First trip using miles & points

[rockhopper]

First of all, I would like to thank each of you for all the information you share here. I feel like a sponge lately, absorbing every little bit that I can. Of course, it's turning into one of those situations where the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know!

We're a couple in our 40s. We've had a stressful couple of months and I'm looking to book a getaway. We've already spent two weeks in Europe and a week at the beach this year, so not wanting to spend a lot. However, we do have ~20k United Miles between us, ~100,000 CSP points, and two free weekend Hilton nights, all of which will help to defray expenses.

We live on the east coast. DC is the closest major city, and an easy drive if we need an international gateway. This will be our first trip using the points we've accumulated, and I'm so excited about it that I'm paralyzed by indecision.

I would love to go back to Europe, but I really think expense-wise, that's going to be pushing it. Beyond that, I just don't know. If you had that burning a hole in your virtual pockets, what would you do? Hopefully some of your dream trips can provide us with some inspiration!

 

[Matt]

What's your budget and duration for the trip?

 

[rockhopper]

See, I started to put something about that, but it's really so open that I don't even quite know what to put! Say, 4-7 days, up to $5,000 USD?

 

[Matt]

See, I started to put something about that, but it's really so open that I don't even quite know what to put! Say, 4-7 days, up to $5,000 USD?

Wow - that's a huge budget! I should be a travel agent and spend it for you I've got to run now, but will come up with some ideas today.

 

[rockhopper]

That's huge?! All righty then! I guess now we know where I got all the points I have so far, the two trips we took already this year. Clearly I have a lot to learn!

(I'll be honest, I kinda thought my budget was going to get me laughed off of here.)

 

[Matt]

That's huge?! All righty then! I guess now we know where I got all the points I have so far, the two trips we took already this year. Clearly I have a lot to learn!

(I'll be honest, I kinda thought my budget was going to get me laughed off of here.)

I hope not. The whole point here is to do amazing things for as little to no cost as possible. There's nothing impressive about spending money on stuff!

 

[rockhopper]

Agreed!! I love nice stuff, but I love it even more when I don't pay full price.

 

[Matt]

OK here is my starter:

CSP transfer to UA to create 120K UA. EU is 30K each way (Economy) so your combined points = 2 free (barring fees) RT tickets to EU.

Example 1 : IAD (DC) -Rome-IAD 120K plus perhaps $350 fees for two tickets

UA has some neat tricks. Stopovers and Open Jaws. This will stretch your points.

Example 2 for same (slight change in fees possible) price

IAD-Rome-
train to Milan
Milan-IAD
IAD- San Francisco [Free One Way - can be taken up to a year from your booking]

You could also make the final Free one way to somewhere else, such as the Caribbean. That would cost you 5000 extra UA miles, but that is still a pretty cheap flight!

We did this recently, our route was NYC-Milan, Milan-Rome via train, Rome-NYC, NYC- Panama. For Hilton's, we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria in Rome - its OK, but a bit out of the city, requiring a shuttle bus or cab to get in and out.

If you are OK with Coach you can basically fly anywhere in EU, plus you get that free one way - you need to bolt it on anywhere you can in the future - worst case you never take that flight, it costs nothing.

 

[rockhopper]

Clearly I have lots to learn. So far, I had just looked at example 1, but had no clue that example 2 was an option. Could you point me in the right direction to figure out the extra one way (in the example, IAD-San Fran)? What is this free one way of which you speak?!!

Like you said, I've read that the Waldorf in Rome is a very difficult & frustrating shuttle ride away from the city, so I would probably pass on that reason alone. While we do enjoy luxury travel, we don't have to have the best of the best for this trip, if that makes sense.

And shoot, I'm not too good for coach!

Oh, and I should also mention that we're military, as I know sometimes that can make a difference with fares & the like, although I think not so much OCONUS as here in the US.

 

[Confectioneer]

Hi @rockhopper , have you thought about Ireland?

The BOS-DUB/SNN route is a sweet spot for British Avios. You could transfer your Ultimate Rewards to Avios and have enough for 2 round trip business class tickets.

There's a good sample write-up at pointsplanesandpassports.com/booking-a-transatlantic-flight-on-aer-lingus-with-british-airways-avios/.

 

[asthejoeflies]

I'm with Matt. Being Boston based, I love the BOS-DUB flight for Avios but you'd have to get up there. Then again you'd still probably get more "value" than your points.

