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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]we are using FF miles but even those tix are "pricey" these days.  :([/quote]

Ack I know!  I had been saving my AA miles to get to Europe, and when I finally had enough and went to book, made an exasperating discovery.  Many, or most really, of AA award tickets to Europe are on British Airways- which charge ridiculous fees. The agent called it a "tax" but I investigated and it is really a fuel surcharge (that most US carriers build into a ticket rather than an add-on like BA).  It was going to cost $1500 for two "free" tickets.  I ended up finding a non-BA flight to there, but we had to use my husband's United miles for the return trip, even being flexible on dates it was tough to avoid BA.  But doing it that way cost us only ~$200 rather than the $1500.  It was really irritating though, I guess in the future we'll have to use the AA miles for domestic and International travel where AA flies a lot of flights themselves (e.g., Central America). [/quote]

Yes! So frustrating.  I used to fly American a ton for work (and had an AA credit card) and have 130k miles right now but it has been so difficult to use miles for trips to Europe.  Got rid of the American credit card a couple years ago and got a Chase Sapphire instead.  We had to do the same thing as you on a trip to Italy a few years ago- I could get us to Rome on AA but we had to use DH's United miles to get back.[/quote]

I was able to use AA miles TO London and from Ireland wihtout many added fees.  We thenflew ryanair from london to ireland, cheap.  It is the fying OUT of london that triggered the karge fees, i think.[/quote]

Flying on BA transatlantic (either direction) triggers a huge surcharge, even if using AA miles.  On the return you also have the UK Air Passenger Duty (APD), which is about $100 in economy and $250 in business.  It applies to all flights leaving the UK, with small charges for short range flights to Europe and the much higher levels on long distance flights.  As stated here, you can avoid the long distance portion of the fee by hopping a short flight to Ireland, but it has to be a separate booking.[/quote]

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