In this series I explore real-world examples of just how much you can travel with the points of one credit card sign-up bonus. Whether this destination interests you or not, my hope is that you can take the learnings and get inspired to create your own amazing trip using miles and points.
In this example I am looking at a European trip for a family of 3 in September from Chicago, flying Premium Economy to Paris and Amsterdam.
Earning the Points
For the credit card I have selected the Amex Business Gold card. This card requires a big $15k minimum spend but recently it was possible to earn a massive sign-up bonus of 200k Amex Membership Rewards points through select referrals. It also has a high annual fee of $375, but that is offset by up to $395 in annual statement credits and a flexible earning structure with 4X points in your top 2 (of 6) spending categories each month such as restaurants and gas stations. Assuming $5k of the minimum spend is made in the 4X bonus categories, you would have 230k points after earning the sign-up bonus.
Building the Trip
For the flights, we are going to use Flying Blue points which is the shared frequent flyer program of Air France and KLM and a transfer partner of Amex Membership Rewards. Both airlines offer premium economy options on their transatlantic flights and while not the lie-flat seats you will find in business class, they are a nice upgrade over regular economy with a wider seat, more legroom and recline, larger entertainment screens, and upgraded meal service. We’ve flown them both and found them to be a great value on points. This trip also highlights something that is surprising to many who are new to the miles and points game, the potential value of international airlines’ points.
Note: this article was originally drafted before the recent devaluation of the Flying Blue award chart. References below to 35k point awards would now cost 40k for new bookings.
KLM Premium Economy seats:
Air France premium economy seat:
To book these flights I searched separately as two one-ways (it is easy to get from Amsterdam to Paris via train). First, Chicago to Amsterdam on September 1st then Paris to Chicago on September 10th. I did both searches on the Air France website (www.airfrance.us). I started each search as 1 passenger looking for premium economy award space for 35k points each way, then searched again with 3 people to verify there was award space for all 3. A few notes and tips to help you in your search:
- You must be logged in to your Flying Blue account to search “Book with Miles”.
- When you are searching for more than one person the results on both an award search or a paid flight will return the TOTAL for the group (miles, taxes/fees, or price).
- If any of the passengers are aged 2-11, their flight would cost 25% less in either points or cash. In our case that would be 26,250 miles vs 35,000. This prices automatically on the website.
- It is possible to book a free stopover on Flying Blue award tickets but currently that cannot be done online, only over the phone. There are several daily nonstop flights from Amsterdam to Paris which would normally by 7.5k miles but can be added for free as a stopover if you prefer to fly over taking the train.
- If you do have to book over the phone, make sure to tell the agent that the award was not able to be booked online and request they waive the phone booking fee. I have had good experiences with Flying Blue in this regard.
- Flying Blue often offers transfer bonuses from Amex, Chase, and Capital One for a 20 to 30% bonus on your transferred points, reducing the number of points you need to transfer.
- Flying Blue also has monthly promo rewards which often have a few select destinations from North America to Europe at 25% off.
- Pro tip: if you are flexible on your travel dates, leave the date field blank to get the calendar view to come up where you can quickly scan month by month for the lowest point costs on the route. This is MUCH faster than searching one day at a time!
“Book with Miles” search screen:
Outbound flight to Amsterdam:
Compared to a cash price of $4,179 for 3 people:
The return flight from Paris:
Compared to a cash price of $17,254 (note the business class fare was even cheaper when paying cash for this flight but still very pricey at $13,753:
There are moderate taxes and fees to book these awards. In this case the combined round trip would come out to $381 per person. However, compared to the cash prices, the point values are outstanding. If we compare the outbound premium economy price and the return business class fare (because no one would pay more to fly premium economy), the total cash price for 3 people would be $17,932. Subtracting out the taxes and fees, and dividing by a total of 210k points, we get an amazing 8 cents per point value. Even if we further discount the return trip to the same price as the outbound flight, we are still getting a very strong 4 cents per point value. Thinking about it another way, if you are earning 4X Amex points per dollar on the bonus categories such as restaurants and redeeming for 4 cents per point value, it is like getting 16% cash back towards travel on that spend….pretty good indeed!
TL;DR: I showed how to use the Amex Business Gold card’s sign-up bonus to plan a European trip for a family of three, flying KLM and Air France Premium Economy from Chicago to visit Paris and Amsterdam. By earning 230k points and using Flying Blue points for award flights, we saved significantly compared to cash prices, demonstrating the great value of using transferrable points for international travel.