Getting the "free one way" is pretty straightforward - search for every segment of your trip as a one way. So, using Matt's example, find award space from IAD-FCO, then from MXP-IAD, then from IAD-wherever you want in the USA. I would recommend going to the "booking" page for each segment because sometimes United shows phantom space and you want to confirm the space is real. If there is saver space on all of those flights, your routing is probably legal (I only say probably because to leave room for tiny exceptions).

Throw them all into a "multi-city" search and select all the flights you found - if you get lucky, you'll be able to book them on united.com right there. If it turns out you are in fact dealing with united.bomb, you can still avoid the phone fee. Make sure you're ready to book because you'll have less than 24 hours to complete your purchase. You can also only do this when you have enough miles in the account so transfer them over - you'll have locked in your UR points in United so make sure you're comfortable with this. Do a "one-way" search for one of your segments and then go all the way to checkout. Choose "Paypal" as your payment option, it will direct you to the paypal website. DON'T PAY. Just type united.com into your browser, if you go to "view reservations" you should see your flights held until midnight. Then call United, feed them the other flights you found, and you shouldn't be charged the phone fee (and if they try tell them you tried to book it online and it broke which is why you had to call in).

Phew, that was a mouthful. Feel free to PM/e-mail me (asthejoeflies@gmail.com) if you have further questions.

In terms of where to go, I agree with Matt you can't go wrong in Italy. I loved Bavaria in Germany which we visited this summer, more than I thought I would, it was very relaxing. Or go people watching at cafes in France (or visit Burgundy wine region which is superb). Or eat tapas all day in Spain. I'm not sure if there's a country where you can go wrong in Europe! Maybe Lichenstein but only because you'll be done in a day...

 

[Confectioneer]

Just to put a trip idea out there, I plugged in October 1 on United for IAD-FRA and there's easy availability for 2 seats. Returning on the 8th has lots of availability too.

My wife and I had a really relaxing time in Baden-Baden. It's an easy train trip from Frankfurt, the spas are fun, nice hikes, amazing chocolate.

With the budget you have, you're able to have a very nice time. Heck, save some of it for the 2nd trip you can take with your "free" one-way!

 

[Matt]

Clearly I have lots to learn. So far, I had just looked at example 1, but had no clue that example 2 was an option. Could you point me in the right direction to figure out the extra one way (in the example, IAD-San Fran)? What is this free one way of which you speak?!!

Like you said, I've read that the Waldorf in Rome is a very difficult & frustrating shuttle ride away from the city, so I would probably pass on that reason alone. While we do enjoy luxury travel, we don't have to have the best of the best for this trip, if that makes sense.

And shoot, I'm not too good for coach!

Oh, and I should also mention that we're military, as I know sometimes that can make a difference with fares & the like, although I think not so much OCONUS as here in the US.

You've got some good advice here from the others too. For the one ways:

They are legitimate, just think of them as you are flying from Rome to San Francisco and stopping over in DC to visit friends (for 9 months or whatever) it can be anywhere that you find a ticket from DC-XXX if you decide on a location outside of North America, the rate chart changes. Your outbound would be 30K but if you picked Caribbean on the way back it would be 35K for that leg hence 65K total. Another neat idea could be to make that free one way XXX Hawaii. If I recall correctly the timelimit on that last leg is 12 months from your original reservation, so if you book today for October to EU, you could return to DC in Oct, and then fly out to Hawaii anytime until Aug 2015.

As asthejoeflies mentioned, you can book these online, but frequently the UA booking engine breaks down, the key to finding your vacation is to search each one way, so write down three things:

DC-EU
EU-DC
DC-XXX

Then once you have dates and flight numbers (with departure times) you can call into UA for them to piece it together for you.

You might want to just email Joe too!

 

[rockhopper]

I know I already said it, but wow. So incredible! Thank you so very much to each of you.

I talked to my hubby & he said that if I can keep the budget to $5k, we can do up to two weeks, so YES! And he put in a strong vote for Italy, so that's going to be my goal, if I can make it happen with that budget!

 

[Matt]

I know I already said it, but wow. So incredible! Thank you so very much to each of you.

I talked to my hubby & he said that if I can keep the budget to $5k, we can do up to two weeks, so YES! And he put in a strong vote for Italy, so that's going to be my goal, if I can make it happen with that budget!

Well, your flights are basically free (if you can find the seats) so the next big expense is hotels. Not sure if you can get one, but generally speaking the club carlson card is excellent for hotel stays as it has a last night free(on points) which works great on two night stays- they are tough to get if you have been applying for a lot of cards though.

