$1,330+ Roundtrip Fares in OneWorld/SkyTeam Business, Europe to USA

Various oneworld and SkyTeam carriers are offering cheap roundtrip Business Class fares from Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Oslo to San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Roundtrips are pricing between $1,300 and $1,600. Travel dates are available in April of 2018 as well as the end of June through the beginning of September, 2018.

This is a really incredible price to fly a flat bed across the Atlantic twice. While most of you aren’t based in Europe, you can space out your flights to make your outbound your return on one trip, and your return your outbound on another trip. Use miles to fill in the gaps for your original outbound and final return.

Contents

1. Fare Rules
2. When are the cheap fares?
3. Mileage Earning
4. Baggage Allowance
5. Best Way to Buy the Ticket

Fare Rules

When searching, consider these stipulations…

• Trip must be at least six days long, or over a Saturday night
• No refunds
• To change ticket will cost 300 Euros

Note that you can also add stopovers in Europe for 150 Euros each

$1,300 Roundtrips in Business Between Europe and the United States

The easiest way to see the cheap fares is on ITA Matrix. The cheap fares can be found for travel dates between April 8 and 26, as well as June 27 to September 4, 2018, between the following cities:

• Oslo
• Gothenburg
• Stockholm

and

• San Francisco
• Washington, D.C.
• Chicago

Once you find the fare, book on the airline’s website or an OTA (OTA’s like Expedia or Orbitz may have slightly cheaper prices) as you cannot book in ITA Matrix.

I brought up the following calendar of prices between Oslo and Washington, D.C. on ITA Matrix by ticking the calendar of lowest fares box, inputting acceptable trip lengths, and changing the cabin drop-down to Business Class.

Make sure you put USD in the currency box if you want to see the flights priced in dollars, or else the results will be in Norwegian Krone or Swedish Krona.

Mileage Earning

Remember you don’t have to credit miles earned to the airline’s program that you’re flying. Here’s how the process of crediting to a partner works.

There are lots of cheap roundtrip business fares available on oneworld carriers and SkyTeam carriers, and the longer I sit here and type the less of a chance you have of booking one of these fares. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who you credit to… wheretocredit.com can help you figure it out.

Here’s one example. If you book a British Airways flight from Oslo to San Francisco with a connection in Amsterdam (about $1,600) , you could credit to Alaska Airlines and earn a 250% bonus for a whopping total of 30,352 Alaska miles!

Baggage Allowance

There are many carriers you could book with this deal. Nearly all allow you to bring one personal item, one carry-on, and two checked bags of up to 70 lbs each for free. 

Buying the Ticket

If you have enough Membership Rewards and an American Express Business Platinum Card, you could buy this ticket by Paying with Points (through the Amex Travel Portal), which gives you a 50% points rebate on all Business and First Class fares if you applied by May 31, 2017. If you applied after May 31, you get a 35% points rebate.

Those that have had the card longer will effectively be getting 2 cents of value per point on all Business/First fares after that rebate. A $1,300 roundtrip Business Class fare between Europe and the United States would be 65,000 Membership Rewards–a complete steal–granted, you’d need a 130k Membership Rewards upfront before the rebate. Those that got the Amex Business Platinum after May 31 would effectively pay 84,500k Membership Rewards roundtrip (and need the same 130k Membership rewards to pay upfront). Still a really good deal.

Not to mention the Membership Rewards is all you’d ultimately pay. With traditional miles, you’d pay taxes on the award as well. You’d even earn redeemable miles as well as elite credits on the trip, which you wouldn’t if you were redeeming miles on the ticket as an award.

If you don’t have an American Express Business Platinum/enough Membership Rewards to Pay with Points upfront, buy it with an Amex Platinum card for 5x earnings. Don’t have one those either? Check out the Best Credit Card to Buy Airfare. More concerned with travel insurance? Check out Travel Protection Benefits of Chase, Citi, & Amex Cards: Comparison Chart.

If interested act quickly, these kind of fares go fast.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards

Hat Tip View from the Wing