Over this past summer, I spent 3 weeks traveling around Europe. For this trip, I redeemed points and miles to fly round-trip international business class and redeemed 10 nights worth of free or nearly free hotel stays in 5 different countries. These redemptions resulted in $16,000 in free travel. This was achieved largely by accruing a massive points and miles balance during the pandemic when travel was not possible. If you are just getting started with the Game of Miles and these redemptions seem way out of reach, check out my post here on how to start building your points and miles balance. While the entirety of this trip cost around 400,000 points and miles plus a few free night certificates, each individual redemption is fairly easy to get early on in your travel hacking career.
The first redemption of the trip was a flight from Las Vegas to Paris on KLM with a connection in Amsterdam. The leg from LAS to AMS was a lie-flat seat in the business class cabin of KLM’s 787-9. At the time of booking, the entire flight would have cost $3,114. I paid 67,500 Flying Blue miles plus $240.29 in taxes and surcharges netting me $2,873.18 of free travel.
Chase, AMEX, Citi, and Capital One all offer cards that allow you to earn points that can be transferred to Flying Blue’s loyalty program at a 1:1 rate. Current cards with an annual fee of less than $100 that would allow you to earn enough or nearly enough points from the sign up bonus to make this redemption are the Citi Premier, Capital One Venture, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Air France’s KLM World Elite Mastercard.
My flight home from Zurich was an ever better redemption. I transferred 57,500 American Airlines miles to British Airways to fly in BA’s Club Suite in the Club World cabin of an Airbus A350. The same flight would have cost $10,053 if booked out of pocket! After paying the miles plus $423.65 in taxes and surcharges, I netted $9,629.35 in free travel!
Chase, AMEX, and Capital One points can all be transferred to British Airways so the same cards mentioned above could earn or nearly earn this redemption from the sign up bonus alone. Additionally, American Airlines currently has several co-branded credit cards with annual fees less than $100 that would earn enough miles from the sign up bonus alone to book a flight like this.
For the miles earned from 2 credit card sign up bonuses, I booked over $12,000 in free travel. I payed no credit card interest because I didn’t overspend to meet the spend requirements of the welcome offers and was therefore able to pay off my statement balances in full every month.
These points/miles don’t take long to earn and don’t require a lot of spend to earn. Do you spend $6,000 – $7,000 bi-annually on normal, every day purchases (groceries, gas, dining, internet, streaming, etc…)? If so, then you could potentially redeem the points/miles you earned on round trip international flights in business class cabins with lie-flat seats. Or maybe you aren’t interested in flying in business class. If you value quantity over quality, you can definitely get more travel from your miles by booking in economy or premium economy. I personally would rather spend more miles for the comfort when I am on a 10+ hour flight.
I had 5 flights between countries while in Europe. Both business class and economy points redemptions are typically lousy for flights within Europe so I paid out of pocket for all but one of these flights. I ended up booking my flight from Vienna to Zurich in economy for 6,000 United Airlines miles and a $43.30 surcharge. The ticket would have cost $217 total out of pocket, so I earned $173.70 of free travel from this redemption which was pretty solid for only 6,000 miles.
I needed places to sleep while I was in Europe…and I had no intention of paying for them. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to earn free hotel stays playing the Game of Miles.
My first stay was one night at the AC Hotel Paris Porte Maillot that I booked with an annual free night certificate earned with the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card from AMEX. This is a premium card with a hefty annual fee of $450. I have since canceled this card since many of the perks overlap with my other cards, but the card also offered an annual $300 credit that could be used at Marriott properties at the time that I held it. This credit could be used for dining at the hotels or even to book the room itself. Since $300 a year at Marriott is normal spend for me, I only needed to get more than $150 in value out of the card to earn free travel if I ignored all other perks and the sign up bonus. On a side note, that bonus was 100,000 points when I signed up. I used those points to book 4 nights in Zurich which I’ll discuss later in the article.
The room cost me the free night certificate plus a few dollars in taxes and fees. Out of pocket, the room would have cost over $480 USD. Deducting the $150 that I am accounting for from the annual fee, I earned about $330 in free travel from this redemption.
After a weekend camping at a music festival in Clisson, France, I headed to Amsterdam for 3 nights. I stayed at the Double Tree Centraal Station using Hilton Honors points. The majority of these points were earned from the 150,000 welcome offer the Hilton Aspire AMEX card was offering at the time I signed up.
This is another premium card with an annual fee of $450. However, it is one of my favorite cards on the market. For me, the $450 is simply pre-paying for travel that is part of my normal, everyday spend in any given year. You can read about that along with why it might make sense to pay a large annual fee on a credit card in this post. If you read that post, you will see that AMEX is essentially paying me $50 every year to hold this card. Therefore, I consider all redemptions I make with Hilton points and certificates to be free travel.
