Unlock Business Class to Italy: Maximize Credit Card Points
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- Опубликовано: 4 июн 2024
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In this video, we discover ITA Airways, an airline many people have never heard of, and how it’s one of the best ways to get to Italy in business class.
First, we cover the routes ITA Airway flies, and how to earn miles and points to redeem for these flights. Next, we’ll go over how to search for reward availability and redeem those miles and points. And finally, we’ll talk about how to maximize these redemptions, and the in-flight experience on ITA Airways’ different planes.
💬 Comment if you have any questions!
📕 Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:25 What is ITA Airways?
01:05 Where does ITA Airways fly?
02:56 Earning Points
03:33 Redeeming Points
07:46 Maximizing Points
08:37 Conclusion
You’re the only one who actually goes through the process of redeeming award flights. I hope your channel keeps growing.
Thank you thanks for being here!
Geobreeze Travel has some nice walkthroughs as well!
If his channel keeps growing that would mean less award availability 😅
@@acdsfjhuthe number of people that actually take action and book is low 😁
@@MaxMilesPointsis that in general or just for this airline that bookings are low?
Just booked FCO-LAX with VA for ITA. Not too excited for ITA from what I saw online, but at least it’s direct. Thanks for tips Max!
Max is the best travel guy!! Thanks 😊 ❤
Thanks! I snagged 2 business class seats for September next year.
SO helpful! Thank you! :)
Great video Max! I was looking for flights yesterday and stumbled on this. I think I’m going to try fly ITA Biz back from Italy in Oct 2024 assuming I can find availability. It looks like a great product, especially on the new Neo. I found a few RUclips videos and blog posts with reviews. There’s even some availability in Aug & Sept of next year. I put the available dates and routes in an Instagram post yesterday.
Trying to go from JFK to Catania Sicily in October but nothing comes up on Virgin Atlantic for points for ITA airlines
I stumbled upon your IG account 3 days and I find your content on point 😄So you got a new subscriber from Canada 🇨🇦 Keep doing your amazing work 👏🏿
Damn max! This is a phenomenal video. Well done! I’ll be flying this in 20 some days
Thanks man, have fun on the flight
Great Video! I'm actually planning a trip next April. If there is no award availability for the day I am travel, is there a chance more dates will be released later on? Is there other options on award flights from JFK-FCO?
Great video!!! Can you do a credit card points to book a flight from IAD to Athens, Greece please ❤
Another excellent video max. What suggestions might you have to book a flight to the Philippines? ...or some other southeast asia country like thailand?...thanks
Hi, Max,
Is there any time we can find more than one seat in upper class? I see only very limited number of upper class seats are available in most (if not all) airlines, and make it almost impossible for me to go anywhere in upperclass with my family. Which airline has good number of upper class seats available for award??
If you could do more Canadian content, Montreal or Toronto, that would be fantastic!
If I try and do points in the US it seems to know where I am and these rewards just don’t exist.
Aeroplan is incredibly difficult to deal with. Your options in the US are much better but are only for US customers.
Tia
How are people finding flights between LAX and FCO? I don't see any availability.
Heading to Milan from JFK on Emirates in business for two weeks.
Is there a way to be notified of the next time Virgin Atlantic will have the 30% point promotion?
Don’t forget you can just click the menu box close button (x) when the airport code doesn’t auto populate. Type FCO first, then click close. Save a couple seconds.😊 Your videos 👍🏼👍🏼
Good tip! I didn't know that works haha thanks for sharing
I didn't know it kept the field populated. I swear I tried that a few months ago but it didn't work, but maybe I didn't do it correctly. That definitely helps if so. I hate dealing with that site. Would rather deal with the stupid date picker for Iberia (if I'm on desktop/laptop and *not on mobile*) than the stupid airport thing on Virgin Atlantic site.
Hi Max, recent subscriber, love the videos - they’ve been super helpful to me as I’ve just begun looking into the process for using my credit card points with transfer partners. I might be missing something here, but wouldn’t you need to transfer roughly 77,000 points with the 30% bonus to book the LAX/SFO flight to Rome? My understanding of the 30% bonus was that you get 30% more on your points when you transfer, not that the flight rate would be 30% off. Thanks again! 8:32
Oopps you're right math error on that one 😅 thanks for catching that! 77k is the correct number there
I transferred 58k CITI points and made this redemption last week
Lmao I literally am planning an Italy trip needing JFK to FCO this week 👏 I’d sub again if I ciuld
Hope you find the award availability for the dates you're looking for!
