EURO TRIP - Eposide 1

 

 

By end of 2012 I found out about how one can travel the world pennies on the dollar, at the beginning it was hard to believe, but the only way to find out was to try it, so I gave it a shot. Although its trip report is from last year, it was our first trip with miles and points; you might find it useful if you need to travel in miles and points. We traveled with our then under 2 year old son, who traveled as a lap child. Although we had enough miles to travel in Business, we preferred economy as we wanted to use the rest of the miles for our next travel.

 

Me and Francis we used the Airlines miles and Hotel points we received from Credit Card signup bonus to make the trip happen.

 

Airline	No. of Miles Used	Route Taken	Out of Pocket Cost
American Airline	40,000 AA Miles	DFW-ORD-LHR	$685.70*
British Airways	9,450 Avios	LHR-CDG	$82.5***
EasyJet (1stperson)	10,000 EM Skyward	CDG-MAD	NONE
EasyJet (2ndPerson)	NONE	CDG-MAD	$70
Iberia Airline	40,000 AA MIles	MAD-MIA	$0**
Southwest	15000 RR	FLL-DAL	$15

 

 

 

*134.60 X 2= $269.20 is tax and fees for me and Francis $366.50 is tax and fee for my son, he didn’t need miles but have to pay tax and fee which is higher for lap child. $25 X 2 is telephone booking fee. My son and me were on one ticket, Francis had separate.

** This is the return flight so the payments are included above on (*)

*** Tax and fee for 3 person, includes the lap child.

 

 

Place Visited	No.of Night & Points	Name of Hotel	Out of Pocket Cost
London, UK	3 & stayed with Family	None	$0
Paris, France	2 & 44,000 UR Point	Park Hyatt Vendome	$0
Madrid, Spain	2 & 50,000 Marriott	AC Hotels Recoletos	$0
Miami, FL	1 & 25,000 Marriott	Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay	$0

 

 

Public transportation in Europe is amazing, you can easily go to airport using the train, but since we were with an infant and had two luggage we had to use nonpublic transportation

 

Airport Transportation	Cost and equivalent Dollar
Home to DFW used Ridecentric	$0 I had a complementary Ride
To/From London Airport Taxi	£100 = $164.09 .. Ouch
To/From Paris Airport Taxi	€120 = $144.40
To/From Madrid Airport Shuttle	€80 =$96.27
MIA to FLL one way rental	$47.64
DAL to Home	A friend picked us up

 

Other Expenses

We spend $600 more on other expenses like visiting Museum, Tower of London, London Eye, Food, minor shopping, places in Paris and Madrid.

 

In total we were able to make this trip happen under $2000      

 

I will be posting further details about the trip in coming post.