Now I could keep talking about how to book a trip but that’s already starting to get boring. So what I’m going to do is make a few step by step blog post on how to book a trip so you learn that way.
This one is sponsored by one of the newsletter readers that needed help finding how to get to London next month.
If you sign up for my newsletter I might even help you plan your trip. Link in the bottom of this blog post
First thing we’re going to do is head over to FlightConnections and look if AUS has any flights that go to Europe
BINGO! Looks like we have three direct flights to Europe. London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt
But Luis why are you looking at all 3 instead of just to London route.
Well, for me its easier to get 95% of the way there leaving Austin than taking a positioning flight in the US to like JFK to then take a JFK to LHR flight. But who knows if we can’t find any availability out of Austin we might have to go that route.
To get a better idea of what airlines we’re working with, I have to look and see what airline is flying what route
AUS – LHR
Every day
British Airways (Oneworld)
Aircraft: Airbus A350-1000
AUS – AMS:
Su, We, Fr
KLM (Skyteam)
Aircrafts: Boeing 777-200, 787-10, 787-9
AUS – FRA:
Su, Tu, We, Th, Fr
Lufthansa (Star Allaince)
Aircrafts: Airbus A330-300, Boeing 787-9
Now that I have some basic flight information I’ll head over to seats.aero and input the information
Well I guess its never that easy because there’s no award availability.
I also checked the British Airlines site and once again no award availability
AirFrance website showed some availability for AUS-AMS but for too much at 153,000 miles + $206 in fees
Virgins website showed availability from AUS-LHR for 124,000 miles +$998 in fees
From here we’re going to open it up to the whole US and look at all the flights going to Europe
While there is some availability for direct flights to LHR, LHR is also the devil because those tax surcharges and fees are heavy.
While fees booking through American are $700 for business class to LHR they jump up to $990 per ticket just in fees if you were to book through Virgin miles.
Its not shown on here but a little secret is that if you see availability through Alaska head over to the Cathays website and chat with the lovely people to see if they’re able to book it using Asian Miles
Unfortunately they were only able to pull up economy seats to LHR out of Houston for 27K with about $235 in Fees
Ana wasn’t able to find any business availability but did let me know that it would have been 63K Asia Miles
Some Airlines aren’t going to show up in the search tools so it’ll still take some time to find the right flight the first couple of times.
Going back to the topic of fees. If you want to go to LHR my suggestion is to land elsewhere and fly to LHR while already in Europe as the fees are drastically lower. For example, look at the fees for these business class seats:
MIA – WAW is 70K Aeroplan and tax/fees are $76
JFK – MAD is 90K Etihad and tax/fees are $32
ORD – CDG is 85K Flying Blue and tax/fees are $206
It ultimately comes down to your preference. Would you rather have the convenience of flying direct to LHR but pay $900 in fees or $32 by flying into Madrid and then another $150 to fly MAD – LHR.
After talking a little more, I found out the dates were a little flexible but they had to be there before a certain date. They were okay with positioning flights to avoid the $900+ in fees and only having a certain number of points on their Chase Sapphire Preferred, this is ultimately what we ended up finding.
IAH – AMS for 50K Business class Flying Blue with tax/fees of $206.60
AMS – IAH for 50K Business class Flying Blue with tax/fees of $339.40
While we were able to substantially bring down the prices on the fees totality eliminating them isn’t realistic. He will have to buy a tickets to and from AMS to LHR but they can be found for around $170
And boom it’s that easy!
Just kidding, it did take a couple of hours looking at a airline websites but defiantly worth it if you’re looking to travel in class without dropping 5k on a flight.
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