$60 roundtrip ticket to Europe — YES, Please!
It’s no secret among my friends that I’ve recently stumbled into the wonderful world of “travel hacking”. I found this book called Do More Spend Less and nearly fell off my chair at what people have done to earn airline or hotel miles & points and obtain élite status. In a little over two months I’ve managed to apply for no fewer than 8 credit cards (don’t worry, I paid it all off!) and earn about 570,000 plus points in various programs. Sounds great right?
Sort of, so far, none of my friends have jumped on this wonderful bandwagon and I’m all alone in my obsessive point collecting. My other obstacle is that I work full-time and have limited vacation availability, so I just can’t book a trip and seize the day as often as I’d like. As a result, all trips are very calculated, making it difficult to take advantage of all the random promotions and mistake fares. I’m hoarding points at the moment, which made booking this ticket a very exciting and proud moment for me!
One of my favorite bloggers posted that United was having an economy saver award sale, 20% off award tickets to Europe in Jan, Feb & March. So I browsed for a ticket (lucky me, I have some friends in England that like a good holiday as well), and it just so happened I found one that worked. Chicago to London — Amsterdam to Chicago. Amsterdam is playing an integral part in the $60 fee; if I flew home from England it would cost me $188 because of the airport taxes they have. I used 48,000 miles instead of the usual 60,000, which I consider a double win. The ticket in cash would have cost me $907 – so I’m very pleased with the result.
Getting to Amsterdam will be easy, but I’m leaving that up to my friend James. He works for EasyJet, a low-cost air carrier based in England; so it should cost us 15 euro to get there. We might make it a whirlwind long weekend and see what other cities we can fit in: Rome, Madrid, Berlin?!
What was your best travel hacking triumph?
This post was written by FWTG contributor, Crystal Doro.
CC Header Image from Flickr: Zuiderkerk by MorBCN.
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August 7, 2014
Sounds like you found a great deal there. You also applied to a lot of credit cards, such offers are more sparingly available here in Europe.
August 7, 2014
Very True! That said, in Europe you all have low cost budget airlines – I would KILL for an Easy Jet or Ryan Air here in the States!
October 17, 2014
I’ve discovered this wonderful world too and desperately wish my friends would join! Ha. I haven’t purchased the “big” ticket yet for the same reasons you struggled with – time off and needing to perfectly calculate “when.” I have had a few free nights at hotels so far, so I’m loving the travel hacks. 🙂
October 17, 2014
Agree! What’s there not to love about reduced prices?! 🙂
October 17, 2014
Wow! Another great deal!
October 17, 2014
That is an incredible deal! And that’s amazing that you saved all those points in 2 months. Do any of the cards you applied for have yearly fees?
I first discovered travel hacking around this time last year, and have managed to get 3 discounted flights within Canada and the US. In Canada we don’t have as many air travel credit card deals, but I’ve found a couple! This was my experience:
http://discoveringaway.com/first-flight-booked-off-to-vancouver/
October 17, 2014
Yes, most of the cards have reasonable annual fees; however, some run promotions where they will waive the fee.
October 17, 2014
Actually, I think most of them do have annual fees but its generally waived in year 1- I believe in this I transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my United account. If you ever read any other travel hacking posts they do something called churning – so they get rid of the card before they owe the fee. I’ve done that once – but I’ve kept most of my cards out of the benefits and lack of being able to get the rewards points again. You should watch for this deal – I got the impression this was an annual United discount on redeemed miles because its off-season.
I just booked another trip to EU – but on American and United – I think it cost me approx $150 with fees – but otherwise it was $1,400 for a regular fare!
October 17, 2014
That’s incredible!!! I wanna try! Do you live in Chicago?? Wanna grab a coffee and chat?
October 17, 2014
Crystal Doro is the author for this guest post. At the time she lived in Milwaukee, so would often fly out of Chicago for better flight deals. Now she is up in Minneapolis. 🙂
October 17, 2014
I actually live in Minneapolis now, but occasionally come to Chicago for work; my company is HQ’d there. I’m going to be in town next week – but I booked the airfare kinda tight I don’t know how much spare time I’ll have. And I still use ORD as my intl airport – better flight deals on tickets and I drop my dog off with the family in Milwaukee before a big trip! But I’d be up for it if our schedules worked out sometime.
October 17, 2014
Hi Crystal!
I am right on the brink of discovering the world of travel hacking. of course I am a member of various airline rewards programs but I have yet to decide which credit card to get to help maximize airline points. What are your recommendations?
