So what I recall about MRs... is they are best for international flights or Schwab cashout
I'm going to be a noob and ask for some examples of how they could get me to Europe, not caring about first/business class necessarily. I get overwhelmed looking through the transfer partners because I'm not familiar with any of them.
Hey there, I'm sure you have already received some good advice, but thought I'd share my experiences booking flights to Europe over the past few years. We go to the UK every year to visit DH's family and had only ever flown in Economy until last year.
For our trip last summer, I decided pretty late to try and book with points. We booked our outgoing flights to London in March for travel in July. Premium Economy seats on Virgin Atlantic to London cost 37.5K each for LAS to LHR (we flew on SW from SMF to LAS). We fly Virgin regularly so we had some points built up, but I also transferred points from Citi TYP and AMEX MRs. We paid $173 per ticket in taxes. It's a good idea to use a card like the Arrival+ or the Venture card to pay for the taxes and then you can erase them with points. Our flights back were a little more complicated because me and DS were flying back from Madrid, but DH had a conference in Portugal so he flew back from Lisbon. Actually, we got a great deal for DH, caught a sale for Delta Comfort for 30K points. I transferred MRs to cover that flight. I had a really hard time getting a flight back from Madrid for DS and I. The best option was on ** changing in DFW (nightmare) for 60K pts and $50 in taxes each. It was March and I had NO points to my name, so I scrambled and got a Marriott card and an personal card, opened some PNC accts to quickly meet the MSRs, and had the flights booked by the end of May. Phew, that was stressful, but it worked, lol!
For this summer, we had a full year to plan. DH has a conference in Amsterdam, so he's flying out a week before us. He's flying into Paris CDG and then will take the train to Brussels to meet up with some friends, and then DS and I will fly into Amsterdam and meet him there. We booked all our flights via Virgin Atlantic in Delta One business class lie-flat seats. We got a SMOKIN' deal...50K pts each, but we transferred MRs when AMEX was having a special with VA, so it really only cost us 39K miles each and like $5ea in taxes (I think they normally cost 125K one way if booked through Delta). We are positioning ourselves out of LAX. DH's flight LAX-CDG is in Delta One Suites!! My flight is LAX-AMS in the normal Delta One pod, but still looks nice. This is our first time flying lie-flat seats and I CAN.NOT.WAIT! Our flights back from LHR-LAX are regular old economy seats on British Airways for 25K miles each plus $345ea in taxes (ouch). We had a small stash of BA miles and transferred the rest from AMEX. I still think it's a good deal since we would have paid at least $1,000 per economy ticket had we booked with cash. If we had AA miles then we could have used those for the BA flight, but I think the taxes would have been about the same flying out of London. If you don't include London on your itinerary, then you can avoid most of those taxes.
Here's some info on how to book the Delta flights via Virgin:
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/cheap-delta-awards-virgin-atlantic-flying-club/ (I know, it's TPG, but they sometimes have useful info!). If you are able to book a year in advance, then you shouldn't have any trouble getting the flights you want. You will probably need to position yourselves and fly from a large hub to get the best deals.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions! So exciting!