# [2011] Frequent Flier Seats from Europe to US



## Judy (May 19, 2011)

Is it possible for an ordinary flier (not Gold, Platinum etc) to book business class award seats from the UK to Florida in June (next year)?  Which airline or alliance would be the best bet? We have enough miles to buy them on several airlines, but not if we have to pay up to the middle or top tiers.


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## MichaelColey (May 19, 2011)

How many tickets, and how flexible are you on the travel?

We were able to get 4 Envoy off-peak saver awards (60k miles each, minus 5k for having the US Airways Mastercard!) to Europe last year, but it took a tremendous amount of flexibility (for dates AND destinations).

If you're just looking for a couple, you'll probably have a bit easier time, but it'll still take flexibility.

If you have enough miles with several airlines, check availability on each.


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## x3 skier (May 19, 2011)

Generally speaking, it is easier on the One World Group (AA, BA, etc) and the Star Team Group (USAir, United, etc). Sky Team (DL, KL, AF, etc) is almost universally detested because of the difficulty in getting low miles awards although I manage to snag Biz Class to Europe every year, albeit with a lot of work. 

I would check One World first, Star Alliance second and then Sky Team.

Another tip is you could fly to any city in Florida and drive to your final destination which sounds like your plan. You could also fly into another state and take a cheap (if there are any more) flight to your final destination. That's what I do to Europe if I can't get what I want directly.

Cheers


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## Conan (May 19, 2011)

The American Airlines website www.aa.com  currently shows good availability including the non-stop from Heathrow to Miami, for the month of March, 2012, mid-week departures only for business class.

June, especially the first half when school is still in session, should be a lower-demand month so I would expect there will be availability if you check when seats first go on sale ~330 days ahead.

For best results, book the departure flight one-way on the day it becomes available, then wait the interval and book the return leg on the day it becomes available.  American unlike some other airlines does not charge a premium for one-way frequent flyer bookings.

AA code-shares with BA, so you may have your choice of frequent flyer programs.


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## Judy (May 20, 2011)

MichaelColey said:


> How many tickets, and how flexible are you on the travel?


 We're looking for two seats.  We're pretty flexible for our travel date - any time after the 9th of June. although this will be at the end of a long trip, so we'll want to get home ASAP.



> If you have enough miles with several airlines, check availability on each.


 We might need to acquire some more miles.  That's why I'm researching now - so when the time comes to book, we'd have enough miles on the airline that's most likely to have availability.


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## Judy (May 20, 2011)

x3 skier said:


> Sky Team (DL, KL, AF, etc) is almost universally detested because of the difficulty in getting low miles awards although I manage to snag Biz Class to Europe every year, albeit with a lot of work.


 Delta is where we have the most miles, partly because they gobbled up Northwest, but mostly because we can't ever manage to use them   (i.e.: I won't spend 45,000 miles for a coach seat on a 2 hour flight  )

If you have any methods and tricks you'd be willing to share about how you manage, with a lot of work, to snag business class to Europe on Sky Team every year, I'm all ears (or eyes, I suppose).


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## MichaelColey (May 20, 2011)

Are you looking for just one way?  That's another problem with Delta.  You can only book round trip.  (Actually, I think you can BOOK one way, but they charge you the same as for a round trip...)

I had over half a million Skypesos at Delta for a couple years, with the same problems you have.  I just kept looking and looking.  Once in a while, I would find a domestic First Class that worked for me at the low redemption rate.  Eventually, I finally found four First Class tickets to Hawaii at the low rate one way and the medium rate the other way.  I scooped them up and emptied my account.  Good bye Delta.  (Delta is one thing Carolinian and I can agree on!)


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## Judy (May 20, 2011)

Yes, I'm looking for one-way.  Sadly, Delta and USAirways are the only two airlines that serve my home airport. USAirways' Dividend Miles seems to me to be as bad as Delta SkyMiles for redemption availability.  Most of the time I end up flying out of Orlando where airfares are usually lower and there's an airline that really does want me to use my miles  (United) But as a result, those miles are dwindling while Delta's sit in my account, where their value continues to deflate.

