Some great deals on Business Class fares to Europe


As I've mentioned before, in spring you can often find great deals Business Class fares for summer travel to Europe. Some years, like last year, they're harder to find, but I just now snagged a June round trip from New York to Berlin on Scandinavian for $2200. It's a one-stop itinerary via Oslo, with the long leg in their new(ish) lie-flat seat on an A330. I bought directly from SAS's website using my Amex Gold card for the 3x airfare bonus.

SAS lie-flat Business Class
$2200 isn't a great fare, but it's definitely a good one. The rest of the year these flights are usually in the high $3000s. With all of the recent mileage devaluations, this flight would have set me back 140,000 United miles. Using the mileage math, that comes out to 1.6¢ per mile when the flight is $2200. Since I'm always aiming for 2¢ a point at the bare minimum, doing this with miles didn't make sense.

Furthermore, I'll earn nearly 20,000 miles for this flight (split between Amex and United), and I wouldn't have if I'd redeemed miles instead of paying. That effectively lops another $300-ish off the price. I don't chase status, but this would also move you closer to your next elite tier and the reward seat wouldn't.

I just priced out several other dates throughout the summer and there's lots of seats in low $2k's – in August there were even cheap seats on direct flights on United and Delta. I tried a few other destinations and from New York it looks like Prague, Paris, Madrid and Warsaw had flights around the $2500 mark. Again, good but not great.

If you've been thinking about going to Europe this summer, you might want to poke at Google Flights for a few minutes and see if you find a Business Class bargain.


June
July

August


I should add here for the nerds that my dates were super inflexible, so I was unable to find any Saver Business seats on a United-operated flight, which would have been only 115,000 points – 1.9cpm at $2200. And since I've had pretty crummy experiences with United internationally, I honestly think I'd rather take SAS with a stopover for 140k than United on a direct flight for 115k…

Also, for the life of me I couldn't get the Amex travel portal to show these fares so I won't get the extra point for booking through them.  




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