Europe plans to open to vaccinated Americans this summer. Greece and Iceland have already done so, but we can expect France, Italy, Spain and others to follow suit.
And with little business travel yet, airlines are selling the front cabin at a real discount in many cases. But there’s an incredible deal right now on United Airlines partner and Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal which has business class roundtrip fares from several U.S. cities to several points in Europe starting at just $873 roundtrip.
Boston and New York, with cities like London, Madrid and Barcelona. Miami and Chicago also enjoys sub $1000 fares to London, Lisbon, Barcelona or Madrid. Shockingly, even San Francisco to London, Madrid of Barcelona.
Departures are available from New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco. And you can travel to TAP Air Portugal destinations (via Lisbon) such as London, Barcelona, Madrid and for slightly more fly non-stop to Lisbon.
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.
- Must issue tickets by May 5, 2021 but the fare could be pulled earlier than that.
- $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
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 more in line with deep discounts we’ve seen from TAP for flights from Europe to the U.S., applied to travel originating on the Western side of The Pond as well.
(HT: God Save The Points)
And this one was communicated by TAP, so definitely going to be honored : )
Why would anyone want to go to Europe. Guaranteed you’ll have to wear masks everywhere and everything will be overcrowded glide to reduced capacity. Until they start living life as normal like we do here in FL, I’ll stay stateside.
I booked the $300 mistake business fare from TAP 2 months ago. It was confirmed but then got canceled. TAP also doesn’t do 24 hour free cancelation, they charge you to cancel it. All in all, I’d stay away from TAP if you are booking speculatively. If covid comes back and Americans cant get into Europe, you will be out of luck with TAP.
This is likely to be a big mess.
So lets pretend Europe allows vaccinated Americans. Right now Europe is having issues with the virus and with getting people vaccinated and will need quite a few months to get a decent % vaccinated.
Now they may open the doors to a flock of Americans (and maybe others). Most likely not all of Europe will be open, restaurants may not be fully staffed, hours could be reduced, ditto for other tourism places, etc. You already have issues in FL and Hawaii with rental cars and/or hotels overbooking.
Then what happens if a country decides to go into lockdown mode and you are stuck somewhere? And if you happen to get sick since no vaccine is 100% effective? I doubt insurance will fly you home. Most probably have exclusions for COVID.
I’ve been vaccinated and would love to go to Europe but I can’t see it working out well. Even if I am willing to go on crowded busses, trains, subways, airports, airplanes, the thought that the cities I am visiting will not be close to fully operational may make the experience rather painful.
I can’t see this going smoothly.
What @Ryan said.
Gone and done. Replaced an entire trip on points with this, now we are earning over 14k miles in A3 spending around $950. A good trade.
Thanks, Gary. Now off to cancel the point-based flights…
TAP was never good on food service. Better bring food. Better just not go for above comments.
TAP cannot be trusted. When COVID-19 started and they cancelled flights, they went as far as pretty much unplugging their phone lines, even for travel agencies. Getting a refund ridiculous, just check out their Twitter account for a multitude of examples. And their vouchers are a complete joke, if they are even processed.
Bottom line: It may cost me more to go to Europe, but I’ll go with a legitimate airline that is around when things go awry.
No bueno. Going on cruise out of Greece in end of sept. Looks like I’ll stick with AA miles ticket.
40k each way in premium economy
Stay away from TAP. I read so many complaints on another site and have my own to add. Booked SFO-LIS for June at $1200. TAP later canceled the flight. I put in refund request immediately but no response for more than a week. On same day they canceled my flight TAP was still selling same flight/dates for $500 more. TAP is not to be trusted and should be removed from STAR Alliance. Ended up disputing charge w CapOne. Bye bye to TAP. F*ck that crap.
I would wait until travel quarantines and the like are more settled, but I would avoid purchasing one of the EU national airlines with cash for a while. You may well have a hard time getting that cash back if anything changes. I had a similar experience with OS pre-Covid, and I can only imagine it has gotten worse. I would only book with miles at this point (which is what I plan to do – once Europe actually opens up, as opposed to its merely talking about opening up, some day).
Interesting Lisbon to London….except that the UK is closed and since it doesn’t belong to the EU any more, it isn’t going to open up. I want to go to Kenya using miles…The only one I can find is BNA/LHR/NBO….I can’t find flights to NBO other than through London using my Alaska miles. I would fly to NY/BOS or wherever if I could figure out a way. I have been told, I can’t even transit through London. 🙁
Would be a nice deal if there’s no Covid-19. It’s still a mess there.
I booked sfo to lis for July @ $1145. My friend tried a few hours after me and the fare was no longer available over $3k now, although economy can be had for under $500. Taking a risk, but hopefully things will work out and the EU opens up