My first major trip of 2026 is coming up next month and I finally have everything booked (I think). There are two main drivers for this trip and why it is so chaotic. First of all, I have a 3.5 day hall pass from Mrs. ATX to go out and “fly around to nowhere” as she calls it.
Secondly, a college buddy of mine, the same one who flew six flights in one day with me, had some expiring American Airlines systemwide upgrades that we wanted to put to good use before they expired at the end of February, hence the time crunch.
Booking Flights
We started the planning using one of my favorite travel tools, Google Flights, to hone in on the dates we wanted and to identify attractive fares between the U.S. and Europe on OneWorld carriers. This would be my first time flying long-haul with American since before the pandemic so I’m interested to see how the carrier is doing.
We found open-jaw tickets were our best bet with flights from New York to Milan on the outbound and Scandanavian and Spanish cities to Chicago, Austin, and Miami the best on the return leg.
These tickets ended up running us just over $350 per person, including taxes and fees. After looking at the breakdown of the cost, we paid $11 each for our base tickets.
Once in Europe we needed to get from Milan to Stockholm and had plenty of different ULCCs and legacy carriers that we could have chosen. Ultimately we selected a funky itinerary that combines two new airlines for me in Air Serbia and AirBaltic for $155 per person one way. This should provide some good review content.
Ultimately, I ended up booking the following:
- Delta Boeing 737-900 in Economy from Austin (AUS) to New York (JFK)
- American Airlines Boeing 777 Flagship Business (booked as Economy and upgraded immediately with SWUs) from New York (JFK) to Milan (MXP)
- Air Serbia Airbus A319 Economy from Milan (MXP) to Belgrade (BEG)
- AirBaltic Airbus A220 Economy (Air Serbia Wet Lease) from Belgrade (BEG) to Stockholm (ARN)
- Nordic Regional Airlines ATR72 Economy from Stockholm (ARN) to Helsinki (HEL)
- Finnair Airbus A350 Economy from Helsinki (HEL) to Dallas Ft. Worth (DFW)
- American Airlines Boeing 737 Economy from Dallas Ft. Worth to Austin (AUS)
Our planned routing for the trip is as follows:
With our Business Class flights and OneWorld Emerald status, this will also allow for visits to The Soho and Greenwich Lounges in New York as well as the Finnair Business Lounge and Platinum Wing in Helsinki.
Booking Hotels
We needed two nights of hotels for this trip and, thanks to an awesome Marriott corporate code, we focused our attention there. For our night in Belgrade we booked the Courtyard Belgrade City Center. However, I do have an alert set if rooms at the St. Regis Belgrade magically open up for our dates.
In Stockholm I couldn’t find many options that stuck out to me and, since we had a very early departure, I decided to go back to the Sheraton Stockholm and see if things had improved from our last stay (where the door appeared to have been kicked in and then repaired). For its flaws, it is the closest hotel to the train station and the Arlanda Express train to the airport, which still makes it a winner for a quick overnight.
Summary
My first major trip for 2026 is finally out of the planning stages. A college friend and I are headed out for an insane 72 hours of flying to Europe and back thanks to some expiring American Airlines systemwide upgrades and some dirt cheap fares. This should give me quite a few new products and lounges to review!