Happy Friday Reader!
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I just booked our trip to Greece, and it's about 90% done. But here's how the flights came together.
After our last trip to Europe in round trip business & first class, my wife and I agreed we didn't want to spoil ourselves with business class both ways on every trip.
We want to be economical with our points and not feel like we have to chase a sign-up bonus at every interval to keep up. So the new rule for us is one way business, one way economy, and maybe a splurge on premium economy if it's available and makes sense.
That raised a fun question: which direction gets business class? We thought back on our last trip and asked ourselves which flight we actually valued more. Did we enjoy sleeping on the way there, or did we enjoy playing in a premium cabin on the way back? We both agreed it was the way back for us. So this time it's economy to Greece and business class home.
Just know that business class on the way back from Europe can be a little trickier. Taxes and fees on departures from Europe tend to be higher, especially in premium cabins, so you have to be okay with the value you get and try to avoid the higher fee options.
For the economy flight there, I didn't want too many stops. We're based in Austin, and there's no nonstop to Athens, so at least one stop was a given. There weren't many options from Austin that I loved, but there was an extremely cheap nonstop economy flight from Newark to Athens on Emirates' fifth freedom route. It was just 17,500 miles one way plus about $123 in taxes and fees.
We booked it through Emirates directly, transferring Bilt points over at 1:1 to get the lowest price.
We were totally okay repositioning for this one because my wife and I make an excuse to go to New York City at least once a year. So we booked a couple nights in the city before our flight to Athens. On our last trip to Europe we did a post-trip in New York, so this time it's a pre-trip.
For business class on the way home, there weren't any good options on a single itinerary from Athens to Austin. So I went looking for the best business class deal I could find.
I ultimately landed on Air France business class from Paris to Boston, booked through Japan Airlines for just 42,000 miles one way. I've talked about this sweet spot before but had never actually booked it myself, so I wanted to see what the process. Which I did run into a problem with phantom availability I talked about a couple of weeks ago.
Taxes and fees were about $290 per person. That would have been worse through Air France or Virgin Atlantic, but Japan Airlines made it tolerable. But to make this deal better I was able to take advantage of the 30% transfer bonus Citi had to JAL so I only used 65,000 Citi points to book this flight for both of us!
We'll need a positioning flight from Athens to Paris at the end of the trip, but we went to Paris for the first time last year and loved it, so we're making a mini post-trip out of it.
We'll land early, spend a whole day there, and fly out the next day. I'm excited to try Air France business class, since I hear it's one of the better options between the U.S. and Europe.
The original plan was to end up in New York for one more day before heading home, but we ended up in Boston because of availability and the phantom award space I talked about in a previous issue. We figured it out, though. We'll stay the night in Boston and fly home the next day.
In the meantime I'll set up an award alert for something from Athens to Austin that's a little less convoluted. But if nothing opens up, this is a perfectly reasonable way (for me) to experience business class for 42,000 miles.
And how did I know where to look for these sweet spots in the first place? I used my Sweet Spot Explorer, which lets you search for these exact kinds of deals. It's part of The Redemption System, where I also walk through how sweet spot hunting works so you can find them for your own trips.
But I'm scheming on what to work on next, remind me:
| What area are you struggling most with points and miles? |
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