Fco Puns

Getting back into award flights again after 2 years and feeling like I'm a newbie again...

Trying to book 2 separate vacations in J from ORD with the most optimal usage of points + cash. Preferably not too much YQ (<$300 pp).

Relevant points: 1MM+ UR, 500K+ MR, 1MM+ MB, 305K UA, banned on AA

Relevant cards: CSR, Amex biz plat

Dates/passengers:

• Greece: May 2022, 2 adults

• Italy: anytime really, 3 adults. Was looking at Jul 24ish - Aug 5 to coincide with SO being out of town

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I think I've got Greece down roundtrip with ORD->ATH->ORD on TK via UA. 77K UA outbound and 70K return + $71 in fees per person. There does not seem to be any saver awards anymore, but I want to go shoulder season for Greece so it'd either be May or Sep/Oct. If anyone sees something better, please holler!

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For Italy I'm having a rough time. The best I can find so far is outbound ORD->FCO on AF 55K + $231.6 pp thru KLM (3 biz avail) on Jul 26, and return NAP->ORD AF 55K + $295 pp thru AF (3 biz avail) on Aug 4 with a 7h layover in CDG. BA, VS and ANA have way too high of YQ for me to consider.

Other than those, I'm not seeing a lot of choices that are listed on awardhacker (not sure if I'm searching AF right because I don't see any AA flights). I guess I can do TK via UA again for ~77K one way but I'm not too keen on using almost 500K UA points for 3 pax roundtrip.

Even with CSR's 1.5x redemption via Chase travel portal I'd be using 154K UR for just 1 way per person.

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I'm willing to reposition within North America but curious if anyone with more expertise can help me out especially for Italy, or better options for Greece.

Many thanks in advance!

Ciao. Second visit to Italy coming up in February. Have previously visited Bologna, Modena, and Parma. American with limited Italian language. I'll be flying into FCO and then immediately heading to Naples by train. I have a few questions about my train tickets.

I'm scheduled to arrive at FCO at 1805 on a Saturday in February. What is a reasonable amount of time to allow for deplaning, luggage retrieval, etc before making it to my train?

I plan on purchasing tickets in advance through Italiarail. I see that the tickets FCO to Termini are "flexible" and remain good for up to 4 hours after the original reservation time. The tickets from Termini to Napoli Centrale are less flexible. If I experience delays and miss my pre-booked train from Termini to Napoli Centrale, regardless of whether or not it costs me more, what are the odds of available seats on the next train out?

If there is anything else directly pertaining to train travel from FCO to Napoli that you feel I should know, I'll be grateful for your advice.

Grazie.

Best way to find reliable taxi services from FCO to hotel (near Trevi)? Is it best to just get a taxi from the airport or book one from ex. Booking.com? Thanks!

I'm going for CO next week, want to get some insights of what to expect.

I don’t understand how the point system for the Top model works. Contestants who do well in a certain season might be ranked worse then a contestant In a longer season. (And I’m kinda crap at math, so I need the explanation.)

There’s no meaning behind this lmao. I just randomly realised.

Any other statistic or fact that’s interesting?

I’ll get y’all started: CariDee and Melrose had the exact same callout average and received the exact same number of FCOs!

Anyone know why there are no amenities shown (power, wifi, etc.) on any of the flights for the A330-300s? Assuming it’ll have what’s shown on Delta’s website linked below, but still thought it was strange that it literally says “none”.

https://www.delta.com/us/en/aircraft/airbus/a330-300

Joanie had 5 FCOs and Dani had one.

In Cycle 15, the main reason Ann won over Chelsey was because Ann had 6FCOs while Chelsey had 0.

If Dani didn’t get that one FCO, do you think Joanie would’ve won for the same reason?

I have the classic bug where POC have white heads

I've tried changing the bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=0 to =1 with no results (It usually works)

Also not sure if it's important, but I'm also running the Enhanced Shaders ENB

Hey guys, putting the final touches on my 4 week honeymoon trip in 2022.

Looking at these two routes since I slept on direct saver SQ space. Interesting thing is, P2 and I are paying/using points to bring both sets of parents along with us as well before ditching them to go to the Maldives. So two questions for anybody who has experienced these two products.

1. How would you compare the J experience?

2. How would you compare the Y experience for our parents?

My thoughts:

1. I am sure both will be fine, LX 2-2-1 vs EY 1-2-1 won't make too much difference to us since I am with P2. Also, since both routes are 2 segs, slightly favor EY since both legs are widebody J. Both are 80k on Aeroplan, EY route might be 75k with AA if I call.

2. SIN-ZRH is 12+ hours, might be rough for our parents in Y. EY route is split roughly 7 hrs and 6 hrs. However, our parents get along really well and we could put them in the 4 middles seats in LX Y, will have to get creative on EY 789s. LX route has only 1 hour layover in ZRH, and after traveling internationally with our parents before I know it can be like herding cats...AUH layover is a comfy 3.5 hours. Both land in the morning.

Hello! I'm flying to Italy in a few days and I've been extended the comfort+ upgrade. I would sooner stay in main cabin since there are lots of empty rows (crossing my fingers for that main cabin lie-down experience), but if the food is better in comfort+ than main cabin I would probably take the upgrade.

Anyone with experience on this?