Questions and Answers

Hi Lucky and others,

I am getting married in India in early February 2018 and would fly to NYC with my wife with a 2 week stopover (honeymoon) in Europe. I am flexible with flying to anywhere in Western Europe (CDG, AMS, BRU, even FRA, BCN, MAD) from DEL/BOM and after 10/12 days from anywhere among these to NYC all in J (preferred) or F.

I have a large amount of SPG points that I can transfer out to airlines and also have some airline miles(with Etihad, United and an Indian carrier Jet Airways), so I’m flexible. Naturally Air France or KLM award booking using AS miles would make sense with stopover in CDG/AMS but I’m not finding availability in AS site for 3-4 consecutive days for either airlines that would work for me (I have found some availability for both in mid/end Feb).

Question to lucky and the kind readers :
1. Should I use other sites to check availability of AF/KLM and call AS for the booking?
2. If seats are available in other sites, does AS have access to full inventory or partial? and if not available actually, do they open up later? I can wait for 3 months max from now for them to open up.
3. What other options should I consider (happy to connect domestically in US instead of direct NYC from Europe)? Happy to book two separate tickets instead of stopover (which I think only AS offers in one way ticket?).

Thanks!

AS sometimes has less access than other sources but I haven’t heard that being as much of an issue with AF/KLM. Certainly no harm in search DL or other partners for saver space and comparing to AS but you should be able to see most of the inventory. Availability does vary because there is no fixed schedule for airlines to release awards. You’ll probably just have to keep monitoring space. You might also consider airlines with distance based programs because they don’t usually have stopover limits. The problem is that the primary carrier on that route is BA with attendant surcharges.