Maximizing United Miles to Europe

Posted on December 5, 2013 by wpengine

Two weeks ago I posted about how American Airlines allows for a single stopover when going to Europe.  If you’re the “fat kid underneath the piñata” when it comes to travel, like Brad and I, you’ll be stoked to hear this news.  In order to maximize your United Miles going to Europe you’ll definitely want to read this post.

Using United Miles to go to Europe

Looking at the United Airlines award chart, it will normally cost 30,000 MileagePlus miles each way, or 60,000 for the round trip from the US to Europe.  It’ll take you forever to fly enough miles to accrue 60k, but when you’re worldwanderlusting with us it’ll be EASY!

MileagePlus Europe

Booking the Stopover with Miles to Europe

1. Pick your two preferred European spots first.  This will be one of the more difficult decisions.

If you’re like me, you want to go everywhere so you’ll spend quite a bit of time deciding your locations. For this example I’ll say that you would love to see both Paris and Istanbul.  One for romance, and the other for adventure. This is what the trip will look like.

Flight Itinerary
2. Go to United.com & choose the “Multiple Destination” option.

United.com

 

3. Add in the destinations, dates, etc.  For this example I’ll just say that I wanted to spend two weeks total, with one week in Paris and another in Istanbul.  I’ve put in this information in as a sample.  You’ll have to “Add another flight to your trip” as circled below to get the third leg of the trip.

Two Trips

 

4.  Find the dates and adjust your plans as necessary to ensure that you book the trip.  You’ll want to pick the yellow options to keep the award ticket at 60k UnitedPlus Miles. Although they don’t have availability everyday, it is reasonable.  Book your trip 6 months out for optimal availability with United.

United Economy award

5. Pick the flights that are in the Saver Award Economy options with the least amount of layovers and the shortest time.  Flying out of Idaho Falls always creates a ton of stops, but it’s a great feature of United!Stopover in Europe

6. Bust out the MileagePlus Miles & book the trip.  It is always exciting when you can get $5,393.90 worth out of 60k miles.  Talk about maximum value!

Mileageplus to europe

You’re on your way.  The flights are booked, now it is time to start working on the hotels and other pieces to the puzzle.  However, booking your ticket to two separate European destinations with one award ticket is the best way to go.

For more complex routing you’ll want to read this post by our friend Dima about booking award tickets with United Airlines. This guy has had some WILD itineraries over the years.  You’ll be shocked at how adventurous he is with his trips.  Of course it is easier to do that without kids!

Getting Your Paws on 60,000 MileagePlus Miles

Hopefully you’ve already flown on United and have started accruing some points already.  If you haven’t, it’s not the end of the world.  We should be able to get you the 60k you’ll need if you’re patient.

  • Chase Sapphire Preferred- This is a Bank Points card that allows you to transfer point-for-point from Ultimate Rewards to MileagePlus miles.  The bonus on this card usually runs about 40k
  • Chase MileagePlus Explorer Card- In many cases you can find an offer to get you 50k from this card alone.

Between both of these cards you’ll easily be over the 60k miles needed to make the journey.  Pack your bags baby, you’re headed to Europe!

 

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More Than Just Free Travel, $210 in Free Spending from American Express

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Brad Christensen

I am not a shopper.  I am especially not a Black Friday shopper.  A few years ago I waited in line at Best Buy at 4am in zero degree weather to get a deal on a projector only to find that they were all sold out.  That was the last time I’ve Black-Friday shopped in earnest.  I later found a comparable projector online for a better price.  In fact, more often than not, I find buying online infinitely easier and cost effective.

I have, however, anxiously participated in the American Express Small Business Saturday promotion, where American Express kindly offers reimbursements for purchases at local businesses.  In years past, when you registered a card and then spend at least $25, they made a one-time $25 reimbursement to your account.  This year it shrank to $10, but considering that I have six (6) American Express cards, it made for $60 in free spending on Saturday.