But now I'm off the subject.  To get two one-way business class award tickets from the UK to Florida, I'll try for One World and Star Alliance.  In that order, or does it matter?   I'm closer to having enough miles on United (especially if CO and UA combine their frequent flier programs soon) because I just booked two business class tickets on One World from Florida to Bali


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## x3 skier (May 20, 2011)

Judy said:


> Delta is where we have the most miles, partly because they gobbled up Northwest, but mostly because we can't ever manage to use them   (i.e.: I won't spend 45,000 miles for a coach seat on a 2 hour flight  )
> 
> If you have any methods and tricks you'd be willing to share about how you manage, with a lot of work, to snag business class to Europe on Sky Team every year, I'm all ears (or eyes, I suppose).



My process is to spend about 10 minutes a day once or twice a week looking at the web site using flexible dates to see where there are low miles awards. I can usually find them someplace in Europe, eventually. They do tend to show up on a random basis. I own a week at the Allen House so my first guess is LON and if nothing is available, try, Brussels or Paris where I can connect with either a LCC or Eurostar but that's just for my specific need. If not, I try any other place to see what I can do.

If I get really bored, I go to Air France and/or KLM and try them. 

Rinse and repeat. 

The final step is _try_ and book the flights. Naturally, this a randomly successful step and likely as not, I get the "Just sold out" message. Of course this is usually not correct so I call the medallion line (regular works almost as well) and tell them what I found. 99% of the time, they can book what I have selected.

For a more involved method, see this link to Flyertalk. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...tive-how-search-low-tier-business-awards.html

Cheers and good luck.

BTW, I spend the ski season in Steamboat Springs.


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## Carolinian (May 21, 2011)

US Airways is often hard to find availibility on its own metal.  What you have to do much of the time is use your miles on partner metal.  US does have one advantage over UA in finding inventory of European *A partners in that US does not do *Net blocking and UA does.

I would avoid DL with a European origin ticket for the reasons given above plus another one not mentioned.  DL is the only US airline that charges a YQ on award tickets, and they only do it on flights originating outside North America.  DL calls YQ ''foreign origin surcharge'' although on every other airline I am aware of, it is the code for ''fuel surcharge''. It adds usually about US$200 or a little more to a round trip coach ticket.  It would add more to a Biz ticket, but OW should be less than RT.

In the same vein, AA is the only US carrier to pass on partner YQ charges on award tickets, so if you book on AA, you will not have this charge as long as you are booked on AA metal, BA metal with an AA flight number, or OW partners other than BA.  But if they book you on BA with a BA flight number, however, hold onto your wallet!  The thing to remember to avoid this fee with AA is to avoid anything that shows a BA flight number.  Otherwise, you will be OK.

Flying from the UK is also going to bring you an enormous government tax, the Air Passenger Duty (APD) originally imposed by Gordon Brown to ''save the planet'' by discouraging air travel.  The APD is much higher for Biz travel than coach, but is enough to choke a horse with either.  It is much higher on TATL flights than intra-Europe flights.  If the UK were my departure point for a TATL flight, which hasn't happened since I took a job in an LCC to another European country, and then take my TATL flight from there.  If you do a connection on the same ticket to a TATL flight they still pop you with the TATL APD, so it has to be done on seperate tickets.


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## Judy (May 21, 2011)

And I already thought that finding an award flight was complicated  
Thank you for the lesson in advanced award travel. I need some clarification. 



Carolinian said:


> US Airways is often hard to find availability on its own metal.  What you have to do much of the time is use your miles on partner metal.  US does have one advantage over UA in finding inventory of European *A partners in that US does not do *Net blocking and UA does.


  What are "*A partners"?  and "*Net blocking"?



> DL is the only US airline that charges a YQ on award tickets, and they only do it on flights originating outside North America.  DL calls YQ ''foreign origin surcharge'' although on every other airline I am aware of, it is the code for ''fuel surcharge''. It adds usually about US$200 or a little more to a round trip coach ticket.  It would add more to a Biz ticket, but OW should be less than RT.


 DH noticed this surcharge when he was running some searches.  We didn't know why it was there, but we were astounded at the high add-on.



> In the same vein, AA is the only US carrier to pass on partner YQ charges on award tickets, so if you book on AA, you will not have this charge as long as you are booked on AA metal, BA metal with an AA flight number, or OW partners other than BA.  But if they book you on BA with a BA flight number, however, hold onto your wallet!  The thing to remember to avoid this fee with AA is to avoid anything that shows a BA flight number.  Otherwise, you will be OK.


 I think it's going to be difficult enough to get an award seat at all.  But if we have a choice, we will definitely avoid booking a flight with a BA flight number.



