Although it's a word that every non-native English speaker seems to know, beautiful is a very tricky word to use without sounding like a non-native English speaker. There are two main problems: the first is that some of the things you love can be beautiful, and others can't; the second is a question of degree: how beautiful is beautiful?
The most important thing to remember is that beautiful is related to superficial aesthetic impressions that we receive through our eyes, ears and, sometimes, nose. A beautiful girl is generally a joy to look at (as far as people are concerned, beautiful is generally reserved for babies, children or women - beautiful for an adult male suggests a "softer", more feminine look - Johnny Depp could be beautiful, but not George Clooney, who is "only" handsome); a beautiful piece of music is lovely to hear; a beautiful perfume pleases another sense in an equally direct way. A sunset, landscape, garden, building, painting or window display can be beautiful, but we only say a film is beautiful if the photography, scenery or imagery give it a particular visual impact within the traditional parameters of the "aesthetically pleasing". However much you are inspired or delighted by Friday the 13th Part 2, you will never describe it as a beautiful film. The expression a beautiful day always refers to a bright, sunny (maybe warm, maybe snowy) day, not to a day when we did wonderful things.
Since it's a word used essentially for sense impressions, and not for abstract, emotional impressions, we don't generally describe experiences or concepts as beautiful. Parties, meetings, holidays or conversations are never beautiful. Nor do we generally talk about beautiful ideas, suggestions or thoughts. Also, the sense impressions that beautiful can relate to don't, for some reason, include the sense of taste, so we don't refer to a beautiful meal or beautiful cheese (unless, of course, it looks fantastic).
Please note: In all of these cases, there is a much more versatile and useful word that sounds perfectly natural and appropriate when beautiful doesn't: Lovely! Listen: "We had a lovely holiday!" "It was lovely to see you!" "I had a lovely chat with Dave." "Thanks for a lovely evening!" "What a lovely dinner!" "Have a lovely weekend!" "Having that watch engraved for Jim was a lovely idea.." "This soup is lovely!"
Our second big problem is understanding what kind of adjective beautiful is. Generally, we can divide adjectives into two categories - gradable and ungradable. Gradable adjectives can vary in degree and intensity according to the adverb we use them with, like blue, which can be pale, light, deep or luminous, while ungradable adjectives, like black, are... just what they are. Typically, a gradable adjective has no absolute meaning, but can only be defined in relative terms - like hot and cold: we can add adverbs like a bit, slightly, very, extremely to modify these adjectives in a way that we can't with ungradable adjectives like dead and impossible.
An adjective can be ungradable either because it operates on a simple yes/no binary sytem – on/off, dead/alive - or because its meaning is already strong or extreme - whereas gradable adjectives like bad and nice can be pushed up and down the extremity scale, depending on how strong we want them to be (rather bad -> extremely bad, quite nice ->very nice) the words amazing and fantastic already contain their own built-in exclamation marks, and can't be moved or modified. The best we can do is underline them with reinforcing words like really, completely, utterly, totally and absolutely (Be careful! Quite, when used with an ungradable adjective - "You're quite right", changes its meaning from "moderately" to "truly" or "absolutely").
We can see this distinction with neutral and extreme versions of various adjectives: "I'm very hungry / I'm absolutely starving!" (never "I'm very starving"). "That film is extremely bad / utterly appalling" (not utterly bad or extremely appalling). The problem is that not all adjectives fit easily into the gradable/ungradable categories. For example, since you either are or aren't pregnant, this should be a classic ungradable adjective, but you will often hear the expression "very pregnant" as an alternative to "heavily pregnant" (in the eighth or ninth month), although no-one has ever been, as far as I know, slightly pregnant.
Beautiful is another word that really should be ungradable. It is a strong word, a word that needs to be said with feeling and conviction (I am always correcting Italian students who like to say with a casual shrug "yes, it was beautiful" when their expression and tone makes it clear that they just mean "nice"). And indeed, we cannot say "slightly beautiful" or "a bit beautiful"; and yet we do talk about "a very beautiful woman" or "an extremely beautiful stretch of countryside". Beautiful is, we might say, like your flight tickets: up-gradable but not down-gradable.
Final advice? The most typically (British) English way to treat the word beautiful, a strong spice of a word in a moderation-loving culture, is to avoid it where possible. Use nice, modified and graded by appropriate adverbs, and - if you want to be more enthusiastic, but want to avoid melodrama or possible inappropriacy, stick with the safer and more popular option: lovely!
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