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;