Europe is opening to vaccinated Americans this summer, and perhaps even to those who haven’t been vaccinated but test negative for Covid-19 in advance of travel. So many of you are itching to travel, to travel abroad, and to visit Europe.
And there are some tremendous sales out there. None have been quite as good as what’s on offer from Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal. They ran a sale for less than $900 roundtrip in business class and the amazing thing is that sale is back, or rather extended. (HT: Joe Brancatelli)
Departures are available from New York, Boston, Miami and perhaps Chicago and San Francisco as well. And you can travel to TAP Air Portugal destinations (via Lisbon) such as London, Barcelona, Madrid as well as France, Italy, Sweden, Australia and even more. You can fly as far as Russia, and Croatia. Or for about $500 more Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal as bookable as well.
You don’t even have to return from the same city you arrive it, open jaws are permitted – so travel around Europe.
This should be bookable at any online travel agency website or on TAP Air Portugal’s website, and you can search Google flights for availability as well, just enter your preferred cities and travel dates.
The fare is $48 from the US to Europe, $184 return, plus a $500 fuel surcharge and taxes. Key details of fare basis JUSEXI8E:
- Saturday stay required
- 14 day maximum stay
- No stopovers permitted
- Travel now through September 15, 2021.
- $250 fee to cancel and refund prior to departure
- $300 change fee, although tickets currently come with first change free if made at least 21 days prior to outbound travel
- Changing the first flight segment will require re-faring the itinerary to current prices at the time of the change
Availability is much better in May and June, but there’s a smattering of dates where fares are this low even after that.
TAP Air Portugal J fares earn 125% of flown miles with MileagePlus, 150% credited to Turkish Miles&Smiles, or 200% if you credited to Avianca LifeMiles, Air Canada Aeroplan, or Aegean Miles+Bonus. Singapore Airlines has easy Star Alliance Gold right now and offers 125% credit, just watch out for their strict mileage expiration rules.
About two months ago TAP did have a $245 roundtrip business class fare which they declared was a mistake. But this fare is a published sale and will be honored.
Perhaps the one warning is that if a flight cancels you aren’t getting your money back. TAP Air Portugal was notorious during the pandemic for only issuing flight credits when refunds should have been due.
Australia or Austria?
TAP sucks, couldn’t get me to fly them ever again even for $800.. let me share a hypothetical. Let’s say you bought this.. your flight there has no issues. Your flight home then gets cancelled at the gate by TAP for equipment. That’s fine and responsible, except they don’t let you know for 8 hours at the gate with no food or water then finally after 10 hours they bus you to the hotel. The next day the replacement flight is full and they can’t get you home for another day but keep you at the airport all day on standby just in case there is an available seat. They are finally able to fly you out on the last flight of that day in economy. When you get home you file a eu261 and TAP agrees to pay after 1 year.. you then wait for your refund that never comes.. was that worth the $800. TAP IS A HORRIBLE COMPANY. This was just an example.
Yea well don’t get too excited about a travel blogger telling you about all the international travel you can do. France is still in lockdown. Germany will be in lockdown likely until at least June. Only 11% of Italy is vaccinated. Even if they let you in whose to say anything you want to see or do will even be open. In the past few weeks the number of global news cases of covid has been at its highest point of anytime of the entire pandemic. Stick to domestic travel until these countries get their vaccination rates up and get their surges under control and keep them under control. Otherwise you run the risk of getting caught up in another surge somewhere, which would suck if you were in the middle of your trip. Unfortunately as things look up for the US this summer that isn’t the case for everywhere.
I’m not thinking of international travel till July at the earliest, and even then, things would have to have settled down a lot before I started making plans. And when I do plan my next flights, I intend to use miles.
I’m surprised no one noted that the transatlantic crossing is on a narrowbody, and business class is actually economy with the middle seat blocked off. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.
@James – you’re very wrong. J on the TAP 321 is a staggered lie-flat setup that is quite nice. I cannot speak to the operational or refund issues that people tend to complain about with TAP, but in terms of the experience in the air I’ve found their J to be perfectly fine at a fraction of the price of other carriers.
Now whether I would book these fares with all of the ongoing uncertainty (countries still in lockdown, things getting canceled e.g. Oktoberfest, etc.) is a very different story.
Meanwhile midwest to California is more than that for business (i.e. first) class….ugh