> Flying from the UK is also going to bring you an enormous government tax, the Air Passenger Duty (APD) originally imposed by Gordon Brown to ''save the planet'' by discouraging air travel.  The APD is much higher for Biz travel than coach, but is enough to choke a horse with either.  It is much higher on TATL flights than intra-Europe flights.  If the UK were my departure point for a TATL flight, which hasn't happened since I took a job in an LCC to another European country, and then take my TATL flight from there.  If you do a connection on the same ticket to a TATL flight they still pop you with the TATL APD, so it has to be done on seperate tickets.


 Perhaps we should consider flying home from a different country. Any suggestions?  Our ship docks in Dover and we were going to spend some time in London and surrounds before heading home, but we could actually go anywhere.


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## x3 skier (May 21, 2011)

*A is Frequent Flyer warriors shorthand for Star Alliance, USAir, United, etc. Net Blocking means United will not show any information about their partners Award Seats on United's web site. Even Delta does not block AF, KLM, etc. except you can't book them directly most of the time. 

My current DL FF return Ticket back from Heathrow did not have much of a tax. Don't know why and really don't care. I do originate in the USA but my understanding it was for any flight leaving the UK 

If you want to go to London, you could take the Eurostar to Paris and leave from CDG, (not the best airport in Europe). Another way is just find wherever you can get a FF ticket home form the Continent, take a LCC (Low Cost Carrier) or train to that location, stay for a couple of nights and fly home from there. 

Cheers


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## Carolinian (May 22, 2011)

StarNet, often shortened to *net is the intra-alliance network of Star Alliance airlines to provide partner airlines with availible ff seats.  UA was long suspected, and finally admitted to a travel writer, that it sometimes blocks seats on *A partners that would otherwise be availible for miles.

One of the oriental airlines gives its ff members direct access into *Net so you can see what is really there.  Many UA flyers signed up with that ff program just for that *A access, so the airline threw in a few kinks so that it is no longer so simple.  There are still ways to do it, however but not flying UA very much I have not tried it.

The other two *A partners in the United States, CO and US do NOT do *Net blocking.  One way around the problem with UA at the moment is that since CO and UA are merging they have set up a system where you can link your accounts and transfer miles between programs.


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## Carolinian (May 22, 2011)

Judy said:


> .
> 
> Perhaps we should consider flying home from a different country. Any suggestions?  Our ship docks in Dover and we were going to spend some time in London and surrounds before heading home, but we could actually go anywhere.



From Dover, you would have some cross channel ferry options to France or the Euro Star under the Channel.  I would also look at the websites of LCC's like EasyJet, RyanAir, BMIBaby, Jet2, Germanwings, etc.  A good place to check overall routes availible is www.whichbudget.com but always booki actual seats online directly with the LCC, not with any third party site that may pop up.

I would suggest Paris, Vienna, Rome, or Amsterdam.  Although CDG is no prize as a gateway airport, it beats the stuffings out of LHR which was voted by travel writers as the worst airport in Europe.


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## Judy (May 23, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> One way around the problem with UA at the moment is that since CO and UA are merging they have set up a system where you can link your accounts and transfer miles between programs.


I wasn't aware that account merging was already available.  That should help considerably, if when Continental makes OW award seats available beginning in June, they cost around half of RT (not 99% like Delta's)


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## Carolinian (May 24, 2011)

Judy said:


> I wasn't aware that account merging was already available.  That should help considerably, if when Continental makes OW award seats available beginning in June, they cost around half of RT (not 99% like Delta's)



http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/apps/onepass/transferMiles/betweenPrograms/signInHome.aspx


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## beejaybeeohio (May 24, 2011)

*Thanks, Carolinian*

This is a really useful link as I've searched the CO website unsuccessfully to try to find a way to do this.

In my efforts, I did learn that as of 6/15/11, CO will allow for one-way bookings as does UA.  This will help for next year's Europe trip, especially if we can book one-way on AA and the other on CO/UA!

BTW, since 1995, we've saved over 8g in airfare using FF miles mostly accumulated by means other than flying!


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## Carolinian (Feb 3, 2012)

matthewZ said:


> [Quote from Spammer deleted - DeniseM]



I would not deal with Citibank anyway, but after this they should be totally shunned by all frequent flyers.  Opening up this can of worms will only encourage the IRS to try to put the squeeze on frequent flyers.  Citibank can get stuffed!!!


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## DeniseM (Feb 3, 2012)

Between post #17 (May) and #18 (today) there were 2 spam posts - they have been deleted and banned.  The link was to a "get rich quick" website.


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