I just booked 80k virgin points plus $50 tax from madrid-Rome-jfk for Feb flight
that thumbnail image is so good looking I want to hang it on my wall as art
Hahah thanks man!
I was trying to book JFK to Rome, there is not one flight that shows up being operated by IT regardless of the seat class. Am I doing something wrong?
Can you do a video comparing the new venture x business card vs Amex plat business? I’m also still trying to find out if having an Amex business platinum card will disqualify you from gold bonus if you’ve never had a personal platinum card. Thanks!
Having the Amex Business Platinum will not disqualify you from earning the bonus on the personal Amex Gold
One thing to note is that ITA may not be bookable through Virgin Atlantic soon since it's in the process of being acquired by Lufthansa, moving it from SkyTeam to Star Alliance. I was looking for JFK-FCO for September next year and didn't see anything past Aug 14th
Enjoy it while it last. But i do think the process of ITA moving from Skyteam to Star Alliance will take years not months so we should be good for now (hopefully)
That’s because no award seats have been released for the later dates.
This has been my experience so far as well.
Not the case. A lot more seats opened up.
Hello is it for each way? Or round trip? Thank you
One way flights
Trying to go from JFK to Catania sicily from JFK but nothing comes up on Virgin Atlantic for ITA airlines
Hi Max,
I always appreciate your valuable information!
I have a question. I'm planning to visit Philippines from LAX early next year using KAL miles. It seems like I may be able to score Business seat to Incheon, but nothing available to Manila or Cebu. What would be the best way to handle this situation?
Book Round trip Business seat to Incheon and purchase round trip ticket to Philippines from Incheon with points? Or is there some better way?
Thanks in advance!
Yes! booking round trip to Incheon would be the best approach. Then finding a different connectin flight to get to Manila
IMO, it was odd for ITA to prioritize a nonstop to Miami instead of Atlanta, given that the latter is a hub for their partner Delta
Hi Max! Are you someone who likes or is willing to airport hop just to get the award deal? I haven't tried that method yet because I rather try to get the deal from my hometown airport instead. But I can see how obviously getting closer to your destination your route would be cheaper.
Yes! It’s one of the ways to take advantage of award availability and food deals. It’s call a repositioning flight
I just booked this last week using CITI points with their 30% bonus. Wide open availability for peak summer travel next year. Now to find return flights 🤔
Maybe fly back on a different airline or from a different city
@@MaxMilesPoints flying into Rome but may have to use Flying Blue to fly back from Milan or maybe Nice in France.
@@padhatam Wife and I used Lifemiles to do that same haul home to US from FCO back in February. I cobbled the entire trip together within 4 days before departure, though. What I noticed is that LifeMiles and Miles & Smiles (Turkish Airlines) will open up availability more within a week of departure. You also may want to check out Flying Blue. Right now they're having a Fire sale on Europe/US transatlantic flights. We just redeemed two business class on Air France LIS > CDG > ORD for like...88k combined (each ticket costing 44k miles with about 260 or 290 in taxes and fees, each). There's even better deals to be found if you're super flexible on dates (same itinerary just different dates) can be as low as 50k before the 1.25x transfer bonus [40k pts] for Chase Ultimate Rewards and places like MRS or NCE as low as 42750 before transfer bonus [34200pts]. It's freaking crazy right now. Also, Avianca has 30% transfer bonus with Citi TY points, and yesterday was their last day of 235% bonus if you buy points. I priced out two business class from ORD > FRA > LIS for 63k points each with about $30 in taxes and fees if I just bought their points: which would be about $1800 for two J Class tickets ORD > FRA> LIS.
The cash equivalent of the same flight is $7500/ticket. If you flew TK cash for their equivalent: ORD > IST > LIS it would cost roughly $3700/ticket, so you're already getting 75% discount with that Avianca sale versus a cash ticket. They also tend to release availability nearer to booking, but sometimes it'll be open earlier, just need to keep an eye out. They also have availability for ANA J Class if you don't have access to Virgin Atlantic (not sure why you wouldn't, but who knows?) or AMEX transferring directly to ANA.
You should be able to find return availability mid Aug - Mid Sept to BOS or IAD. Yesterday there was tons.
