Pjay

I am new to international travel and here to seek advice from you experienced travelers, before making any newbie mistakes. This is a wonderful source of information - all of you are so generous with your time.

My family and I want to travel in the mid-late fall to Portugal, leaving from Albuquerque NM. We don’t have any particular loyalty to a specific airline, but want to find a good confluence of comfort (hoping to to use our miles for business class) and duration.

From what I have read on FlyerTalk we most likely want to avoid TAP. What reliable and comfortable airlines and routes would you recommend, given our more isolated airport location?

Flights seem mostly to offer 2 stops from ABQ; DEN, EWR then to Europebeing the most common combination, or else SLC direct to Europe, or LAX direct. I don’t know anything about the difference in comfort on the aircraft or airlines flying from these departure cities, so advice on this area would also be most helpful from those of you who have the experience. Delta offers KLM or Air France, American offers British Air through London or Iberia through Madrid, United (I think) has flights on Air Canada through Canada and Lufthansa via Germany. United also has direct flights from EWR and American from Philadelphia.

The other bit of advice that would be very helpful is how to manage the return trip. Most of the transatlantic flights seem to depart at 5:30 am from LIS. One suggestion I received was to fly from LIS to AMS and spend the night near AMS, taking a flight to ABQ the next day. I am not sure about the pros and cons of that route other than that it might be hard to get transport to LIS at 4 am for a 5:30 am flight, not to mention disruptive.

Thank you for any and all advice! I appreciate your taking the time to offer guidance and education to a newbie.

Palal

The airline's fine, but in case of IRROPs, things aren't easy to sort out. Given that whatever you book now will probably change now, I wouldn't book tickets through TAP. You mention you want to use miles - chances are your miles are not with TP, so the ticket would be issued by someone else. TP will probably change their schedule more than once, but you can be fairly sure that EWR-LIS/OPO and MIA-LIS will continue.

No issues with TP intra-EU.

Depends on what miles you have and what award availability there is. You're also assuming that Europe will be open for non-Europeans by fall. It seems that from ABQ, you're best off on star alliance.

You really have 2 options: fly to a gateway city (EWR/PHL/MIA/YYZ/YUL) and then nonstop to Portugal, or connect somewhere else in Europe. Personally, I really dislike the eastbound TATL flights. They're rarely over 6, 6.5 hours - too short to sleep, too long to not sleep. You also usually get into LIS at an ungodly hour and get dumped in to an immigration hall full of other arrivals from Africa and South America, resulting in crazy lines. I would rather fly through Frankfurt/Munich/Amsterdam (you can probably schedule up to 24h there as a connection). You'd get into LIS/OPO later, but you have a bit of a longer flight across the pond, which means you can sleep a bit longer.

Getting to LIS at any time of the day is not an issue. The airport is in the middle of the city and the 10€ uber will get you there in 10-15 min from anywhere in town. At 4AM there is no traffic to worry about.

Connecting to early TATL flights in AMS/FRA/MUC can sometimes be difficult. You can do what you're suggesting or fly via EWR - these flights leave around noon. FWIW that's what I'd choose.

Pjay

Thank you so very much for such a generous message! I really appreciate it very much.

I was wondering about those short gateway to LIS flights, too, particularly as we would be flying across the US to get to the gateway first. You make an excellent point about sleep. We could also fly to LAX and fly to AMS or Paris from there. Air France has one that leaves 4:25 pm PST and arrives CDG at 11:15 am, an 11 hour flight.

DFW (Dallas) has flights to Madrid, London and Paris.

How are these as transit points?

I am an EU citizen, so immigration lines are not a concern, fortunately, though crowding generally would be an issue for sure. I do hope things are more open by fall, but your point is well taken that they may not be as vaccination is not going particularly well in the EU.

I have ruled out TAP, thank you.

Do you like Lufthansa?

Thank you for the tip about the later EWR flights, which I now see, and also about the ease of early morning flights at LIS.

Again, thank you for taking the time you did to educate me.

iamanil

Right now there are a lot of good deals to Lisbon from SFO on almost all full-service airlines -
Example

Pjay

Thank you for the link. Do you have an opinion on Air Canada or Lufthansa?

I appreciate the guidance.

iamanil

Lufthansa(Skytrak 5-star) is better than Air Canada(Skytrax 3-star). Some of the Air Canada international planes are operated by Rouge, which is a low-cost wing of Air Canada which you want to avoid. It typically comes down to schedule - LH leaves in the evening and AC is in the morning, equipment and entertainment on board. If you are trying to stay with star alliance, you can fly on Swiss which has a long layover in Zurich that can be converted to a quick trip to the town.

sushanna1

Regarding getting to LIS early in the morning, there is at least one hotel within easy walking distance and others will be glad to arrange a shuttle service.

Pjay

Rouge would certainly be an unattractive option, so thank you for the very useful information!

Now I am beginning to narrow down the options, with the help of the wonderful flyer talk members.

I had not thought of deliberately seeking a long layover with the idea of seeing a city. Thank you.

Pjay

Thank you. Do you mean there is a hotel at the LIS airport when you say walking distance?

I appreciate the information.

Pjay

What is the consensus here on Air France, which flies from LAX to CDG?

Thank you.

Palal

Rouge is not flying at the moment, at least not to Europe. One thing I liked about them is that their domestic first seats on their 767s were sold as premium economy - cheaper than transatlantic business, and perfectly comfortable for a westbound daytime flight.

Air Canada and Lufthansa are perfectly fine. Really, TATL the difference is not huge in Y. In J - it depends where we'll be in the fall. Service on LH is better than AC in J, but it's not that different. Even UA has decent J service.

Pjay

You are kind to share the benefit of your greater experience. I am very much hoping to use J since it is such a long haul from my location.

Good to know about Rouge 767s.

It is so hard to guess where Europe will be in the fall, you are right.

Thank you again!

LOL at "even UA has decent J service"! Touché!

Kmxu

I fly United a lot. I love the comment about UA's J service by a poster. United;s service is hit-and-miss. LH service is more or less constantly excellent.
With this said, OP should think about the total travel time. The gcmap.com map gives some ideas about the distances between gateway cities; A map from Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper
If everything is equal, I would take ABQ-MIA-LIS because MIA-LIS will give you a decent amount of sleeping time eastbound while the total distance is much shorter than options through LAX and EU's gateway cities.
Another thing to consider is the availability of J award tickets. The amount of miles needed can be very different among different options. If you have flexibility of travel dates, you may be able to get reasonable award tickets.
Good luck.

sushanna1

Yes. There may be more than one.

Pjay

I would never have known about that excellent mapping site without your post! Thank you for making the travel clearer in terms of distance.

I am off to look for ABQ-MIA-LIS flights that are not on TAP.

I appreciate the contributions of everyone here. This is a generous community. Thank you.