I am thinking of getting the Alaska Air card (I fly to SLC a LOT), but I want one that will help me get Star Alliance miles too, specifically that of Singapore Air. Any suggestions?
Thank you,
Alice
October 17, 2014
Hey! I love that you’re trying it out – we can learn together. I’ve been watching the Alaska Air card but only really read up on it when one of the bloggers writes about it. I haven’t pulled the plug yet but am also considering that and the Hawaiian Airlines card. I just moved to a place Alaska Airlines actually flies out of so maybe I’ll look into it further. Granted, I think if you try googling blog, Alaskan Air, rewards, travel hacking or something like that you’d find some old blog posts detailing about it.
So far all my hacking has been for coach seats, I’m not savvy enough to churn and manufacture fast enough for first class tickets but Singapore Air it would be awesome. Tho, I think its hard to get a reward seat in first class; but believe it or not there are bloggers that write about reward space and best time of year it opens up!!! My fav cards for United points are anything that gets you Ultimate Rewards from Chase – so a Chase card might be something to consider. I’ve got the Ink Bold and Ink Plus when they had large sign up bonuses. Good Luck!
October 18, 2014
We booked two round trip tickets from Dublin to Tallinn, Estonia for 99 euro total for both on Ryanair! Always pays to check it out when airlines open new routes.
October 18, 2014
That’s awesome! Tallinn is high on my list of places I’d like to visit!
October 31, 2014
Ha, loved this. It does feel amazing when things actually work. And you always read these books, and think, nah that can’t be true! It’s good to know that this worked out! I also recently read about how WOW airlines, an icelandic airlines, has started charging 100 dollars for a flight from the UK to the US! How incredible is that? 🙂 Anyway look forward to reading more of your posts!
November 1, 2014
I have the Alaska Air card, I LOVE IT. Although I didn’t qualify for the 25,000 bonus points (I got the next one down, 5,000) my husband probably will qualify for it when I can convince him he should get it, I want the companion fare so bad lol! I love that you can redeem rewards on Emirates. Its 200,000 points for a roundtrip flight from LAX-DXB in first class. Also, I’ve been looking at flying over to England and its 40,000 points for a roundtrip from LAX-LHR. I think i’ll look into a one way each way like you did though because the fees coming back into the US are like $200!
November 3, 2014
40,000 points to England roundtrip doesn’t sound bad at all!
November 16, 2014
Pay off your whole card balance every month if you can. You should view credit cards as a convenience form of payment, and budget the full payoff each month. Avoid finance charges by paying the balance in full and improve your credit rating at the same time.
November 25, 2014
Hey! Reading through this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this post to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!|
January 4, 2015
Have you tried WOW Air? We’ve recently heard about it, but thought I’d leave you the link: http://wowair.us/
Also, we used the Barclay Card for our travel needs. No international fees, and if you get the one with the annual fee (waived for the first year), you get 2 points per $, but there is one with no fee where you get 1 point per $. And you can use points to pay for your trip and get 10% of your points back! I love this because you can find the best airline deal out there and you can use points to pay it off as opposed to using points to pay for a flight directly. The “price” of the flight might be higher if you are just exchanging points for a flight directly.
Good luck!!
January 4, 2015
I’ve actually never heard of WOW air – I’ll definitely check it (and the Barclay card) out – Thanks!!
January 5, 2015
I love it when folks come together and share views. Great blog, stick with it!|
January 25, 2015
It’s posts like these that make me love your blog! I’ve been good at signing up for all the rewards programs for hotels but have yet to scrape the surface on capitalizing on frequent flyer miles. I’ve read your other article on travel hacking and loved them both .
March 21, 2015
Ah!! I’m hoping to do just this when I fly home from Korea in August.
Also, you know, if you need more convincing to visit Madrid, I did write a series on 50 Reasons Why it’s the Greatest City on my blog… *cough* I studied there my junior year, and I loved it! There’s so many gems that often get overshadowed by Barcelona! For example, you can dine in the oldest restaurant in the world!
March 22, 2015
I’m with you, Samantha – I prefer Madrid to Barcelona!
August 18, 2015
Really amazing and Your Trip to London i Here Lot of Things that London is Costly place to live is it ?
June 5, 2016
Great deal Karisa! Would like to know more about your trip to Netherlands. Reason being I am planning a trip sometimes soon, covering Paris, Amsterdam, Swiss-Alps and Italy. In the itinerary planning stage..I am figuring out on the stay, means of travel, how to save on food etc. etc.