It all depends what you'll tolerate, and I hate flying in general, but for the poll, I used to live in Los Angeles for many years, and for me it was one max. to Europe. I did have two once, but the second was a short stop without a plane change (LA to NY to Shannon to Dublin, but I didn't get out of the plane at Shannon).

Those of you who live in large cities are lucky. We live in a smaller town so always have to have atleast two connections.

Just flew to Europe from our town to Portland then Portland to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Florence. The issue is always do you make your connections. Luckily we had no problems on the way there, but going home our Florence flight was late and we had to spend an extra night in Frankfurt. Oh well, atleast it was on the way home not on the way there. You just have to get used to it when you live where we do.

You'd go to LGW only if you let them send you through Dallas. However BA's one daily flight from LGW to BUD is not shown as an AA codeshare (unlike the LHR-BUD BA flights) so if you go via London at all it would likely be through LHR. All the more reason to look for BRU.

When we flew to Europe from Portland, OR, we tried to make the flights only one stop. But on two trips where we got cheap tickets (through consolidators), we had to make two stops (one was Air BC to Vancouver, then Air Canada to Toronto then to Paris; the other was NW to Minneapolis and then another unscheduled stop in Detroit because the originally scheduled flight had mechanical problems). Flights with two stops and the extra waiting time did wipe us out...the first day in Paris was confined to a stroll around the Lux. Gardens, early dinner, and crashing by 9 pm.
The more legs, the greater the risk of lost/misdirected luggage, delays, etc. On both our flights to Paris with more than one stop, our luggage went AWOL...once for just a few hours, the second time for three days.
I would definitely NOT do a trip where one stop is with an airline not affiliated/connected with the other (example, an independent budget airline to the hub airport, then main carrier to Europe). It's just asking for trouble...if there's any problem with the first, budget flight and you miss your flight to Europe, the second carrier doesn't have to do anything for you (and most won't). I'd ticket it all the way through--that way if there is a delay or other problem, it will be handled with SOME degree of customer service.

BTilke, I agree if you try to make the connections too tight. But leaving an overnight stay in there, plus having travel insurance, should eliminate any risk of using a low-budget carrier.

Giselle, it doesn't feel intrepid when I do this . I like saving hundreds of dollars, and even more if there are two of us traveling. But it hardly feels more difficult to take a budget flight than it does to hop on the bus. I do get paranoid about leaving plenty of time, though.

I don't live in the west coast but we also have 2 connections on our trip to Amsterdam- Austin-Dallas-London-Amsterdam. We are using American and I think the London-AMS connection is BA. Luckily we are stopping once on the way back in Dallas.

for susanna- (although I'm not Grasshopper)

Have you ever been thru JKF before?

It is one true nightmare of an airport, with no redeeming factors IMO, & to date in all my travels the only one I refuse to use again. Nothing went wrong there for me, it just felt like a little slice of h*ll, which I'd rather avoid at the start of a lovely European vacation.

AA flies to LGW from Dallas and Raleigh/Durham. All other flights are into LHR.

[BTW, nothing wrong with JFK itself. It's an airport made up of 9 individual terminals. People's experience with one airline at one terminal really has nothing to do another person at another termimnal.]

I beg to differ, rkkwan. I flew AA from Seattle to London Gatwick on FF miles. I don't mean to be a stinker, but I have to get the truth out there. I should know. I did it in 2002. I do admit perhaps things may have changed.

I don't believe AA has ever flown non-stop from SEA to London.

But what do you have to differ with me about? I am talking about now. You can look up AA's timetable like I did. AA flies to LHR from Boston, Chicago, LA, Miami and NY-JFK. It flies to LGW from DFW and RDU.

http://www.aa.com/apps/utility/airpo...Template.jhtml

I hope that link works because it shows a Spring flight going from Seattle to LGW.

Okay, it didn't work. Just go to AA and do it yourself. Seattle flies into LGW with a connection in the US.

SEA to LGW connects through Dallas. You can also connect through Chicago or JFK to LHR. What others are trying to say is that you don't have to fly into LGW. You can just as easily connect one stop into LHR.

Do Alaska Mileage Plan partner awards on AA have to be booked on AA metal, in order words does the flight have to be operated by AA and not codeshare?