Because I’m such a cheap bugger, I have a hard time spending money impromptu, so my strategy is generally to get giftcards that I can use later, so on Saturday I got $30 in ten-dollar giftcards at a local bookstore, $20 to a restaurant, and $10 to a bakery.

Being aware of the offers that are out there gave me the exhilarating experience of shopping with someone else’s money… but wait, it gets even better.

Now, I’ve registered my 6 American Express cards with this Amazon.com promotion to get $25 back on a $75 purchase.  Then I went and bought 6 $75 giftcards – one with each card. In the end I have $450 in Amazon.com Giftcards that I paid $300 for.  Amazon giftcards are as good as cash for me, considering how much I prefer to buy online.

Overall, I’ve hauled in $210 on two little promotions, expanding my free-travel addiction to include benefits that will help me feel less-guilty about making some selfish purchases.

Bottom line here is that there are peripheral benefits to being a consummate gatherer of free travel credit cards.  Even so, the $210 pales in comparison to the value of frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points.  I’ve calculated the value of some of my travel redemptions to be more than $2100/card.  It’s a very rough calculation, but if I add up all the benefits we’ve gathered between my wife and I applying for 34 credit cards in the past 3 years, I’d estimate that we’ve accumulated more than $22,000 in travel benefits.  Kind of makes the $210 seem small.

Take a look at our Best Travel Credit Cards page to see our compilation of the best offers out there at the moment.

 

 

 

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Thanksgiving and Travel

Posted on November 30, 2013 by wpengine

I don’t exactly have one foot in the grave, but within the next week I’ll be celebrating my 30th birthday.  It causes me to reflect upon my life and everything that has brought me to my current situation.  I’ve been immensely blessed in a number of ways.  I’ve been fortunate to marry the love of my life, and we’ve spent almost 6 years together.

Mi familia

Sheldon & Company

The Good Lord has blessed us with two wonderful children who bring us so much happiness (and stress).  Seeing them grow up, learn, and experience life has only begun, but already I recognize that it will be rewarding.  Hopefully there will be at least one more child (in the distant future) that can join our family.

As long as I’ve got my family, I can travel, and work hard life is pretty dang good.

Thanksgiving and Travel

My brother just returned tonight from a 5 week excursion across Southeast Asia.  He spent time in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.  His vacation was unforgettable, and the memories will never fade.  He performed his return ritual which was a Mountain Dew (Not found in most other countries) and Taco Bell.  We visited today about his vacation and he reminded me how good life is in America.

Dali Lama, a wise sage, once said, “Once a year, go some place you’ve never been before.”  I think this serves many purposes.  One of them is to help you recognize the blessings that you have.  There is nothing that makes you appreciate what you have until you don’t have it, right?  Well to “one-up” that, travel outside the country and realize how much rougher life is for most people across the globe.

As you celebrated the holidays this year, think about all the blessings that you’ve received. If you can’t think of many blessings, plan a trip abroad and quickly you’ll recognize about 1 million or more.  Sometimes it’s the small things:

  • Free soda refills
  • Paper towels in the bathroom
  • Soap in the bathroom
  • Great gas prices

Other times you’ll recognize the big things:

  • Laws
  • A bathroom
  • A house
  • Clean hospitals
  • Grocery Stores

Sometimes it takes a small experience to help you recognize how good life is for you.  Here are a couple of small stories from my life that have made me more grateful.

Haitian Grocery Store

I’ll never forget the time my father and I went to Haiti and stopped at an outdoor market.  They were selling vegetables, eggs, fruit, and meats.  It was a scorching hot day outside as we approached the meat area.  My father distinctly remembers thinking, “Do they have spices covering the meat?” as he walked closer to the tables.  When he got close enough to recognize what it was, he saw hundreds of flies sitting right on the meat.  Somehow we still managed to eat dinner that night. I’m grateful for grocery stores, and sanitation standards for those handing my food!

