Hi,

Award travel newbie here. I'm hoping for some wisdom and collective experience from this sub. I'm trying to source biz class flights from Seattle, ending up in Lyon, France starting in June 2019. I'll be staying for a couple weeks and then returning to Seattle.

Obviously, direct biz from SEA to LYS would be excellent if it is a reasonable option. But I would not mind one layover if it saves some money, and wouldn't mind flying economy on shorter legs (e.g., I wouldn't mind the 1 hour CDG -> LYS flight economy if that makes sense) — I just want biz class for the long haul part. CDG -> Lyon on high speed rail doesn't look very bad (2h vs 1h flying) so that could be an option as well, if it's more economical. I've hated all of the red eye flights I've ever been on — can't sleep on planes — so I probably prefer morning departure and limited layovers that add travel time to a long day.

I'm semi concerned about fuel surcharges (or other "extra" costs) — I've heard vague things about them when flying out of European airports, but don't have a concrete idea of what redemptions would have them. They're not a show stopper if the overall redemption value is there.

Transferable points:

• I have maybe a little more than 248k UR (wife has a few thousand more she could transfer) CSR (easy 1.5cpp through travel portal is my fallback option)
• 113k Amex MR (I have trouble using these for anything except for shitty 1.0 valuation via their travel portal, so I'm happy with any >1.0cpp valuation)

Airline miles (not enough to book flights directly, but might help inform where points could be transferred for miles bookings):

• 28k Delta miles
• 8k Alaska miles
• 80k AA miles

Probably not relevant for flights, but I have 126k Marriott points as well.

Thanks for any information and help y'all can provide! It is appreciated!

P.S., if you have hotel / AirBnB / suggestions for Lyon, I'd take suggestions on that as well.

Edit: update: no award tickets are actually available 6 months out at nominal chart rates, so it was more economical (and vastly simpler) to just book via travel portal, get 1.5cpp on UR, and pay the rest cash, which is fine. 2x RT non-stop biz class on Delta to CDG for a little over $6000, of which a good chunk was covered by UR at 1.5cpp. Sure you can get better value if you shop 10 months out and are very flexible; unfortunately, I was lazy about doing this 4 months ago and have pretty firm date requirements. Turns out our plans extend beyond Lyon anyway (Belgium, Paris, alps, etc) so flying in and out of Paris made plenty of sense. Thanks for all the tips and help, but I think I started too late to try and get real value biz-fare award tickets.