Questions and Answers

Hi,

I’m trying to plan a trip to Athens/Santorini in early July 2016 for a week and then head to Iceland for another week before I return home to the US. I plan on flying out of JFK or another New York area airport and then heading to Greece first. The itinerary isn’t planned yet so I could do Iceland or Greece first.

I have roughly 180K Chase UR points and will have another 50K Avios in a few months. I’m not sure which airline(s) to pick for my flights, but I’m leaning towards British Airways. I was hoping to avoid paying a lot, but it seems like that can’t be done if I fly on BA due to fees and taxes. Any other ideas on how I can best use my points? I could pay cash for the Iceland to JFK leg of the trip because I’d fly either IcelandAir or WOW Airlines. I’m having difficulty deciding on what to do for JFK-ATH and ATH-KEF. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!

What about routing via Madrid on Iberia? They use Avios but the fees are MUCH lower than on BA. Iceland Air flies to Madrid, so you could fly to Madrid on Avios, then either continue to Athens on the same ticket and come back to Madrid, buy a RT IcelandAir ticket to KEF and then come back MAD-JFK. Since Avios prices by segment you can have as many stopovers as you want or do this route in reverse, going to KEF first before continuing to ATH.

You’ll need to look on BA.com or Iberia.com to see the Iberia flights as AA’s site does not show Iberia.

As MidSouth Skier says routing via Madrid on Iberia could be a good idea that avoids you a lot of taxes/fuel surcharges.

Especially if you get a A330 which has a nicer J product than BA.
[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Iberia/Iberia_Airbus_A330_300.php[/URL]

Problem with IB would be their A340 with angle flat seats that make up 2/3 of the widebody fleet.
[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Iberia/Iberia_Airbus_A340-300.php[/URL]
[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Iberia/Iberia_Airbus_A340-600.php[/URL]

Another option would be to transfers your Chase UR points to United, one way to Europe should be 70K points a person with a free stopover and no fuel charges if I remember correctly.

Not 100% sure this would work, but try Turkish NYC-IST-ATH Stopover with separate paid ticket to Santorini ATH-IST-OSL-KEF with OSL-KEF on SK Plus which what [USER=4]@Lucky[/USER] used when he went to Iceland.

The part I’m uncertain if will work is IST-ATH-IST or if you have to take the stopover in IST.

Just be warned that SK Plus is not J, but a weak Y+ product.
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/08/12/benefits-when-flying-sas-plus-in-europe/[/URL]
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/08/07/sas-plus-even-intra-europe-business-class/[/URL]

If you get the Iberia A330 then that is nicer product in longhaul J than TK, but you would spend longer in Euro J.

IcelandAir on a random mid week day KEF-NYC one way that I checked in Jul 2016 cost about 580$ for the Y+ product that similar to Euro J aka blocked middle seat or 980$ for Saga class aka domestic US first a person. Y the same day ended up at 420$ on IcelandAir, so if doing economy WOW might be your best option.

Edit: Stopover not possible on one-way awards on United, only returns. My bad.

TK NYC-IST-ATH and onward to Santorini is possible on one ticket if you do ATH after Santorini. There seems to be no J service ATH-Santorini?

Then ATH to CPH or OSL. IcelandAir and WOW flies out of CPH, Iceland has 4 daily. Out of OSL the choices become SK, IcelandAir and Norwegian.

SK has 2-300$ Plus fares to both CPH and OSL, booking ATH-OSL-KEF on 1 ticket drives up the price to 1300$ sadly.

And BA also fly to both CPH and OSL if you have avios to burn. ATH-LHR would be Zone 3, LHR-CPH Zone 1 and LHR-OSL Zone 2.
BA Chart.
[URL]http://onemileatatime.img.boardingarea.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Avios-Chart.png[/URL]

Going ATH-OSL-KEF would cost 30K points each using United miles, might be an option if you end up using Avios for the longhaul part. Aegean flyes direct to OSL some days of the week, and connections with Austrian and Swiss is possible. The SK flight to KEF leaves in the morning so you would have to spend the night in OSL.