The Middle East for $140

Today’s itinerary is a request from a reader wishing to travel to Jordan. I’ve taken the (artistic?) liberty of adding on a stop in Saudi Arabia since it’s free. As you might imagine, fares to the Middle East are incredibly expensive given the distance required to travel there. We’re going to take a shot at getting there for under $200, which I believe will be more than manageable. Here’s our proposed itinerary:

DC to Amman, Jordan

Amman to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Riyadh to DC

And the credit cards we’ll be signing up for:

United MileagePlus Explorer

30,000 miles after $1,000 spend in 3 months

5,000 miles for adding an authorized user

$0 annual fee first year

Note: This is an unpublished offer, but other blogs have confirmed that the link below works

Chase Ink Bold

50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 3 months

$0 annual fee first year

Total Miles: 31,000

Total General Points: 55,000

Total Cost: $0

Flights

First, the United card alone doesn’t provide us enough miles to get there. Luckily, the Chase Ink Bold gives us a bunch of points that can easily be transferred to United. All we need to do is go to the Chase site, click “Ultimate Rewards” after logging in, and then click “Transfer Points to Travel Partners.” I’ve added a picture below to illustrate:

Thanks to the stopover rules on United mile tickets, we can do all three legs on this trip for the price of one roundtrip ticket. A roundtrip to either of these Middle East cities costs 80,000 miles, so if we find space at the “Saver” award level for all three legs, we can spend 80,000 miles for the whole trip. The first leg is Washington to Amman, which I’ve chosen to fly in mid-September:

There are a few options on this list, but only one is a one-stop set of flights, the one I pictured above. So far so good! Next is Jordan to Saudi Arabia:

Again there are a bunch of options this leg of the trip. Unfortunately there are no nonstops on Star Alliance available, but a two-hour layover in Cairo could be worse. Even though it says 15,000 miles, this will go away when we price out the whole trip all together. Finally, the leg back to DC:

Plenty of availability! The only one-stop is the first choice though. Lufthansa is a great airline, not a problem. Let’s total it out now:

As you can see, the flights totaled out to 80,000 miles even with the three legs.

Total Miles Used: 80,000 miles

Total Cost so Far: $140.60

Here’s a look at the actual price for flights on the same days:

Flights

$1701

Total Savings: $1,560 ($1700 less taxes and fees on the miles ticket)

Need help thinking about the right credit cards for you, or how to book this kind of trip? Head over to www.wennecorp.com and we’d be happy to chat with you.

Credit Card Links

Chase Ink Bold

Chase United MileagePlus Explorer