The 3 night stay would have cost $835.71 out of pocket. I got it for 180,000 Hilton Honors points. There were no taxes or fees charged for this points stay. It cost me nothing. Not only that, but I got upgraded from a queen guest suite to the Skyline Suite due to my Hilton Diamond status which I receive automatically from having the Aspire card. The room was nothing fancy, but it was incredibly spacious with a large living room and separate bedroom. It also had an incredible view of the city.
Diamond status grants you various perks, one of which is complimentary room upgrades dependent on availability. My experience is that Hilton is very generous when it comes to upgrading their Diamond members. This upgrade would have been an extra $300 per night for the cash price! However, I don’t include that extra $900 in my free travel calculations since I wouldn’t normally spend money on a suite like that just for myself. It is simply an added perk that this card offers.
After a second weekend camping in Clisson, I spent 2 nights at the Rome Cavalieri. I booked this Waldorf Astoria property using 2 Hilton free night certificates earned from my Hilton Aspire card. Again, no taxes or fees were charged for this stay. I payed nothing out of pocket.
This hotel was amazing, and the stay would have cost me $1078.95 out of pocket. That’s not even counting the value I got from my room being upgraded to a room with a private park view. This upgrade was again because of my Diamond status earned just by having the Aspire card.
This is where I used up the majority of the Hilton Aspire’s annual $250 resort credit by dining 2 nights at the hotel’s excellent restaurant, L’Uliveto. The credit covered both meals, and I still had some of the credit left over. While a $450 annual fee may seem steep, if treating yourself or your family to a fantastic meal or two while staying at a Hilton property in a given year is normal spend, then a card like this could make sense for you.
I used a second Marriott free certificate for a one night stay at the Hotel Bristol in Vienna, Austria. This was another excellent room, and the certificate gave me $365.40 of value. Deducting the $150 like I did for the night in Paris, this certificate gave me $215.40 of free travel. No taxes or fees were charged for the stay. This wasn’t an incredible redemption compared to my other certificate uses, but I made it a point not to pay for a single hotel stay while in Europe. Plus, I happen to like hotel rooms with hallways.
Finally, I used 104,000 Marriott points to stay 4 nights in Switzerland. This got me just under $700 in free travel. I stayed one night at the Courtyard Zurich North and the remaining 3 nights at the Kameha Grand Zurich. The Courtyard was nothing special, but the Kameha Grand was sold out that night. The Kameha Grand, on the other hand, was a really cool hotel. While not as luxurious as some of my other stays, it was an excellent 3 night stay for 77,000 Marriott points.
Marriott cards have frequently offered sign up bonuses of 100,000 points or more, but the current Bonvoy Brilliant offer is only 75,000 points. Even though you can easily get $450+ value out of that many points, I would personally wait for a better offer on this particular card. I would, however, definitely sign up for Chase’s Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card as it is offering an excellent sign up bonus of 3 free nights up to 50,000 points each. And its annual fee is only $95! Unfortunately, I signed up for this card before the current offer. While my offer of 125,000 points was still pretty excellent, the 3 nights at 50,000 points each is an amazing offer for a $95 card.
UPDATE: both cards’ public offers have changed since the time I wrote this article. The Bonvoy Brilliant from AMEX has been revamped with new perks and with a higher sign up offer of 95,000 points. However, the annual fee has been raised to $650. I usually preach that high annual fees on credit cards are well worth it, but this is one of the worst premium cards I’ve seen.
The public offer of 3 free night certificates for the Marriott Bonvoy has recently expired. They are now offering a flat 100,000 point bonus. However, my referral link is still offering the 3 free nights at up to 50,000 points each night. If this card sounds appealing to you, you may want to take advantage of that while you can.
With a combination of 415,000 points and miles along with 4 free night certificates, I earned nearly $16,000 in free travel on this trip. I flew round-trip business class to Europe and stayed 10 nights in nice, comfortable, and sometimes luxurious hotel rooms. I never would have been able to travel like this had I not played the Game of Miles. While this may seem like an overwhelming amount of points and miles to earn, you’d be surprised how quickly you can start building up a balance. Also keep in mind that almost every one of these individual redemptions could have been earned from a single credit card bonus.
If you are interesting in traveling in style, comfort, and luxury for little to no money, check out this post for my recommendations on getting started.
If you found the information here helpful and decide to apply for any of the cards mentioned, please consider signing up through my referral links (if available) on the home page.