Paraguayan Headlights

I spent 2003-2004 in Paraguay.  During my time there I was fortunate enough to learn how to drive Paraguayan style.  On one occasion I recall driving down the highway when a pair of red tail lights were fast approaching me.  However, it appeared as though they were in the opposite lane.  I wasn’t sure if someone had pulled over, if someone was driving in the other lane or what.  As they came closer I realized that they weren’t tail lights at all.  They were red headlights!  I was perplexed that a police officer wouldn’t pull that crazy person over and throw him in jail! I’m grateful for police that keep idiots like this guy off the road!

Panamanian Food

Back in 2008 my wife and I took a trip to Panama.  It was our “after the honeymoon” international trip that I had promised.  We had an unforgettable trip seeing many historic landmarks.  Our trip was both relaxing at times, and adventurous at others.  During one stretch we spent time on the San Blas Islands.  They are an idyllic set of 360+ tiny islands in the Caribbean.  At each meal we were offered chicken, or fish as a main dish.  Each lunch and dinner had the same options.  After a few days we had grown weary of the same fish for lunch and dinner.  I’m grateful for variety in foods that I can eat for each meal.

I’m sure that you can dig deep in your history and find some remarkable stories like these that make you grateful for things you never realized where very valuable.  This is one of the many reasons that I love to travel.

What stories from your travels have made you more grateful for your blessings?

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Things to do in Munich

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Brad Christensen

Let’s say you follow Sheldon’s detailed instructions and book an open-jaw with a stopover into Europe on American Airlines.  You collect 50k AAdvantage points with the Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® World MasterCard® after spending $3000 in the first three months.

Whenever you fly on American points in Europe, you have to avoid using British Airways because BA gouges passengers with atrocious fuel surcharges.  What that generally means is that you end up flying on AirBerlin, an experience that you will thoroughly enjoy. It also means you may end up using Munich as one of your destinations.

Munich is in Bavaria, southern Germany, a beautiful area especially during the months from October to May, when AA will let you steal their Europe flights for a mere 40k points.

Where to stay in Munich

We’d never expect you to actually have to pay for your hotel, so let’s look at this depending on whether you have Starwood Points or Marriott points.  Both programs offer a free night if you use points to book 4 nights, so let’s assume you’ll stay 5 nights.

With 28k SPG points, you could stay 5 nights at the Four Points by Sheraton Munich Olympiapark or the Sheraton Munich Airport Hotel.


With 60k Marriott points, you could stay 5 nights at the Courtyard Munich City East.

This is a perfect example of why, when it comes to point bonuses from travel credit cards, more is not always better.  In this case, 28k points from one program gets you what it takes 60k from another.  It just depends on what you have in your awardwallet and how you make it work for you.

Things to do in Munich

  • Glockenspiel Rathaus München

    Glockenspiel Rathaus München (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Marienplatz, the main public square of the city, is a great place to start along with the nearby market.  The clock or glockenspiel on the town hall has moving figurines which reenact Bavarian history. Appropriately enough, the name for “Town Hall” in German is “Rathaus.”

  • I’m a sucker for science museums and from the moment you first set foot in Germany, you know that these guys clearly understand it as well as anyone.  Visit the Deutsches Museum and you’ll get the idea.
  • The English Garden puts Central Park to shame, full of wooded paths and a moving waterway, and even a nudist area.

Things to do just outside Munich

  • Dachau is not beautiful.  It is not picturesque.  It is not exactly “enjoyable.”  But it is poignant, and you need to see where more than 200,000 people were imprisoned in this Nazi concentration camp between 1933 and 1945.
  • The Olympic Stadium was ultra-high-tech in its time in 1972, and it’s still a sight to behold.