Please stop sharing these golden tips. You are making it harder for us. 😂
I make it easier for some harder for others 😂¯\_(•_•)_/¯ 😅
8:30 you need to check your math. The LAX/SFO line is incorrect. 30% bonus on 70000 only gets you 91000 points. Funny how percents work!
Yeah I know haha math is hard 😅lolll
How do we know which airline partner has transfer bonuses?
Plenty of sites cover current transfer bonuses I like looking at frequent miler. Google "current transfer bonuses frequent miler"
This might be an off topic question but if you thought your miles would get trapped with partner would you think would be the best? Im starting to think Virgin Atlantic but wanted your input.
It's the transfer partner you are most likely to redeem points with. For me personally I would say Air Canada Aeroplan
@MaxMilesPoints yup... I've had 110k virgin miles for over a year now as I've found better redemptions with Aeroplan and Turkish... my first transfer ever did a speculative transfer to Virgin during a bonus thinking Delta One flights would be easy to book... 😅😅😅
Do you know when award availability is released?
I don’t know unfortunately
Usually 331 days in advance.
i work for this company 😁
I don’t get this…If im going I’m not doing 1 way, I want round trip, that’s 116,000 points. And that’s just 1 person. I’m most likely traveling with my partner, that’s 200,000 points. Not so cheap anymore now.
Most business class redemptions for one way business class is 60k+
nobody said you had to fly J class everywhere you go. I just redeemed Iberia DFW > MAD > LIS Premium Economy for 2 adults and an infant for 50k plus $500 in taxes and fees (I wanted to save my points for other things so I opted to not use all my points for the redemption). We're flying J Class AF LIS > CDG > ORD for 88k miles plus about $900 in taxes in fees for 2 Adults and an infant, which is 138k miles with $1400 in taxes in fees for 2 Adults and an infant, round trip in PE and J Class on one of the best J Class airlines out there. The Cash equivalent of all that would be about $12,000 dollars. That means I've averaged about $0.08/point, which is significantly greater than the presumed $0.01/point to $0.02/point you get through the Credit Card travel portals using points for flights.
Another tip is to use Economy or Premium Economy on the way back since most flights DEPARTING USA are more expensive than ARRIVING USA. It sucks, but that's just how it usually is.
My wife and I did that for our Thailand/Japan trip last year: OKC > ATL/MSP > ICN > BKK on the way there with points, then BKK > HND (stop over for 4 days included in airfare) > DFW > OKC with cash. Both Premium Economy. OKC > BKK was points with SkyTeam. BKK > OKC was cash with JAL. JAL cash price was $1200/ticket, but included access to Sakura Business Class Lounge in HND/NRT. We have Priority Pass with C1VX/CSR for BKK lounge access, as well as DFW (before C1 lounge was open, unfortunately).
I also priced Round trip PE with JAL BKK > OKC (same itinerary as above) which comes out to about $2k/ticket, but round trip originating in OKC > BKK (same itinerary but reversed) cost about $4k/ticket; F*CKING.CRAZY. Americans get shafted so hard on ticket pricing it's kind of amazing we all don't defecate pancakes when flying abroad.
You can also Premium Economy back Flying Blue (AF/KLM) for like, dirt cheap points...20k to about 30k with about $200 in fees for each ticket. Easily a win, Iberia/BA (non-BA flights), have similar value. Life Miles doesn't do PE for whatever reason, which is kinda weird, nor does Miles and Smiles, even if the flight has that particular style of cabin. You should really be able to do roundtrip for two in Premium Economy basically anywhere in Europe for no more than 120k miles and *AT.THE.MOST.* $800 in taxes/fees, but I'd probably try to go with Iberia/BA if you can since they're usually friendlier on the taxes and fees, plus you have the option (assuming the seat availability is there) to really customize your flight and save some points. Or, you can scum class it in Economy for nearly nothing, but I'd probably use
www.secretflying.com for that and save points for a later time. At least with secretflying.com you can find ultra cheap scum class tickets and allocate the miles to whatever your preferred, relevant program is and have more for a later time along with CC spend. Just pick/choose your battles, bro.
none of this works on the virgin Atlantic site for me
try different dates, different months
Has to be Rome -jfk and weekdays
This doesn't seem to work anymore.
Air France does 25k miles + $85
Economy is different from business class. The video is about business class
I know 😂😂😂 business class only
It’s ITA not I T A
Thanks!