Hookm36

I am sending my parents to Rome and Paris for their 40th anniversary in September 2014. I will have approx 200K Ultimate Reward points, and want to get them there in Business class.

What is my best way to book the flights ? United ? The goal is to fly from Houston/DFW to either Rome or Paris, and spend time in each of the 2 cities, then fly back. I am open to departing and arriving in any other US City's, and I look forward to any advice and help.

manstein58

United will route them through Chicago, American too. Delta will go through Atlanta. Of those three, Delta has best business class

fieldeng

Of the 3, United will probably be the easiest to find business class award space for the amount of points you are willing to spend.

eefor jfp

Chase transfers to UA (Star Alliance) and BA (oneworld). On UA you can get tickets on UA, LX, LH, OS, SK and various other European airlines as well as on US for a little while longer. BA miles can be used on AA, IB and a few other carriers. BA has huge fuel surcharges on biz class transatlantic tickets but they generally have good availability. UA has lower surcharges but poorer availability. If they are leaving from an international gateway, use the airlines that go from there to Europe direct. (So if they live in Miami, then both LH and LX have direct flights to their European hubs and then a single connection to Rome). If they have to connect in the US, then it's probably best to try for a direct flight to Rome from EWR, ORD or CLT or one of the other hubs for UA or US or AA.

Obviously, everything depends on availability but generally speaking of the Star Alliance carriers, the best business class seems to be LX and then US/OS (plus LH on the 748) and then the two class UA (bizfirst) and then everything else. For oneworld, I definitely prefer the new AA seats to BA but I think that's just me and I don't know if AA will have their new biz on the Rome flights by next year.

zigzagg900

I was impressed with OS new business class on the 767.

Hookm36

I appreciate the info, however Im not too familiar with all of the abbreviations, and exactly how to book with other airlines. I have read several topics and threads, but Ive never seen "how to actually do it".

What is LX ? and how would I search availability. How do I find out exactly what carrier has hubs in each city ? I have tried googling this, but just get routed to different topics with more abbreviations ! lol

I really do appreciate all the information.

2919scott

Hookm36,

That's great that you can treat your parents to a trip to Rome for their anniversary. You won't be able to book anything until 330 days out so you have time to plan (and get more UR points. Once you're ready you can search segment by segment to find flights but at that point I'd call (at a cost of course) in to United to make the actual booking. Another option is to look here on FlyerTalk and find members who offer a service of finding reward seats and booking them for you at a cost.

From Houston or Dallas your best choice in my opinion would be Lufthansa (LH). LH has nonstops from IAH or DFW to Frankfurt (FRA). You can easily connect in Frankfurt to Rome (or Paris) with Lufthansa. To spend time in both cities you will have to book something like IAH-FRA-CDG for the 1st leg and FCO-FRA-IAH on the return. They will have to get from Paris to Rome on their own dime because the rules won't allow you to have stop overs in both Paris and Rome as part of the round trip ticket. Trains in in Europe are fun, reasonably price and part of the adventure.

Most likely you will originally book something they can live with on United and optimize the flights and times (not the dates) as things draw closer. United charges to make the change but your folks might find the experience on LH superior to United. LH won't release award seats any earlier than 14 days out and sometimes much closer in. But if you already have seats on United, you can change to LH as the business class seats open up.

The good news is that you have lot's of time to figure things out

good luck,
2919scott

vroom

Actually, LH releases plenty of business class seats a year in advance of departure. It's only their first class that appears at 14 days out.

Other Star airlines to consider with great business class experiences are LOT Polish (from JFK, ORD or YYZ) and Brussels Airlines (from JFK or IAD).

2919scott

Vroom,

Thanks for the correction, that's good information to have.

Jimgotkp

Personally, I think the top *A C products to EU from US are: LX, OS, and TK.

If the OP decides between UA and LH since his parents live in IAH, I'd recommend UA over LH. Personally, I think LH's angled lie-flat seats are horrible compared to UA's lie-flat seats.

Kacee

You will have a ton of options on UA out of Houston, which will include flying direct from Houston to London or Frankfurt and connecting to Paris/Rome, or flying to one of UA's other hubs (Dulles, Newark, or O'Hare) and flying direct to Paris/Rome. Lufthansa will be another option, but their seats in business class are less comfortable (though they are in the process of upgrading and this may have changed by September 2014). Unfortunately, Swiss (LX), Austrian (OS), and Brussels (SN) will all require at least two connections (one in US, one in Europe) to get to Paris/Rome, which is probably not recommended for senior travelers.

keisari

Hookm36; Welcome to Flyertalk.

It sounds like this trip is a big deal and it may be a little overwhelming.
I am sure you can figure it out, if you read enough and spend lots of time asking questions.

May I suggest using one of the many services out there that will do the leg work and reservation for you; they usually charge $150 for the first ticket and 75-100$ for the second ticket.
It may be a reasonable price to pay to get the "special" trip just right.

I have NO financial interest in any of them.
You can try a blog called "one mile at a time"
You can contact Ben (the blogger) via email; he responds very quickly. He may also help you combining several miles from different credit cards or hotel programs to get the ideal trip.

I am an avid reader of his blog and have used his service (even though he could not get me the flight I wanted - I had very specific requests and dates).

One thing that my help is being very flexible both in the dates they will travel and with the number of connections. They may need to fly into Paris and out of Rome while you purchase separate flights or train tickets for travel between one and the other city.

Private message me if you need any help

lhrsfo

A couple of practical pointers. I recommend having the longer flight eastwards over water, leaving as late as possible. As I get older, sleep matters more and more, so late departures (nearer bedtime), longer flights (more time for sleep) and later arrivals (nearer my body clock's idea of wake-up time) are all important. Conversely, there's nothing worse than arriving in Paris or Rome or wherever at 7am, having been woken at 6am, which is midnight on home time. You then have the rest of the day to survive, when you are dog-tired and don't have a hotel room to go to. Even if you are connecting in Europe, the same still applies. Personally, I much prefer to travel non-stop to Europe and change there for the above reasons. Also, the seat and service on the transatlantic portion of the flight will be far superior to the seat on the domestic US or intra-Europe portion.

The other thing to bear in mind is that distances in Europe are small, so connecting flights will rarely be more than about 60 minutes. My guess is that, if you are connecting in Europe, you will connect through Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich or Brussels. Of those, I would recommend Munich or Zurich - Brussels is further out of the way and Frankfurt is one of the most chaotic places known to mankind.

Finally, for travel within Europe, the train is often a more sensible approach than the plane. Trains are frequent, fast, often not too expensive and go from city centre to city centre. Planes are so often the opposite.