Things to do within a day trip of Munich

  • On this blog Neuschwanstein Castle is a repeat customer… its because it is absolutely, fantastically magical.  Make your way from Munich close to the border of Austria and enjoy it in all its glory.
  • The ancient, walled town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber is medieval Germany brought to life.  Now that I’ve seen the Italian sites I craved, this one is calling to me.
  • The Eagle’s Nest was Hitler’s retreat and is perched high in the mountains, as its name would suggest.

As you can see, Munich would make a great destination for your next almost-free trip to Europe.  Tie it in with a stopover in a US gateway city and an open-jaw from some other European destination and you’ll have yourself one heck of a trip for very, very little in out-of-pocket costs.

Thanks for wanderlusting with us.  Want to hear our free-travel advice on another destination? Comment and tell us where!

 

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Booking a Stopover With American Airlines

Posted on November 21, 2013 by wpengine

Looking at booking an award ticket with American Airlines?  Check out this post to learn how to Book a stopover with American Airlines.

Let’s just review a few key terms that you’ll need to understand before we hit the meat of this post:

Open-Jaw (Multi-Destination)– This is a trip where your destination and the location of your return flight are two different locations.  Here is an example.  SLC-CDG is the first leg of your flight.  The return flight might be something like BCN-SLC.  Notice that there is no connecting flight between CDG and BCN.  You would do this as a part of your trip.

Stopover– A stopover could be defined as somewhere along your trip that you get a chance to stop before arriving at your final destination.  The only example below would be JFK.

Stopover

American Airlines Stopover Rule

American Airlines will allow for only one domestic stopover on an international flight, but they’re rather picky.  They only allow the stopover to be in the “Gateway City.”    The Gateway City is the city from which you leave the country.  Unfortunately this really limits your options.  For the most part the “Gateways” are:

  • New York City
  • Chicago
  • Dallas
  • Miami
  • Los Angeles

You’ll have a tough time finding another city serve as a gateway to an international flight. Maybe once the merger with US Airways is complete there will be a few more, but who knows if these rules will change.

Booking an American Airlines Stopover

1.  You’ll want to start by logging on to the AA.com website.  Check the box that says “Redeem Miles” first.  Then click on the tiny letters “Refine your search.”

Picture 12

2. This will bring you to the next page where you’ll see something like this.

American Airlines Stopover

You’ll now want to click the “Multi-City” radial at the top of the page. This will bring up a screen like the one shown above.  You can add in each leg of the flight.  In this scenario I ran a sample showing a two day stopover in JFK.

In this scenario JFK was my “Gateway Destination,” which allowed for a couple of days in the Big Apple.  You wouldn’t ever want to spend too long in NYC or you’d get robbed or go broke (which are really similar), so this would be a good way to tack on a quick visit to see a Broadway show or something like that.

3.  Now you’ve just got to find award availability.

Multi destination flight

The quote at the top of the page says, “This international award allows a stopover at New York – NYC for no additional miles…”

Yahoo.  You’ve done it!  Now you can book a flight to Europe and include a stopover at one of the destinations and score two vacations in one.  You should also consider doing a multi-destination like the example above.  This allows you to maximize your vacation by seeing a number of locations in one trip. That’s what we call shooting with a shotgun!

Have you ever used a multi-destination or stopover award? What was your experience?  Would you recommend it to others?

 

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Ask and Ye Shall Receive: Writing an Effective Airline Complaint Letter

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Brad Christensen

I’ve told you, our army of WorldWanderlusters, about our incredible trip to Italy where we got tickets that should have cost us $2600 for $162 and 80k points.  I told you that we stayed 13 nights in hotels and didn’t pay a dollar (or a euro) for a single night. I told you it was epic and that every day was filled with incredible sights and adventures.

But what I didn’t tell you was that it got even better.  You know I am vigorous in my pursuit of free-travel, and you also know that I am shameless… shameless enough to try to make my already almost-free trip almost-freer.

