For 2013 I decided I wanted to go to Cancun for the beach and relaxation and Munich for the much talked about crazy Oktoberfest. I wanted to take advantage of some awesome tips I learned such as free one ways and I wanted to pay as little as possible out of pocket. This took a lot of searching and researching and my bookings seem crazy but it worked for me and I did it for a good reason.
Initial Leg
IAH-CUN 17.5 AA miles + $20
My Almost Free One Way
Using the technique I learned from MileValue, I was able to book CUN-MIA and MIA-MUC for only 20k miles + $60. If this would have been booked separately, it would have costed 17.5k+30k= 47.5k AA miles. The only thing is I live in Houston. The reason I did it out of MIA was because flying through IAH, it forced me to take an award flight with British Airways which has fuel charges. I would have had to pay 300+ out of pocket. So instead I booked this and added MIA-IAH and IAH-MIA for15k Avios. I think burning Avios miles was worth what I would have spent.
Getting back from Munich
So I needed to get back from Germany. Since I didn’t have enough AA miles, I looked to book through British Airways. I did it in 2 pieces, MUC-MIA & MIA-IAH because there was no award availability for MUC-IAH (funny huh). The initial leg costed 29.5k Avios + $122 and the second leg costed 7.5k Avios + $3
In Total
37,000 AA miles
52,000 BA miles
$218
Given that I have a full time job, that I live in Houston, and that I wanted to go to Cancun in April and Munich for the first weekend of Oktoberfest…I was happy with this booking 🙂
Actual price as of post date
I looked up the actual cheapest prices for Cancun and Munich on the dates I wanted to go from Houston:
IAH-CUN round trip cost $483 on United
IAH-MUC round trip cost $1,225 on Airberlin
Total out of pocket savings of $1,490
Now to figure out the hotel bookings with my hodgepodge of hotel points and certificates from various programs #frequenttravelerproblems