The best ways to fly to Europe on points, ranked by what you actually pay

Which program prices Europe most cheaply?

Every transatlantic redemption comes down to the same two numbers: the points, and the cash you still hand over at booking. Most guides publish the first and mention the second. The second is what decides the ranking.

The surcharge trap, with the arithmetic

The single most expensive misunderstanding in transatlantic award travel is treating the points price as the price. Here is the same crossing, priced three ways.

The rule that falls out of this is simple enough to memorize: before you compare two award prices, subtract the cash due from the cash fare. A program that charges more points and no surcharge usually beats a program that charges fewer points and $600.

Which partners carry surcharges is a property of the program, not the airline. Aeroplan passes Lufthansa’s surcharges through; LifeMiles, booking the identical Lufthansa seat, does not. That is why a serious transatlantic search prices the same itinerary in at least two programs before anything moves.

How to position yourself for cheaper space

Most transatlantic award charts price by region, not by airport, which makes your departure city a variable rather than a constraint.

Move the gateway. New York, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and Toronto usually price identically in a region-based chart. If the space is out of Boston and you live in Atlanta, a cheap domestic cash ticket to Boston is frequently cheaper than the extra points a worse routing would cost — and it is far cheaper than not going.

Do not put the positioning flight on the award. Keep it as a separate cash ticket with a long connection, ideally overnight. Adding a domestic segment to an award can push the itinerary into a different band, and a misconnection on a single ticket at least gets rebooked — but the extra points rarely justify the insurance.

Use the stopover instead of a second trip. Aeroplan charges a flat 5,000 points to add a stopover of any length to a one-way partner award. Two European cities, one award. It is the cheapest stopover benefit in any major program and it is the reason Aeroplan survives its surcharge problem.

Fly out on one program and home on another. Because one-ways price at half a round trip almost everywhere, there is no reason to book both directions in one program. Take Turkish outbound if that is where the space is, Aeroplan home, and mix business out with premium economy back if that is what exists.

Consider starting in Europe. If you are already flexible, an award that originates in Europe is often cheaper and better-stocked than the same route eastbound, and European carriers release more space out of their own hubs.

How far ahead should you look?

Three windows matter, and they are not equally useful.

Schedule open, roughly 330 to 360 days out. This is when the largest single release of partner award space happens, and it is the only reliable way to get two or more business seats together on a summer date. If you are traveling with family in July, this is not one option among several — it is the plan.

The shoulder months, October to April. Space that would be gone in a day in June sits available for weeks in February. If your dates are movable at all, moving them out of summer is worth more than any search technique on this site.

The final fortnight. Airlines release unsold premium seats into award inventory in the last two weeks. This window is genuinely good — sometimes the best of the three — but it belongs to people who can leave on a Tuesday with ten days’ notice, not to a family with fixed dates.

The months in between are the thin part, and understanding that saves a great deal of fruitless searching. Our availability guide has the per-carrier release table and the alerting setup for the flights that only open at three in the morning.

Should you use points for economy at all?

Often not, and being honest about that is more useful than another list of chart prices. A transatlantic economy fare in the shoulder season is cheap in absolute terms, which means the value a redemption can create is capped at something small.

The pattern is consistent: points are worth most when the cash fare is at its most unreasonable. Peak summer, a school holiday, a last-minute funeral, a sold-out week in a conference city — those are the moments a fixed chart earns its keep. A cheap February fare is not one of them.

Which cards get points into the right programs

The transatlantic problem is unusually kind on the earning side: every program in the business table above is reachable from at least two transferable bank currencies, which means a single well-chosen card covers most of the page.

The mainstream route into Turkish Miles&Smiles — the top row of the table — and also reaches LifeMiles, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic and Qatar. If the cheapest crossing is what you are after, this is the currency that reaches it.

Reaches Aeroplan, United, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic and all three Avios programs at 1:1, most of them instantly. The instant transfers matter more than they look: transatlantic partner space disappears while you are reading about it. Current welcome offer: 75,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening^†.

The broadest transatlantic partner list of the four — Aeroplan, LifeMiles, Turkish, Flying Blue, Avios and Virgin Points — earned on ordinary spending rather than on bonus categories.

Membership Rewards reaches Aeroplan, LifeMiles, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic and the Avios programs, and Amex runs transfer bonuses more often than any other bank — which is the nearest thing to a discount on a fixed chart that exists.

For the search sequence that finds these seats, read how to find award availability. For how the transatlantic entries compare with the best redemptions anywhere, see the business class sweet spots. And for the ratios and transfer times behind every card above, see every transfer partner.