Questions and Answers

Wife and I are trying to plan a trip to Santorini in May of 2019. We have about 300,000 Chase UR points and 140,000 AMX Platinum points. We’d like to send 3-4 nights in Santorini, and are wide open to other destinations for a 10 day trip. Our goal is to fly business both ways, but are wide open to pit stops or other effective ways to maximize points. Any suggestions on the best way to book flights from NC (Raleigh, Greensboro, or Charlotte), to Santorini with a pit stop or two along the way? Thanks!

The best way to start researching your flights is to look for award availability on the longhaul (trans-Atlantic) legs first and build your trip around that.

If you’re not sure where your UR & MR points will transfer, check out Frequent Miler’s Transfer Partner Master list post: [URL]https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/transfer-partner-master-list/[/URL] (it’s old but the spreadsheet linked in it is kept up to date).

Remember that flights on Lufthansa, BA and Virgin Atlantic will incur fuel surcharges and that flying out of London includes a fee based on how far you’re flying, which can be several hundred dollars. Not all airlines will cover that fee.

Also, while it’s great to fly directly back to one of the NC cities, consider flying up to DC or even Chicago if you’re looking for award availability on United since they don’t fly overseas from any of the airports you listed.

As for building in stops, once you find longhaul legs you like, look for connections from there that sound fun – and have good flight times in relation to when you land from the US. Within Europe both the train and short flights can be pretty cost-efficient so don’t worry as much about trying to use FF miles for those legs of the trip.

Once you get a more specific idea of what route you’d like to fly, let us know and perhaps we can be of more help.