Redeeming for International Coach? - Part 2

As a follow up to my post on Redeeming for International Coach, I promised to outline the second of my two trips planned for 2012 that was booked using miles to maximize the number of travelers instead of the class of travel. This trip actually will take place before our family trip to South America, but was booked at a later date, so the write-up comes second.

Many of you might know that the whole reason I got into the miles and points game was because I couldnbt stomach the cost of flying my family of four to France. To give you the short version, I looked at the pricing of the tickets, decided there must be a better way, starting doing online research, and here I am one year later. We didnbt end up making it to France this summer since our Costa Rica trip and a few other things on the schedule got in the way. Next summer doesnbt look good either, with our South American trip already booked for June, so I started to look at options in the spring.

France, and Paris in particular, has a special place in the hearts of Chrissy and I. She spent 6 months studying at the Sorbonne during college and I met up with her there after my time studying in Copenhagen. Those few days together made us realize we were meant for each other and the next year, I surprised her with a trip to Paris for spring break and proposed in front of the Louvre on our first evening there. I chose the location because thatbs where we had agreed to meet when I arrived in Paris for my visit the year before. It has been several years since we have been back to Paris, and we really want to show the city to our kids.

I have mentioned before that Chrissy is a teacher, so our ability to travel during the school year is somewhat limited. We basically need to travel around holidays, so Easter seemed like the best option to start looking for award space. Besides, who wouldnbt want to go to Paris in the springtime? We have a good stock of miles on several airlines, so I began searching for award space on the major players. I was shocked when on the second day of searching, I found space for all four of us on flights there and back on days we could actually travel. Luckily, the space was on American Airlines and we both had 80K+ miles in our accounts from the Citi AAdvantage Visa Card (back when the bonus was 75K). We wouldn’t even need to transfer any miles. I found the award space at around 2 AM and had not even mentioned the possibility of Easter in Paris to my family, so I spent a good few minutes struggling with whether I should go wake up my wife to ask her if I should book. Then I remembered a wonderful thing about AAdvantage award booking. They will let you put an award on hold. Minutes after I remembered this, I had the award flights on hold for the four of us and was too excited to sleep. I couldnbt wait for morning so I could tell everyone the great news. I had four tickets on hold for 40,000 miles each and fees of about $75 each. In the morning, I confirmed with my wife that she could actually get the necessary day or two off from school, and later that day, I had the tickets booked.

A couple of weeks later, my parents came down for a visit and we told them about our new travel plans. My mom made several comments about how she wished she could go to Paris for Easter, but they do not play the card churning game and rarely fly, so they had no miles to use. After they left, my wife asked if we had enough miles to take them with us. We did not, but I was working on the spend for my Citi AAdvantage Business Card at the time and knew that when the statement closed, I would have an additional 75k miles in my account. We decided that this would make a great Christmas present for my parents and I made sure to complete the spend requirements on the card before the statement closed the next week. Once the miles posted to my account, I went back in search of award space. I found space for my parents to fly to Paris the day before us and return on the same flights with us. I put the awards on hold and kept searching for more space on the same outbound flights as us. Two days later the space opened up and I booked the flights for my parents. Another 40,000 miles each and about $90 in fees each.

When I was talking to my parents about the trip a few weeks later, my dad brought up the point that they will be celebrating their anniversary while we are in Paris. Not just any anniversary either. Thanks to credit card bonuses and AAdvantage miles, my Mom and Dad will be celebrating 40 years of marriage in one of the most romantic cities in the world. We managed to give them an unbelievable Christmas and Anniversary present for less than $200 out of pocket cost. You just canbt beat travel like that.

Our award flight details look like this:

JFK – BOS – CDG – BOS – JFK
4/4/12 – 4/10/12
4 adults, 2 kids

Total Cost : 240,000 miles and $480 in fees

Cost of the tickets if purchased outright – $6758.20

This works out to a redemption cost of about 2.8 cents per mile. Many people out there would say that this is a waste of miles and I should have waited and used what I had for a first class award to Asia or some other high dollar ticket. A small part of me thinks they are right, but at the same time, I can’t think of a better possible redemption than what I have booked. Chrissy and I will be able to return to one of our favorite cities, our boys and my parents will see Paris for the first time, and my parents will spend their 40th anniversary together in a city that many romantics only dream of visiting. Sometimes, it’s not necessarily the dollar amount that you get for your redemption that is most important. Often, the rewards of travel with family and experiencing new things together will make it worth any number of miles you need to redeem to get there.