Questions and Answers

My wife and I are going to Italy in 2020 and would like to fly round trip business class. After doing some basic searching, it looks like it will be at minimum between $8,000-$10,000 for the two of us. I would prefer not to spend that kind of money as I don’t expect to get that level of value out of the experience. Given that we have plenty of time before our trip what would be some good strategies, points or otherwise, to help get the cost down lower or even close to free? Thank you for any help you all can provide.

What kinds of points currencies do you currently have? Will your dates be fixed or are they fairly flexible.?

Where are you based and what month are you planning to go? If based in the USA, I routinely get AA discounted Business Class fares to Italy, on advance purchase (six to eight months out), in the area of $3100 to $3300, a little less than your research. For points, if you have flexibility on dates and can avoid peek season, you can get there on 115,000 AA miles or One World partners. DL has similar redemption ranges. I find that the fall has better availability on award flights in business class. And remember there are three international airports with nonstops from the USA – Milan, Venice and Rome. There might also be a nonstop to Pisa but I believe it might have been discontinued in the past few years. This is a very achievable goal given your time interval. Good Luck!

[QUOTE=”Gia, post: 57833, member: 1566″]Where are you based and what month are you planning to go? If based in the USA, I routinely get AA discounted Business Class fares to Italy, on advance purchase (six to eight months out), in the area of $3100 to $3300, a little less than your research. For points, if you have flexibility on dates and can avoid peek season, you can get there on 115,000 AA miles or One World partners. DL has similar redemption ranges. I find that the fall has better availability on award flights in business class. And remember there are three international airports with nonstops from the USA – Milan, Venice and Rome. There might also be a nonstop to Pisa but I believe it might have been discontinued in the past few years. This is a very achievable goal given your time interval. Good Luck![/QUOTE]
Thanks for your reply. We live in NC and almost exclusively use AA so would probably fly AA or some other one world partner. We are almost for sure going to travel in October. Days of the week will not likely be super flexible, so we are probably looking at Thursday or Friday departure with a return of the following Saturday or Sunday.

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 57829, member: 184″]What kinds of points currencies do you currently have? Will your dates be fixed or are they fairly flexible.?[/QUOTE]
Thanks for your reply. We live in NC and almost exclusively use AA so would probably fly AA or some other one world partner. We are almost for sure going to travel in October. Days of the week will not likely be super flexible, so we are probably looking at Thursday or Friday departure with a return of the following Saturday or Sunday.

The Citibank AA cards all have a good signup bonus, as does the Barclay’s version.
if you and your wife each picked up some of the cards, you’d have a decent amount of miles for an award ticket. You can start looking for award space in Fall 2019.

However, since there is quite a bit of time, I’d recommend cards that earn Chase UR or Amex MR – points are transferable to quite a few airlines, giving you more flexibility when it comes to award space.

The easiest days to get saver award space to Italy are normally mid week – Tues, Wed, Thurs. AA doesn’t always post saver award space when flights open for sale 11 months out. I would look every month however, starting when they first open but my best inventory luck has been around six to eight months in advance of travel. Partner travel seems to open up earlier and stay open longer. Like the guys above mentioned, the signup bonuses on the Citi AA card and the Barclay Card are 50,000 miles each and if you and your wife both sign up for individual cards you’re almost there, point wise. Remember, if you see award space open up you can buy miles if you need to top off.

You are well positioned to get your flights, based both on location and timing.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 57842, member: 29″]The Citibank AA cards all have a good signup bonus, as does the Barclay’s version.
if you and your wife each picked up some of the cards, you’d have a decent amount of miles for an award ticket. You can start looking for award space in Fall 2019.

However, since there is quite a bit of time, I’d recommend cards that earn Chase UR or Amex MR – points are transferable to quite a few airlines, giving you more flexibility when it comes to award space.[/QUOTE]
Thank you!