Questions and Answers

I am planning a trip to Italy April 2017. How many Ultimate Awards points should I plan on building up to travel business or first class?

Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to 6 different airlines that fly internationally:
– Air France/KLM Flying Blue (AF)
– British Airways Executive Club (BA)
– Korean Air (KE)
– Singapore Air (SQ)
– United Airlines (UA)
– Virgin Atlantic (VS)

I’m assuming you’re flying from North America over the Atlantic, so I didn’t research routes via Asia.

[B]Air France/KLM Flying Blue[/B]

– 62,500 each way in Business
– 200,000 each way in First

Of course your domestic connections will be on Delta and if they don’t have saver award availability you may have to buy positioning tickets to get to your city.

[B]British Airways Executive Club[/B]

British Airways prices their flights by segment so you can have as many stop-overs as you want, which is nice. They also impose fuel surcharges, which is not.

If you can fly non-stop from your city to London the cost each way should be
– 75,000 in Business
– 100,000 in First

A non-stop flight from London to Rome each way should cost:
– 15,000 in Business
– 30,000 in First

If you have connections within the US on AA, be aware that domestic First class awards (which really should be coded as Business) will cost 3x the price of an economy award.

If you want to look at other options including additional stops, check out Wandering Aramean’s Avios Calculator at [URL]https://wandr.me/avios-calculator/[/URL]

[B]Korean Air[/B]

– 80,000 round-trip in Business
– 100,000 round-trip in First

Like Air France/KLM, Korean Air is a member of SkyTeam so domestic connections would be on Delta.

[B]SQ Kris Flyer[/B]
– For flights on Star Alliance partners
– 65,000 each way for Business
– 80,000 each way for First

I believe SQ has some fuel surcharges though they’re not as bad as some other airlines. And if you book online you get 15% of your miles back. So instead of booking a business class flight and needing 130K points in your account you could book one-way for 65K, you’d get 9750 miles back and then you could book another one-way and you’d only need (130k – 9750 = 120,250 points).

[B]UA MileagePlan[/B]
– Flying on UA planes for the longhaul
– 57,500 each way for Business
– 80,000 each way for First (only on planes with both First & Business)

– Flying on partner airlines for the longhaul
– 70,000 each way for Business
– 110,000 each way for First (only on planes with both First & Business)

[B]VS Flying Club[/B]

– VS itself does not fly to Italy
– Flying on Delta planes
– 100,000 round-trip + fuel surcharges

Keep in mind that if any of your flights route through the UK you’ll have to pay the departure tax that is based on how far away your next stop is. So if you can avoid that it will help keep the costs down.

Good luck!

Hi! I would focus on business class, personally. As [USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER] noted, the rates for First are quite high, and there are only a handful of carriers offering F cabins to Europe anyway.