JPG3392

You might want to check on flights to Istanbul, which may require a phone call. Turkish Airways often has lower cost flights, and may also have more award availability. It should be possible to travel between Istanbul and Athens at reasonable cost.

eagle007

Great, thanks. Will check it out. What does O/D stand for? and how did you come across this flight pair - meaning is there some search engine out there that will work through these flight pairs for me? I'm guessing not, but just want to ask how others approach this small feat

Not pithy at all, thanks for the advice. Definitely going to work through those options on that link you sent.

Thanks! Does UA's award search engine automatically pull flights up for all AC flights? I've seen some on there recently... or is there a better way to check AC inventory?

Will def check them out - do you know what the other airlines are that are *A that don't show up on the UA award travel site so I can call and ask about those as well? or if there's a central website that I can try? (I guess see my question above, how do others go about doing this searching)

thanks for all the help everyone!

mahasamatman

Origin/destination.

eagle007

ah, thanks

SmokeyTheBear

I usually find good availability to BRU (from EWR or IAD; not sure about ORD), so worth checking that. Also make sure when you're searching that you go to "Advanced Search" and make it show more than Default or 25 options (aka select 50) so that you get maximum possibilities.

LH had some saver awards (both Y & business) through MUN & FRA as well, so worth a shot there.

Indelaware

I disagree. SFO-ORD-YOW-LHR, for example, is quite doable. Only an hour at ORD at 91 mins at YOW. Adding a connection or two or a longer layer is an easy thing to do. Although some who would rather be elsewhere than flying or in an airport might find it less desirable; that doesn't make it not easy.

UA's search engine (like all search engines) is imperfect. It does a reasonable job with AC, but doesn't come up with all possible routes. Best thing to do is to look at flights out of the various TATL (trans Atlantic) gateways and then look for a way to get to the gateway on the same award. Use the map at http://www.staralliance.com/en/services/map to find all the routes across the pond.

Get the KVS search tool or use ANA's website directly to get better search results not only on AC, but also on UA, LH, LO, LX, NZ, SK, TK, & TP all of which fly across the pond from North America.

Also don't forget you can build in connections up to 23:59 enroute. So in addition to seeing Europe, you could pick up a visit to say, New Foundland, on your way for no additional miles cost. Routings via connections in Mexico are also possible at only a slight additional cost. My last trip, I did ZAG-MUC-FRA-MEX-PHX with 23 hr connections at each point.

Happy travels. If you put the effort in to it and have travel flexibility, you can find that dream trip.