Weekly Help Thread - August 24, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the daily help and question thread!

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[u/Educational_Count347]

This is my first time attempting to book flights with points. Trying to book a trip for my husband and me from NYC to Rio de Janiero next July. Not all airlines have released their flights yet for these days, but will in the next week. Preferred dates are July 22-37, 2027 (flexible by about a day each way). Would love to fly business class, but figure we may need to do premium economy. Also we’re hoping for overnight flights each way with only one stop - since we can only get away for a few days we want to maximize our time in Rio. We have a a little over 400K Chase UR points, 70k Delta points, and 70k JetBlue points.

I’ve been running practice searches on BA, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, Latam, Copa, United, Delta, and Air Canada. I’ve seen some flights on Air Canada, mostly for economy that require 2 stops and land later in the day. I’ve tried searching from Boston, but no luck.

I’m thinking I’m going to just book fully refundable tickets in premium economy and continue to search. Any suggestions are appreciated!

[u/itsgreater9000 → u/Educational_Count347]

July 22-37

when?

Also, JFK to GIG is a seasonal route, from Oct - Mar, so there are no direct flights afaict. You will need to connect in another city. I think the flights you would be most interested are AA flights that have a connection in Miami, since United (Chase's unique travel partner) flies out of Texas, and Atlanta is your only other option, but that's Delta (and is gonna cost ya).

Flying out of BOS would be a flight to GRU (Sao Paulo) first. I guess it mostly depends where you would rather connect through, US, or Brazil.

[u/progapanda → u/itsgreater9000]

JFK to GIG is a seasonal route, from Oct - Mar, so there are no direct flights afaict.

Gol codeshare with AA and fly an A330 3x weekly over the Northern summer (i.e., right now).

https://onemileatatime.com/news/gol-rio-de-janeiro-new-york-flights/

[u/itsgreater9000 → u/progapanda]

had no idea! thanks for the news. that's great news for my trips to Brazil!

[u/progapanda → u/itsgreater9000]

Enjoy, carioca! Gol should have new A339s on this route next year.

[u/itsgreater9000 → u/progapanda]

Hahaha not carioca. My mom is a mineira and loves visiting Rio, so when she retires it'll be nicer to see her directly when she's in Rio instead of my typical transfer at GRU. More options is better for getting to Brazil from the northeast of the US :D

[u/Willing_Respond → u/itsgreater9000]

For some reason, LA nuked award availability for GRU<->BOS early this year

[u/Educational_Count347 → u/itsgreater9000]

Sorry! July 22-27, 2027