business over coach back?
 

Hello,
I'm looking for a way to fly business to Europe late this spring with the points I have. Since I only have enough for 1 business ticket I was wondering if it is possible for both my DH and me to fly business over and coach on our return. I can not sleep sitting up in those tiny seats but it doesn't seem to bother me coming back since the sun is out the whole time the lack of sleep isn't a problem....I'm sure there will be some laughs about that...but there it is. Anybody know how to do this and also how to fly into Paris and home from Rome or vice versa? There is a term for that, right?
Thanks for any suggestions.
My points are from Capitol One Visa and are not transferable, however you can use any airline.

The term for flying into Paris and out of Rome is open jaw.

Have you checked with Capital One to see if you can use their points for business class? Even if you can, the number of points required is based on the cost of the ticket, so you'd need a lot more points for business class using Capital One than you would with an airline frequent flyer program. How many points do you have?

I just read your other post on the Europe forum and see that you have 300,000+ points, so roughly $3000 to work with. Where are you flying from?

I have had multiple talks with Capitol One. I have 320,000 points which was enough in 06 for 2 business class tickets but they have changed their terms and they will not budge or honor original contract.
Best I have found for business class is 3100.00 rt which I could do, except for 2nd ticket needed for DH.
Do the airlines allow you to fly business over there and coach home? How do you purchase open jaw tickets? I usually look online at the cheap ticket sites. I'm not real experienced and would welcome any suggestions.

I'm live in Knoxville but it is a small airport. I can get to Atlanta and Nashville easily by car but don't mind flying to larger airports.

Airlines allow you to book business one-way and coach back. How the Capital One issue affect the outcome, I have no idea.

Capitol One lets you use your card to purchase the tickets and then reimburses you with the available points. No black out or limit on the airline choice.

It is true that you can book business class one way and coach on the return, but it is prohibitively expensive. You essentially are paying for two one-way tickets.

I know of no airline or FF plan that lets the OP do as she wants. Closest would be airlines that allow you to upgrade from coach to business using airline miles -- in that case, you could buy 2 rt economy tickets, then use miles to upgrade the US-to-Europe portions. No way to do that using Capitol One points, afaik.

Actually there are airline FF programs that allow you to redeem awards in business one way and coach the other and split the mileage difference. Delta Skymiles is one and I believe Northwest Worldperks allows it too. However, that's useless to the OP.

While you can buy one way business/one way coach, it may end up costing you more than roundtrip business. If you could originate at an airport that's served by one of the all business discount carriers like Maxjet, it would be different. I don't really have any ideas for you.

To purchase open jaw tickets, you can use the multi-city function on most booking engines.

rizzuto - That is definitely not true. On Continental (and I believe most airlines), you can indeed book one-way business and one-way coach and it'll price as about half the cost of coach and business roundtrip.

For example, if I choose outbound EWR-CDG on 1/30 in business, and FCO-EWR on 2/8 in coach, I get a R/L fare for $1,904.20.

Same itinerary, all-coach L/L fare is $597.20.

Same itinerary, all business R/Z fare is $3231.20.

And one can also use miles on CO same way. 75,000 miles for standard award coach/business, compared to 50K for all coach or 100K for all business.

Thanks, rkkwan! I learned something new today. For some reason I thought to qualify for the lowest business fare class, one had to purchase both directions in business. The CO site seems unusual in that it allows you to select different cabins for each leg.

Patty - Well, I'll think there may be times where certain very cheap fare class will have other restrictions, so one may be bumped to a higher one. Which means the overall cost may be more than halfway between coach and business.

rkkwan,
Please explain what you are saying in your last paragraph. Sounds like the terms I USED to have with CO but they will not honor now. I am not 100% sure that I understand you.

Thanks, posters, for the info. I'll check Continental. They were on time every leg of our last trip but I think now you have to go through Philly which I have read can get you off to a bad start.

quinn1 - What I am saying in my very last paragraph is that I cannot guarantee the final cost of booking business/coach will be exactly halfway between business and coach.

For example, that earlier example I gave you. I found the R fare for EWR-CDG and then L fare for FCO-EWR to be pretty much half the difference of booking coach or business. That's good. But at some other situations, they may not let you book the R/L like that, and may have to bump you up to a Z fare for the business outbound and a NBOVU or something like that for the coach inbound. Which will increase the overall cost somewhat.

Still it's allowed, and it'll still be cheaper than flying business both ways.

quinn1,

Is this the paragraph you're referring to?

<i>And one can also use miles on CO same way. 75,000 miles for standard award coach/business, compared to 50K for all coach or 100K for all business.</i>

If so, the &quot;CO&quot; above is the abbreviation for Continental, not Capital One, so you can just ignore that part. In my 1:39pm post, I also mean Continental when I refer to CO.

rkkwan,

I don't know what the letters you use stand for. Got the airports but what about R, L, F and the one that starts with N? Is R for business and L for coach?

Your knowledge and info are huge help.

What airport is EWR and where are you getting these prices? We could add dollars to our 320,000 points and use the one you quoted and go over business and return coach!!!!!

Please let me know how you did that!
We want to go May 14 and return May 31. This is working out!!!

THANKS!!!!

quinn1 - I'm just giving some examples of fare situations.

EWR is Newark, Continental main hub for flights to Europe. I used that to make thing simple, as they have non-stop to CDG and FCO.

The other letters are fare classes. Each airline uses the 26 letters of the alphabets differently. So, don't go memorize things... ;)

For Continental, Z is a &quot;discount&quot; international business fare class, while R is a &quot;deep-discount&quot; international business fare class.

L is one of the many &quot;deep-discount&quot; international coach fare classes; while N, B, O, V, and U are more expensive &quot;discount&quot; coach fare classes.

Again, please don't go memorize these things. I was using them to try to better illustrate the fare class combinations one may see when booking a business/coach combo roundtrip.

Okay....so those prices....can I get that? I was all excited!

When exactly? From where?

to rkkwan,
In your post at 1:20 you said:
For example, if I choose outbound EWR-CDG on 1/30 in business, and FCO-EWR on 2/8 in coach, I get a R/L fare for $1,904.20.

Can or will you tell me how to get this fare? Online or call Continental?

I just looked at their website and the cost I get is 4909.00 per person. So I need to know if you will tell me how to do this.

Same airports with these dates: May 14 and May 31.