One ticket PIT - CDG for September on US Airways. I booked it in January for 50,000 miles round tip (coach, of course).

There were actually quite a few dates available at that time. I was surprised as it is almost impossible to get a flight to Rome -- no matter how far out you try to book.

Aeroplan miles for 2 x Business Class YYZ to Budapest via Franfurt in June. Return via 6 hr layover in Warsaw. We'll buzz into town for lunch.

Also used Aeroplan for one flight to Beijing in Feb.

We'll be using Hilton Honors points for hotels in Budapest & Vienna. That plus some stays with relatives, will make it a pretty cheap 2 week trip since we'll only have to pay for 2 nights in Eger.

Ian

Two FF tickets on American, Ft. Myers - Miami - Madrid (nonstop) on June 2, return June 21. AA has never disappointed us - we plan early, are flexible and an AAdvantage agent can always find us an acceptable routing. Miles are from charging everything (even insurance)on our Citibank Advantage card.

Newark to Cologne for 25,000 miles on Continental this summer. 4 people for only 100,000 miles :)

There were a lot of promotions on this route a few months ago.

We had enough miles for two economy RTs on Delta (50K each) so we're flying IAH - CDG - FCO and the return is MUC - CDG - IAH. We bought my daughter's ticket.

Only trouble is, we live in OKC! When trying to book it (about 315 days out) we couldn't get the leg out OKC. The agent actually said "OKC never has anything available. People seem to snap them up. Everybody seems to want to get out of there!"
H

We have 2 Business Class Tickets from Tampa to Nairobi via Amsterdam on Northwest, KLM and Kenya Airways. Stopping in Amsterdam for a week on the way back.

Booked almost a year in advance but only had to use 120,000 miles each. This is Perk Saver I think it's called.

Duane

Wife is open-jawing an business award SEA-YYC-LHR-IST//CDG-JFK-SEA on Alaska, BA AA and BA. From IST she's flying on Turkish to Tel Aviv, then on Ethiopian to Joburg, where she'll pick up a new round-the-world ticket (actually in Mauritius) and come home via Sydney. She'll use the Paris-Seattle portion of the award when she's finished with the RTW next year.

Arrgh... please please Fodors - put in an edit option... :(

I don't fly in the summer, but my mother is using AAdvantage miles for a business class flight JFK-DUB and SNN-JFK in July. Booked in December. Just came back from Croatia. Flew on AA and BA using AAdavantage miles - and got the off-peak fare of 40,000 miles each! Booked in November. Last year used AAdvantage miles for business MAD-CPT and JNB-MAD (paid for the fare for JFK-MAD). Booked a year in advance. If you want AAdvantage miles, don't forget to use aadvantageeshopping.com for your online shopping!! My miles really add up. Delta and United have a similar service.

Used FF miles for two seats on United! Leaving FRIDAY for Venice and flying home from Rome!!!

can i brag here then?
first, i had united miles and used them to get a trip in june, which is crazy from the west coast. but finally found one-leaving 3rd from sfo to frankfurt (direct), returning 24th from london through canada (aircanada). returns had nothing available.
but singapore was great. they don't fly (other than jfk to fra), but they didn't tell me i was too late (which united and all the american airlines said-i booked in feb), but in fact told me i was pretty early. and asked exactly what i wanted (instead of all these other airlines in which you just beg, hoping to get a bone). so, lax-muc, then muc-ath. i got my own flight to otp (bucharest), and otp-muc-lax. on lufthansa. and it's 50k miles (the united one was also)

Honk Honk -United 2 Business Class SFO to Lisbon, return Barcelona

Honk Honk Last two years flew first class to London and Paris using AA frequent flyer miles. This year had to wait until October to use our miles as we only had enough for regular class to Milan. We love frequent flier miles.

I'm hoping to use frequent flyer miles to fly to Rome on Delta in June of next year for two weeks. Would it be wise to get a one-way ticket to Rome as soon as the 330 days arrives and then get a one-way return from Venice 14 days later? Or is it better to wait and get a multi-leg trip? Thanks!

Going in September and obsessed with using all miles/points possible.

Flying San Diego to Prague (via San Fran and Frankfurt). First class domestic, business International.

Using Marriott points for hotel in Prague & Budapest.

Flying local carrier Budapest to Dubrovnik. Charging on Diners Club, which means I can apply points for credit. Same for car and hotel in Hvar/Zagreb. Flying home via UK first/business.

Needless to say, I travel too much for work. The good news is that I can use the perks. I'll probably save money by taking a vacation!

Should mention that the above is on United and their Star Alliance partners.

I am on United Airlines Mileage Plus award tickets this weekend. Business Class.

Newark>Chicago>Munich (trans-atlantic on Lufthansa A340-600)

Munich>Istanbul (Lufthnasa)

Istanbul>Munich>Newark (trans-con on Lufthansa Privatair 737 All Business jet)

Just got back from Venice on Monday. I bought our tickets last August for $400, had to pay an extra $100 to upgrade on US AIR. 30,000 miles each way per person to upgrade to envoy class on US AIR 767. Can't beat that. Philly to Venice non-stop both ways.
honk honk

2 for 1 tix on Swiss Air from LAX to Milan! (30,000 Amex points) Wonder if I can still try to upgrade us? Honeymooners need some kindness!! :)

Three of us are flying to and from Venice late July/early August. We had only enough miles left on Delta for one passenger; enough miles left on AmEx for another, and we paid $1,100 and change outright for the other person to fly on Delta. Didn't want to waste miles by upgrading; we'll zonk out and suffer.

