We're getting close to making a final decision about Fall 2024 travel. At this point we're thinking of 2 weeks in Italy/Switzerland. If I had my choice we'd stick to Northern Italy/Switzerland, but my DS who is making his 3rd trip to Italy in the last 3 months tomorrow (2 for work, 1 for vacation with his DW) keeps saying we need to visit Rome on our first trip.
Anyway, I'm still a little intimidated with finding award flights (Aer Lingus was very simple) and I've been running searches periodically. Today I'm finding the following:
IAD-AMS-FCO on KLM Biz (mid Sept '24 dates): 70k pts + $240/ticket
ZRH-CDG-IAD on AF (early Oct '24 dates):
- Biz 70k pts + $314/ticket
- Prem Econ 53k pts + $230/ticket
- Economy 17k pts + $163/ticket
These are all via Flying Blue and currently there's a 25% transfer bonus from URs. So it's even less pts wise. I feel like these are decent redemptions???? We did Biz to Ireland and Economy back, so that 17k is very tempting (but flight is longer).
Our home airport is RDU and while I did find some random RDU-FCO (via CDG I think) previously on Virgin Atlantic, I'm not seeing anything currently around these dates (could be too soon, but who knows if flights award flights would still be available via VA when it hits their window). My DS lives in DC and we could drive up and either stay with them the night before or just drive day of and leave our car at their house (or add a positioning flight later).
This is a tough one as a newbie for Euro travel hacking. Since I used Aer Lingus/Avios pts that originated in Avios for Ireland and the Aer Lingus redemption chart is fixed (you just have to jump on the seats), this is much more head spinning (along with a 1 way transfer on the points).
ETA: Just picked an earlier date on VA's site and found a RDU-CDG-FCO for 12k pts + $166 which is amazing (yes, I know, Economy) but the Premium and Upper Class are sold out. The search continues. ETA - Again!
I should just delete this whole post LOL -- now I AM seeing Upper Class on VA for 48.5k pts +$289 on another date in early Sept, so no current xfer bonus, but it's from RDU.