Not everyone likes it, but we really enjoyed Venice too, and the hilton Stucky there looked nice (we were in the Westin)

You should be able to easily do this for under $5k- but you can spend that on wine and food in a heartbeat too...

For rooms- if points (cards) aren't an option then look at hotels.com (sign up for welcome rewards) and go through a portal first. Something like go to evreward, type in hotels.com and see who offers the best.

 

[rockhopper]

I would think we could probably get the cards (we both have excellent credit), but we're in the process of purchasing a new home, and don't want to do anything to "disturb" our credit until that's over, although it will hopefully be in the next week or so (delay after delay after delay, argh!). We have a decent number of cards, but just a few here in the past year (Chase Sapphire Preferred & Hilton Reserve for me, Chase United for him). We don't carry balances at all, so it's definitely worth trying once we are done with this home buying process.

I've heard a huge variety of opinions about Venice, and it almost sounds like one of those "check the box" places, but then again, I've never been, so who am I to judge? My biggest concern for November would be the acqua alta.

If we can pull it off, I was thinking perhaps fly into Rome, spend 3-4 days, travel to Tuscany & tour renting a car for 4-5 days, then a couple days in Venice & home from Milan.

 

[incendia]

I would suggest turning your chase points into Avios and flying to Argentina with a stopover in Florida

 

[smittytabb]

I would think we could probably get the cards (we both have excellent credit), but we're in the process of purchasing a new home, and don't want to do anything to "disturb" our credit until that's over, although it will hopefully be in the next week or so (delay after delay after delay, argh!). We have a decent number of cards, but just a few here in the past year (Chase Sapphire Preferred & Hilton Reserve for me, Chase United for him). We don't carry balances at all, so it's definitely worth trying once we are done with this home buying process.

I've heard a huge variety of opinions about Venice, and it almost sounds like one of those "check the box" places, but then again, I've never been, so who am I to judge? My biggest concern for November would be the acqua alta.

If we can pull it off, I was thinking perhaps fly into Rome, spend 3-4 days, travel to Tuscany & tour renting a car for 4-5 days, then a couple days in Venice & home from Milan.

Been to over 80 countries and Italy is still at the top of my list. Been to Venice 4 times and it never fails to enchant. I don't drive in Italy, but that is just me.

 

[Jesse]

Apologies if this is thread-hacking, but I figured since this was already talking about a first-trip, why not add to it?

I too am planning my first trip, and I'm already running into some roadblocks. Can I get some suggestions? First off, my stats:

Hilton HHonors Gold status: 210,246 points (Amex Hilton HHonors, 2 Citi Hhonors cards)
AAdvantage miles: 54,918 [CITI® / AADVANTAGE® PLATINUM SELECT®MASTERCARD®]
USAir miles: 92,623 (+ 2 companion passes [2 US Airways MasterCards])

Ultimate goal is to get to Hawaii. Myself, my wife, my son (just under a year old), and possibly my sister-in-law
Late March/Early April or June travel time, leaving from the East Coast (either Atlanta or Charlotte)

I'm having trouble figuring out all the blackout dates and such with the Companion Pass. Is it easier to just plan to use the Companion Pass to go to a west coast city, then use American points to go on to Hawaii? Do I have to pay for my ticket or can I use points and also claim the Companion Pass?

I'm confused. Help!

 

[asthejoeflies]

Hi-

For the Companion Pass, that's on cash fares only. So you have to pay for a roundtrip ticket $250 or more (before taxes and fees) and then it's $99 per companion. If you can find the award space, however, you can use your AA/US miles to fly all the way to Hawaii from the East Coast - it won't cost you more miles than flying from LA.

There are two potential issues. Issue 1 is the award space, which can be difficult to Hawaii. There is coach award space bookable with AA miles (flying on Alaska) on Wednesdays in March, but that won't be bookable using your US Air miles. There's business award space bookable a few days in June, but you don't have enough miles for it.

If you do find coach space, Issue 2 is you'll have to book half your party with AA miles and the other half with US miles. It's not a major issue, but can get a little complicated.

There are cash flights on US Air for around $700 in late March. That would cost under $1000 for three paid tickets using the companion ticket - not a bad deal. These are the blackout dates for 2015: Jan 3, 4, Feb 13, Mar 15, 20, 22, 26, 27, 29, Apr 2, 3, 6, 12, May 21, 22, Jun 25, 26, Jul 5, 6, Oct 18, Nov 20, 29, 30, Dec 18, 19, 26, 27.