Writing an Effective Airline Complaint Letter

We had a little wrinkle in our flight plans on our departure.  We were headed to the SLC airport when we got a call saying our flight would be delayed and that we’d miss our connecting flight.  I called AA customer service and begged them to find a routing that would still get us to Venice in time to keep our tightly-knit itinerary.

Cervantes Fountain

One of the many sites in Madrid

Luckily, they were cooperative and the new plan was to put us through Madrid and get us into Venice even earlier… but as these things usually go, our next flight was delayed as well and when we got into Madrid, we had already missed that connecting flight.  They put us on a flight 6 hours later and gave us a meal certificate.

We weren’t exactly thrilled because we were anxious to get to Venice, but we made the best of the situation and took the train into downtown Madrid and visited the sites.

By the time we arrived in Venice, it was much later than we had planned on and it didn’t spoil our trip, but it did have some consequences.  I didn’t harbor any anger over the deal, but I did see it as an opportunity for American Airlines to demonstrate some awesome customer service for me.

So after our trip, I logged into the AA Customer Service Portal, entered the information for our flights, and, following the same rules I laid out in “How to Write an Airline Complaint Letter,” penned this sub 1500 character letter:

The delays on this trip led to two missed flights, extensive layovers, and a day of cancelled activities for our vacation.

 I understand that air travel arrangements won’t always go smoothly, but there’s always the hope that you’ll still be able to do the things you’ve planned on.

 Because our flight out of SLC or ORD was delayed, we weren’t able to make the flight from ORD to DUS and were re-routed on an Iberia flight through MAD. Then that flight was late and we didn’t arrive at VCE until 7:30pm. 

 As a result, we were unable to do the cave tour we had booked and missed our dinner reservation. We were able to get our tour refunded, but were disappointed that we didn’t get to see the place where Gandalf said, “You shall not pass!”

 The scenic drive we were so looking forward to became a nerve-wracking drive over mountain passes in the dark.

 It’s not like this ruined our trip by any stretch of imagination.  We had a great time and all in all, American Airlines and its partners were accommodating and friendly.  Even so, when we spent two entire days in transit on both sides, every day in country is precious and hurt to miss out on some of those activities.

 I know you can’t offer a refund, but even if you could offer 10k AAdvantage miles for each of us to make our next possible adventure that much closer, it would be much appreciated.

 Thank you very much for your consideration and best wishes.

AA Customer Service was extraordinarily attentive and within 2 hours I had a response in my email box, apologizing for the delays and telling me that the 10k AAdvantage miles would be in each of our accounts in the next few days.

I was, of course, summarily pleased.  There was a temptation to wish I had asked for more, but honestly I felt like it was perfectly fair.  In the end, I had paid a total of 30,000 AAdvantage miles for a flight to Europe… that being only 5k more than a domestic flight, my ear-to-ear grin is probably justified.

 Priority Club Hotel

Also, one of our free hotel nights was at the Holiday Inn in Ratingen, Germany, on a stopover in Dusseldorf. When I booked it initially, I booked it for 15k Priority Club points (I had 85k from the Chase Priority Club Select Visa).

Shortly after booking it, the most recent Priority Club PointBreaks list came out. (Priority Club offers special 5k/night deals on some specific hotels every quarter).  Sure enough, the hotel I had selected for its free airport shuttle was on the list.  I called to see if I could cancel and re-book and they told me there was not availability.  “Oh well,” I thought, yet I never quite resigned to paying full points-price.

Holiday in Ratingen

Thank you very much!

A couple of weeks later I went to try again and found that I could book it online for 5k points.  I simply booked the night at the PointBreak rate, then went back and cancelled my first night.  Cha-ching!  10k points right back into my account.

Now, if you like that action, check this out.  When we rolled into the hotel, they recognized us as gold-status (A nice perk that comes along with the card).  They gave us two free 24-hour internet passes (a $15 value) and two drink passes for the bar.  When we went to our upgraded room, there was a plate of fruit and chocolate along with a hand-written note from the staff.

