Urge ya'll to check out the 50 days prior to the flight business class fares. It is often easier to get one free ticket and buy another for a price not much higher than the lowest upgradable fare. Just a thought.

I must say that just reading this post was an eye opener for me reguarding AA miles.
If I understand right , to fly business class I need 90,000 miles and I am allowed some stopover in different places and can use the multiple cities choice.
Therefore I can fly to Rome, stay there for awhile, take the plane to Paris and eventually depart from that city..
My question is, the flight from Rome to Paris is free of charge, right?
I will be using AA to fly to Rome, and take perhaps Swiss Air for my flight to Paris...
I never used AA advantage miles before..despite that i have been travelling for many years...
Thanks, I could use all the advices available..

With a 90,000 mile free business class award with AA, you are allowed one stopover each way. Or you can do a gateway stopover (say you are starting in Dallas, you can do a several day stopover in Miami or NYC before going on to Europe) plus a stopover within Europe going one way, but then no stopovers on your return.

One thing is that you when you do a stopover, you must do your next segment from that same arrival city. In other words, you can fly from Chicago to Rome, stay there, then fly from Rome to Paris -- but you couldn't fly from Chicago to Rome and then fly from Venice to Paris. You must return to Rome to fly your next segment. Yes that inter-Europe flight is free and it is also by business class. And that flight can be on any One World Alliance partner airline as well.

Now to make it even more confusing. You can fly Chicago to Rome, stopover, then Rome to Paris. Then if you want you could go to Amsterdam on your own. And then fly free from Amsterdam to London for a stopover, before returning London to Chicago. All that would be free. The point I'm making here is that while I said you had to fly out of your arrival city for a "next" segment -- that only applies to the continuation of one way of your total flight. You can start you return flight from any city other than where you flew into.

Did that help, or are you even more confused now?

Grazie Patrick, I believe that I am starting see the lights of the complex world of FF miles..
Now if I can obtain a free ticket, which I believe that it would be mission impossible to get it for August 27 or 28th 2006, I would be very happy.
I read your post about taking your partner for his last trip to Europe..
It is very sad to see a loved one slowly drifting in a world of their own..
I admire your attitude and perseverance in making certain that this trip is going to be a fun one, knowing vey well
what the future has in store for companion.

To add more confusion and options...

If you live on the east coast or are willing to get there on your own (New York, Boston), you could do the following itn, as an example only (NYC-Rome-Paris-London-NYC) with stops in every city allowed, and it will only cost you 80K AA miles for business class.

It's called OneWorld award.

or for 100K AA miles you could be flying in first class on the same itn.

Tanks AAfrequent flyer, but I live in San Antonio, Texas, and I dont have 120,000 miles to spare.

What I was suggesting is that you purchase a cheap ticket to the east coast and claim a OneWorld business award ticket for 80K miles or if you have 100K miles you can go 1st class across the pond.

As I said, these are only suggestions, but from NYC or Boston you could also include Barcelona or Madrid and throw in London too if you want, besides Rome and Paris, all for 80K miles for business or 100K miles for first.