If you're allowed to book codeshare flights, then you can ticket all the way to Budapest, either via Brussels or LHR as Gardyloo suggest. This would eliminate the need to book a second ticket. But if you're limited to AA metal, then this wouldn't work.

Fact: AA doesn't have a non-stop SEA-LGW. And it doesn't have a one-stop SEA-LGW either. Only non-stop flights into LGW is from DFW or RDU.

If you look at AA's timetable, you'll find AA81 (a 767-300) flies LGW-DFW-MCI (Kansas City) 4 times a week. But you won't find a one-stop service the other direction. And these tag-on services can change all the time. Maybe it was SEA few months ago, but now it's Kansas City few times a week. Maybe it'll be San Francisco later on. Little consequences, as it's still one more flight.

[BTW, it's good that AA doesn't play this kind of "one-stop" game. Not true on UA or CO or NW. Most of those flights require a change of plane, so absolutely no difference from a connecting flight.]

Suzanna, I've connected at JFK coming from London on United and it wasn't bad. All United flights are in the same terminal. I connected coming and going on my trip on United to Rome last year and it was miserable because I had to walk to another terminal and go through a long line at security. JFK also has more traffic, longest queing waits and more weather delays.

Let's avoid any arguments here, okay?

Giselle, the only nonstop service from Seattle to London is on BA. If you only want to spend 40K AS miles to get to Europe, then you have to ride on an AA ticket. Yes, codeshares are allowed, but AA has no codeshare partners that run nonstops from Seattle to Europe - the only other carriers that serve SEA-Europe are NW and SAS, neither of which are AA partners. BA is a partner except for transatlantic service to London, where they are competitors with AA. Your AS miles would allow you to ride on either BA or NW from Seattle to LHR or AMS respectively, and from there to BUD, but both require 50K miles in the low season if there is one. So AA it is.

AA flies to ORD, JFK, STL and DFW from SEA. Period. However, your award ticket <i>might</i> allow a codeshare segment on AS to an AA international gateway that AS serves, meaning ORD, DFW, LAX, or possibly MIA. From LAX you can go to LHR or ZRH if they put you on the Swiss codeshare, which I think is unlikely because of Swiss' pending defection. From ORD you can go to BRU and connect on AA's &quot;new&quot; Euro partner, SN Brussels, aka the Ghost of Sabena. Or you can go to LHR and fly on BA to BUD. From DFW you could go to LGW and then on BA to BUD. You might get put on the JFK nonstop (ugh - 757) then to LHR, etc. Worst scenario is SEA-ORD-Dublin-Budapest using Oneworld Partner Aer Lingus. Unlikely, though.

I suspect it will be either via BRU or LHR and my hunch is LHR, since AA already has a codeshare flight number from LHR-BUD. You may get a vote or you may not. Either way your first stop will be O'Hare.

Call the Partner desk at AS and see what happens. Good luck!

Agree with most of what gardyloo says, but here are some things that you need to find out with AS's FF desk:

You may be able to spend just 40,000 miles on AA to Budapest. But I seriously doubt that you can use a partner of AA, unless it's a codeshare with a AA flight number. That's because you can't use a partner's partner on a FF ticket.

Now, AA has codeshare flights into BUD from three gateways. BA from LHR, Swiss from Zurich, and SN from Brussels. With those, you may be able to spend only 40K all the way to Budapest, but the only way to find out for sure is to call AS' Mileage Plan service desk.

One at the most and that is only if I am in a bind.

I didn't say AA was nonstop to London Gatwick. I said there are flights from Seattle to London Gatwick: those I know of are through Dallas or St. Louis. I know because I flew on these routes. I know because I just looked it up on AA's site.

I called Mileage Plan's partner desk this morning out of curiousity and for my own future reference. I first inquired about all partner awards. The AS rep said that codeshare flights are NOT allowed. Her exact words were &quot;a friend of a friend is not our friend&quot; I thought that was a cute way of putting it. Thinking that perhaps there could be slight exceptions to this rule depending on the partner carrier, I then specifically asked about the BRU-BUD codeshare on SN Brussels and LHR-BUD codeshare on BA on an AA partner award and the answer was still no. Looks like AA metal only then.