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As reported by Mighty Travels, there are some excellent summertime business class fare sales on both Skyteam and Star Alliance from Europe to the USA, with prices starting as low as $1334 round trip. These low prices are available to New York and can be booked through links at Google Flights. Note that Google Flights is also showing low prices to Atlanta and a number of smaller southeaster cities (Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro, etc.) — however, I haven’t found bookable links to those fares. It may be worthwhile to look around for other possibilities if you need to fly into another city. If you need a refresher on using Google Flights, see our guide to How to find great business class fares with Google Flights.
Examples (click the images to go to Google Flights, where you can also change dates and city pairs.
Brussels, Belgium to New York City from $1334 nonstop:
Berlin, Germany to New York City from $1374 on both Star Alliance and Skyteam:
At less than $1400 round trip, those flights would cost less than 70,000 Membership Rewards points round trip after the 50% pay-with-points rebate on the Amex Business Platinum. That’s just a little bit more than the saver economy price on most airlines — and you would earn redeemable miles on these fares. Note that while your flight from Europe to the US must be in summertime, your return to Europe can potentially be later in the year. For example, here is Brussels Airlines flying to New York in July and returning to Europe in October:
Final Word
These fares are excellent. They are a terrific use of points with the Business Platinum card, but are equally great as paid flights. Remember that if you book through an online travel agency (Expedia, Priceline, Amex Travel, etc), you should have 24 hours to cancel for free, enabling you to book immediately and then make plans. These fares are unlikely to last for a long time, so I suggest booking sooner rather than later if interested. Best of luck!