I’m a noob and can use some help looking for rewards flights. I have some AA miles and AmEx points. I am looking for business class flights to Europe for summer vacation (June or July 2023). I am flexible with locations and dates, have searched for Italy, Spain, France, and Netherlands. On AA, one round trip ticket costs about 450K miles! AmEx is a 1% redemption rate, costs about $5K for a one way ticket. What’s the best way to search for low cost flights?

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Look up the points guy on google, he has a lot of guides that will help you with best conversion rates for point transfers to maximize point usage

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I’ve had good luck find biz availability on air france (Amex transfer partner)

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Second Air France (flying blue, which is the shared rewards program with KLM (Amsterdam)). Fees can be high but points redemptions are good and pretty solid availability.

Delta is also an Amex partner and you can find biz class to Europe for well under 200k Miles RT if you look hard enough.

If you search for “best points redemption to [city]” you should hit on some solid blog posts letting you know which airlines have the best reward routes for your destination.

If you are trying to go business class, I would just ignore your AA miles. It’s going to be a bad redemption and a bad flight (compared to just about any other business product).

Couple of good routes for Amex redemption that I’ve looked at recently: Emirates Newark-Athens on their 777 or JFK to Milan on the A380.

Check British airways, aeroplan, and Air France routes. If you do find an AA flight that works for you, see what it costs in points via British Airways and you will probably save a ton if it’s a BA rewards eligible flight.

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BA and AA will have the same standard award redemption and AA will generally be fewer points and lower fuel surcharges. AA will also show flights where standard award redemption isn’t available but at higher rates

AA award map tool may be helpful if you are looking to fly using AA miles. Put in your departure airport and Europe as the region.

https://www.aa.com/awardMap/home.do

The best deal I have gotten using AA miles to book a first class trip is from Miami to the Maldives during peak season in February for 70k miles round trip per person (AA on two legs to Doha, then Qatar from Doha to the Maldives and Qatar for both return flights back to Miami). IMO AA first class isn’t anything crazy, but not a bad deal for mostly flying on Qatar Q-suites for 70k points. Other than this, I have never found a worthwhile business or first class redemption on AA.

I search for first class redemptions on various AMEX airline partners to see who offers the best value, but I will admit I got lucky by searching on AA since their redemption is normally horrendous

AA has, by far, the lowest award prices of any US airline except Alaska. Don’t knock it! I’m currently on a 9,500-point AA flight from DC to Jackson Hole—the Friday before a long weekend—that I booked yesterday. No seats for sale for less than $400 for weeks. Standard business class award tickets between the US and Europe are 57,500 miles each way. Applies to AA, Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Finnair flights, though you’ll have to pay (high) fuel surcharges for most of the flights not operated by AA. The key is finding flights with standard availability. If you have particularly cities and ideal dates, I can take a quick look. It may be too far in advance.

The best AMEX transfer partner for US to Europe business class is Star Alliance carrier ANA. Roundtrip business class tickets are 88k points. You’ll want to check availability before transferring points though. Carriers can redeem ANA points for flights between the US and Europe include Lufthansa, United, Air Canada, Austrian, Singapore Airlines, and TAP

Thanks - super helpful

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