Only enuf FF miles for 1st one-way!

[TMLAalum]

Which would you prefer and why: First Class overnite to Europe or for the return flight when you fly all day back to the US?

[paul929207]

Overnight to Europe. I prefer to be able to sleep during the overnight. Plus when I get home, I don't care if it takes a few days to recover.

[ab0si]

Not even close... overnight.

[greatam]

Did you look at business class instead of first??? May save some miles to be able to travel both ways "in a bed". Just a suggestion.

 

Have you looked at buying miles??? Can sometimes be a cost effective way to get the miles you may need. Or get another credit card for your chosen airline.

[ariawoman]

Def the overnight if they have the lay flats. If it's seats then I won't sleep either way lol

[ducklite]

Overnight, no question about it.

[Globaliser]

For me, I think it would depend on what is meant by "Only enuf (sic) FF miles for 1st one-way!"

 

Does this mean first class in one direction and economy in the other?

 

First class in one direction and premium economy in the other?

 

First class in one direction and business class in the other?

 

Like others, I wonder whether (if it's "first class in one direction and economy in the other") the answer might not be to see whether there are enough miles to do business class both ways.

 

But if it's "first class in one direction and business class in the other", and if business class is a lie-flat (ie horizontal) bed, then I think it's worth thinking about business class overnight and first class on the day flight. You're only going to want to sleep on the overnight flight, and if the business class bed will do the job, take it; then you can enjoy the first class pampering on the day flight.

[TMLAalum]

On CO/UA I have 108k+ miles and DH 83k. On AA I have 73k and DH 61k.

 

So, now that both airlines allow one-way bookings, we could conceivably travel 1st/business each way on each. However, I am wanting to save some miles to travel to South America for a 2013 cruise. We certainly could suck it up and do coach both ways this time but I would like to splurge for half of the journey.

 

Thanks for everyone's input thus far- we did travel 1st to Ireland from JFK on Delta overnite, but that flight was too short to get much sleep, which is why I was thinking the first amenities might be better used during a daytime flight.

[greatam]

On CO/UA I have 108k+ miles and DH 83k. On AA I have 73k and DH 61k.

 

So, now that both airlines allow one-way bookings, we could conceivably travel 1st/business each way on each. However, I am wanting to save some miles to travel to South America for a 2013 cruise. We certainly could suck it up and do coach both ways this time but I would like to splurge for half of the journey.

 

Thanks for everyone's input thus far- we did travel 1st to Ireland from JFK on Delta overnite, but that flight was too short to get much sleep, which is why I was thinking the first amenities might be better used during a daytime flight.

 

First amenities??? Just slightly better food, more booze, more snacks (BA goes overboard on the snacks) and better duvets and pillows. Slightly more room and a little more privacy. Lie flats but those are NOT exclusive to first anymore. NOT particularly worth the extra miles or money, IMHO. You CANNOT upgrade from a coach ticket to first class, so it will be a whopping amount of money or miles to get into first.

 

If it was me, I would buy the cheapest coach ticket I could find that had availability on AA for upgrade to BUSINESS. 25,000 miles EACH WAY to Europe pp and $350 EACH WAY for the upgrade. You have more than enough miles for your Europe trip.

 

Save your other miles for South America. Not only do you get more miles by purchasing a cheapo coach ticket BUT you can buy miles on quite a few FF programs.

 

But if are looking for STRICTLY award tickets in business or first, you need to find availability first. THOSE are hard to come by. 50,000 EACH WAY pp for a business class award ticket to Europe on AA and there MUST be availability. With the miles you have, you are still going to have to either come up with miles or pay cash to go one way or the other.

[zoncom]

I myself would also be concerned about line choice. From my International experience The foreign lines do a nicer, shall we say classier job on Business/first. Luftansa or Air France in particular. Nicer lounges too.

[Babr]

We just bought one-way to Europe on Continental in business class for 50,000 FF each. Looks to me as if you already have enough for you to go business class both ways. You'd have to buy 17,000 miles for DH to go both ways, but that would still be pretty cheap for round-trip business class. If you have time for the paperwork, get a Chase Continental card that gives 25,000 bonus miles after the initial use. That could take a month or more to post to your account.

 

We have watched the availability on a daily basis and bought our tickets on June 15, the first day CO made one-way awards available. Since then availbility comes and goes, but we could still get two tickets if we were trying to book today for our cruise which is four months away. The routing is not direct, but I don't care. I'm on vacation the minute I step into the President's Club while waiting to board a business-class flight.

 

The point is that you can go round trip for 200,000 miles, and you already have 183,000 (or more) between you.