I am here to tell you, fellow WorldWanderluster, this is the way to see the world. If you’ll dedicate a few minutes a day to learn How to Wanderlust, you’ll be telling these same kinds of incredible stories yourself.

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You Don’t Accept Credit Cards…Are You Sure?

Posted on November 13, 2013 by wpengine

If you’re a true world wanderluster, it has happened to you.  You’re shameless at asking, and have no fear taking your business elsewhere when they tell you no.  You make the call, and after finding that the price is reasonable you ask the question that matters more than the price (almost), “Do you accept credit cards?” Sheepishly the business owner responds, “No, I can’t afford the fees they charge me to accept credit cards.”

Your heart sinks, and you begin to feel sick to your stomach.  How could you make such an expense without getting miles?!  It isn’t possible.  You’d regret not having those 200 AAdvantage miles, and you’re not sure that you’re willing to go thorough with the deal anymore.  You begin to doubt, and don’t know what to do.

Are You Sure You Don’t Accept Credit Cards?

Credit cards Français : Cartes de crédit Itali...

Credit Cards (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

This moment happened to me within the last month.  My wife has been asking me since we moved into our house to put up some rain gutters on our house.  Keeping the ice from building up on the driveway is a major motivator at this point as we get closer to winter.

I did just as mentioned above, I called around and found out that the prices were all similar everywhere we looked.  When I decided to go with Custom Rain Gutters, I made the call to Gary.  After a bit of chit chat, and me announcing to him that he was chosen as the bidder for my rain gutters, he seemed delighted.  Then the conversation turned sour for me, listen in:

  • Me      “You accept credit cards, right?”
  • Gary  “Unfortunately we don’t.  We used to, but couldn’t afford the fees and didn’t want to pass the costs on to the consumer.”
  • Me      “Hmm.  That is a real bummer for me.”

I had to come up with a plan.  I wasn’t about to let 450 frequent flyer miles just run down the rain gutter.  That is almost as painful as paying too much.

My Genius Idea

When the bill arrived in the mail, I was still wincing from pain about losing out on the miles.  Then it came to me, and there was a moment of clarity.  It’s something that I’ve used in the past, but somehow it had slipped from my mind. The solution that would satisfy both Gary and I would be Amazon Payments.

What is Amazon Payments?

Amazon Payments is a service that allows you to use your credit card to pay other individuals or businesses.  In many cases you can send them money using a credit card, and neither of you end up paying any fees.

I’ll do another post later talking about how to use Amazon Payments.

How did it work?

I called Gary and spoke with him over the phone regarding the payment. Here is how it when from there.

Me: You don’t by chance accept Amazon Payments, do you?
Gary: I don’t think so, what is that?
Me: It is a service that allows me to send you money by using a credit card, up to a certain limit, and neither of us have to pay any fees for using the credit card. You just need to sign up for an Amazon account.
Gary: Well, I guess I could give it a shot. Why don’t you send the money and I’ll see if I can work it out.
Me: Great. I’ll send the money to your email address, let me confirm that….

Being much more sensitive than I, my wife turns to me and says, “You made that poor gentleman accept a payment method which is completely foreign to him.  Now he has to open an account and figure out how to receive his payment.”

My response was this, “I just helped him.  There are thousands of WorldWanderlusters out there who want to pay everything with their credit cards.  He could potentially be losing business to others who accept credit cards.  Now he can accept credit cards and be up with the times, without paying the price.”

In the end, I ended up with 450 AAdvantage miles and met the spending requirement on my wife’s most recent AAdvantage card.  Now Gary can accept payments without paying fees. Everyone wins in this case.

Just do it.

The next time an expense comes up and the service provider embarrassingly admits, I don’t accept credit cards, you can give them an alternative that will help both of you.  You’ll earn your miles, and he will earn your business.

Create an Amazon Payments account today and stop missing out on so many miles!

 

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