway, my questions:

Most of my travel is leisure travel at xmas and in the summer. I have never attempted to get free flights at xmas. In the summer, we have generally travelled to Europe. We've used TWA to Italy (they cancelled our Rome flight when they withdrew from that market (do they still have rights from JFK to Rome that AA can reinstate?), and flew us to Milan) and AA to London (for London and Paris) and AA to Paris.
With that as background, how do you get to Europe? My preference is obviously AA, but their coverage of that market leaves something to be desired (with London an obvious exception, and Paris improving with the addition of TWA's flight).
And, especially as an impending platinum on AA, I'd rather upgrade than get a free ticket.
Since I'd love the ability to return from a different city than the one I fly to, and a strong route system to France and Italy are important to me, are national carriers the answer? (I've read that Delta and Continental are not very useful, and I discussed AA above). I believe the most likely national carriers are not partnered with AA.
Is AMEX MR the answer? Help.

I would stick with AA. Even though they may not have the largest route structure to Europe, they offer many code shares through the LON, ZRH and BRU gateways. Even if you can't ugrade on the inter-European flights (BA, SN and SR) the European Business product is nothing to write home about, so no loss there.

we try to fly aa to london & ba to other cities. ba is a oneworld member which gives us aa base miles. we're doing an open jaw dfw-lhr-ist cruise venice-lgw-dfw the end of this month for about 12k base + 12k bonus each.

[This message has been edited by clacko (edited 06-17-2001).]

Definitely stick with AA and its partners. AA to LHR and BA beyond is a good strategy. It remains to be seen whether AA will serve any TW "dormant" routes. The key factor for me would be the fact that you can use 1W lounges and you can check in using preferred lines on 1W carriers. Finally, if anything goes wrong with your itinerary (canceled flights, etc.), you know you've got someone to call or somewhere to go to get decent assistance. I've encountered irregular ops abroad on airlines on which I had no status, and it ain't fun.

And if can upgrade a segment here and there - and earn some bonus miles - that's all the better.

AA will suspend their ORD-FCO (Chicago-Rome) service 1 November. Given that I'm not sure JFK-FCO is very likely to start. They will continue ORD-MXP (Milan) so you will still be able to get to Italy on AA.

I echo the AA/BA strategy. While point to point fares in Europe are usually quite affordable you may consider looking at the Oneworld Visit Europe Pass it can add a bit of flexibility. Details at:

http://www.oneworld.com/pressroom/re...ls.cfm?dID=140

Thanks for replies.

Hagband Viking - I'm from NYC area. I don't even like to go through Chicago when going out west, I certainly wouldn't back-track to go to Europe - 7 hours is long enough (to LHR). Both TWA and AA couldn't make it to Rome from US (JFK and ORD respectively) - what a shame. I hope AA retains JFK - MXP (Milan) and that TWA didn't sell JFK Rome.

Rmccamy - (1) When you refer to upgrades, do any AA partner airlines or OW airlines allow upgades on paid fares? If not, what upgrades are you referring to?
(2) I prefer to travel non-stop, rather than switch in London - I lost a good part of a day (about 3 hours connection time plus two takeoffs & landings) last week. So while the AA/BA connection is a possibility, it's not my preference. Are there any partners/ow lines that fly non-stop to France, Italy, etc?

I was mostly referring to the upgrades you'd get on AA (the transatlantic segs).

Unfortunately I don't know enough about NYC to understand your best option. My point was more about the status...you're closing in on 2MM, I'd probably push through and get lifetime Plat. Of course, if you pick a different alliance and can quickly reach an elite level there, that's not bad either. The main objective for me would be to keep the number of non-elite segments flown as close to zero as possible.

Okay, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I expected more help from my fellow mileage nuts.

Notwithstanding the complaints on Starwood's board, you (I) can transfer Starpoints into 29 different frequent flyer programs, 20 at 1:1 ratio. I think this is a phenomenal benefit (certainly beats Marriott and Hilton). Now, I want to fly to Europe, and don't want to transfer at LHR (AA-BA - if I can help it - non-stops are where it's at). Instead of using Amex MR and, for example, putting miles into Delta to partner with Air France (or use Delta), I can put miles into Air France with Starwood. Now, that's what I mean by which airline (of 29, say) should I use.

Does anyone know which frequent flyer programs on European airlines are "good"? Can I reserve a bus/first class ticket on any of them and then transfer in Miles from Starwood?

Thanks.

Married to miles,
As a former airline sales guy, I have one piece of advice: if your travel plans are mostly at Christmas and during summer, I presume that you are paying for these tickets yourself. In that case, you get nothing out of these frequent flyer programs. Instead, I would hunt down the cheapest fare I could find- probably via a consolidator.
If going to Europe in summer, consider the following:
Icelandair- cheap and you can get a very inexpensive stopover in Reykjavik. You'll save yourself a bundle.
Royal Jordanian ORD/JFK-AMS
Kuwait Airways JFK-LHR or ORD-AMS
Pakistan Intl. JFK-MAN
Biman Bangladesh (OK- this one might be pushing it)

However, if going to Europe in winter, then it doesn't matter who you fly- everyone is cheap!

Hope this helps!

Thanks Pull the red toggle (whatever that means?)

I do try to go to Europe each summer, and by starting early with calls to AA, I've gotten bus upgrades past 2 years (in early June). However, this year, I couldn't get my son to commit early enough, so we ended up going to Paris through London. I am considering, in the future, trying to use many airlines, which increases available seats (the miles would come from *wood).

We just got back from a vacation to Italy, using FF miles on AA. AUS (Austin) to MPX (Milan) on AA, returning open jaw on BA from FCO (Rome) to LHR, then AA the next day back to AUS. It was AA that chose to put us on BA for the Rome -> London segment.

In retrospect, we wonder if we could have used the AAdvantage miles to go anywhere in Europe that BA flies, via AA to London. How does this work?


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Middle Seat

AA has awards jointly with BA - AA transatlantic, continuing in Europe (or beyond) on BA.

The question is, can another European airline, or partners, do better?

I know, for example, that Delta flies to at lease 2 destinations in France (and Italy?) Award travel with Delta and Air France or Delta and Al Italia, for France and Italy, respectively, would be great.

Married,
I'd go JFK-REK-CDG on Icelandair (splurge on the "Saga Class" upgrade) and use the Starpoints for your accommodation in Europe. However, if there are that many Starpoints which can be used for flights there is one alternative: AA/BA/CO/UA/VS all operate NYC-LON morning flights. In economy, this isn't so bad and these flights are generally the least popular. Upon arrival, go to an airport hotel and spend the night. Next morning, wake up refreshed, explore LON and take another flight or Eurostar train to PAR.

Anyway, that's my 2 euros worth...

PS- In the event of an emergency, "pull the red toggle" of your lifejacket only when leaving the aircraft.

PTRT, I humbly disagree with you. As you browse threads on this board, you will encounter many FT'ers who demonstrate loyalty to a particular carrier without regard for free tickets. Upgrades are a magnificent use of miles as well giving reward tickets to friends and relatives. I have only claimed a reward ticket for myself once...



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