greek2me

Helping friend book 2 week August honeymoon in August, preferred flight is Delta NYC-LIS non-stop round trip. Like to get them in business class using my miles vs economy they plan to pay for. I have lots of miles in just about every program. Appreciate any advice on the cheapest way in miles to do this?

Mwenenzi

The amount of miles is 1 thing.
Availability for 2 business class awards on the dates you want is quite another.
A flight to Spain and then a train to Portugal is another option.

Frequent Flyer Award assistance tools
These links give a guide of ff miles needed. These may not be up to date or accurate. Check the ffp's rules for awards. Some airlines/ffp's can charge cash surcharges in addition to the real taxes.
Use at your own risk. (These are not recommendations)

1. AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds --> Awardsace.com Has surcharge indication.
2. Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> Flyermiler.com
3. AwardHacker: a tool we build to tell you how to travel with the least miles --> Awardhacker.com

irishguy28

Have you checked the mileage rates on the website of each FFP for which you have miles?

On the face of it, you just seem to want to know which programme, out of all the FFPs in existence, has the lowest theoretical "mileage" requirement for an NYC-LIS ticket [not clear, but perhaps you mean you don't care about the mileage amount, and are instead worried about the cash element required].

That's information that is available on the FFP websites.

And notwithstanding that we don't know what programmes you have miles in, the main issue here will likely be finding two seats on the same flight(s).

You should log into each of your FFPs in turn, and attempt to make a dummy booking for 2 for the dates in question, and see what the prices/availability is like. There is no alternative to performing this step yourself, for the dates that you need these tickets.

[Miles are best used where you can be flexible. Requiring not just 1, but 2 seats are available on each flight, and being tied to specific dates [and, apparently, a specific airline] on which travel must occur, means this is likely not the opportunity to use miles]

greek2me

Thanks. Sorry wasn't as clear as I hoped, was wondering if someone knew what ff program was lowest cost in miles to book biz to Portugal ala the "best redemption" type blog posts we all see all the time, as I had done some searching and not come up with that info.
Delta flights +/3 days around their preferred dates were not at saver level, so that got ruled out.
The tools you noted were somewhat helpful for Star Alliance insight into booking TAP (Asiana 80k RT biz, can transfer from SPG; ANA 88k transfer from MR/SPG; others significantly higher) but again, as you noted, business class awards at saver level were not available, even on 1 and 2 stop itineraries.
So unfortunately I can't get them into business class. They'll have to slum it in coach, but at least the non-stop coach flights are available at manageable prices, and are relatively short red eyes were they'll hopefully be able to sleep most of the flight and they have UR they can use themselves at 1.5c/pt to avoid shelling out cash.