I have been lucky enough to use Am Ex miles to Delta for the following trips, all Business Class:
Jan 2004 1 to Miami/Cairo 90,000 Alitalia, March 2004 Miami/Puerto Rico 2 90,000 (1st Class), Aug-Sept 2005 2 Miami/Milan/Rome 180,000 Alitalia,
Nov 2006 2 Miami/Rome 180,000 Air France, and am going in Sept or Oct 2007 Miami/Munich 180,000. So far I have not had a problem using them the dates I have requested, you just have to book early.

Too many responses to read through them right now so forgive me if this has been mentioned already. I finally got my AAdvangage miles traded in on a ticket to Europe, but as I'd feared, AA made it as difficult as they could. They balked at my fist 10 dates--yes, 10. I persisted, and we finally compromised. They allowed me to use my earned miles to upgrade to Business on a coach ticket I purchased, but (1) I have to go a month later than I'd hoped--late Oct instead of mid-Sept--and stay two days longer than I'd planned; and (2) I had to pay a $300 surcharge EACH WAY in addition to the cost of my coach ticket for the privilege of using my earned miles.

As soon as I work the rest of these AA miles off, I am switching credit cards to another airline.

London in October....using Continental air miles to upgrade to business/first. Sweet........

I think the key to reward travel is to book early, and be flexible. You can't wait to book a few months ahead. I've never had any luck doing that. Mostly, I buy the cheapest seat, and use the miles to upgrade. Even that has to be booked well in advance.

Before you use double miles with the airlines for business class, check out the First Class options. It will save you miles, and some people say First Class isn't that bad.

The last time I flew Continental, every time the Fasten Seatbelt sign came on, a very loud recorded message came on saying, "The captain has turned on the Fasten Seatbelt sign . . ." Good luck sleeping through that one.

We booked two 1st class to Rome through Continental. It took several calls and we ended up flying Virgin Air and AirItalia. Continental wanted 250,000 miles per ticket to fly in late September, booking 10 months in advance.

Yep! Two coach tickets Portland - Bilbao, Spain, returning from Dubrovnik, Croatia. June 3-26 on United/Lufthansa. 50,000 miles each, but I had to book them last September!! This trip is a loooonnngg time coming!

Well, September, anyway. I'm leaving and returning 2 days later than I'd planned, but the apt. I rent is still available.Picked up some extra miles by paying for another upcoming trip and bought 3000 miles for about $100 (all in). I'll have to start accumulating miles all over again on AA, but otherwise a nonstop RT coach ticket (Logan/CDG)would have been over $1200.

I got 4 first class tickets to London on Virgin Atlantic with AmEx miles. Our final destination is Amsterdam but I thought going through London on Virgin made the trip worth it. It took weeks of searching and stress just to get those tickets, I tried 100 other airlines. We have to leave a day later than I wanted but I'm not complaining.

Honk Honk, just returned from Spain on my Delta - my frequent flyer miles. And the flight from NYC to Madrid was overbooked, so we were bumped to First Class. SWEET

Honk! I used 100,000 for 2 economy tickets to Rome on United. Leaving this Saturday!

Finally cashed in our mother lode of miles--4 Continental BusinessFirst tickets to Rome!

Neil, that must may take a prize. One of the hardest things when cashing miles is getting multi-tickets, so getting four deserves a hand.

Heading to Germany First Class on AA in June.

Heading to Egypt First Class on AA and BA in November.

No problems with either. Gonna be fun!

Question on the long layovers mentioned twice. Each time I've used either my Delta or AA miles we could only stay an overnight not a month like one of the post.

How can we do a week delay with either of the above or their partners. We want a trip Las Vegas, Rochester, NY spend a week, then on to London and return to LAS for next June.

Honk! Two July economy tickets on Delta
Raleigh-Copenhagen, Dublin-Raleigh.
Originally had double connection on
Air France, then flight times changed
giving only 45 minutes to clear customs
at JFK, so phoned and given much better
flights via ATL. Go Delta customer service!!!

wwwmarge, were you using miles for FREE business class tickets (90,000 on AA)? That's what I do when I get those one week to one month "layovers". No, you can't get them if you are buying a coach ticket and using miles to upgrade, nor can you do it if you are using miles for free coach tickets.

And I think there's no way you can do a Rochester, New York stopover with a European ticket. You can only do a long stopover within the US at one of their gateway cities -- and I doubt any airline has direct flights to London from Rochester!

wwwmarge,
You can have one stopover for any length on time on a Delta coach or business class award. There are routing restrictions though as to what's allowed as a stopover as well as a maximum number of total segments allowed in each direction. Beyond that, they'll charge you additional mileage over the standard 50K economy/90K business for US-Europe awards. You could try for Rochester as a stopover. If that doesn't work, you could make JFK your stopover and purchase a separate ticket to Rochester rather than spend additional miles.

While I'm here, I might as well say we're flying to South Africa in September using Delta Skymiles in business class (120K x 2) on a combination of Delta, KLM and Air France.

<i>...nor can you do it if you are using miles for free coach tickets.</i>

Are you referring to AA awards? If so, wrong-o.

Five economy-class tickets, Phoenix AZ, to Paris and back, leaving this July 4, at a cost of 250,000 USAir reward miles. I made the same trip en famille via reward miles last year.

I charge everything that I can on my rewards card, and I buy a lot of my business inventory on plastic. That practice pumps up my miles considerably, and I make a point to book as early as possible. What a great resource...and it's even tax-free, at least for now.

&lt;looking around for IRS infiltrators, not wanting to give the game away&gt;