Reader
Barnabus is interested in taking a trip to the land of my second-favorite
painter, Mr. Salvador Dali. Enter WenneTravel. While Barnabus is a seasoned vet
in the miles and points game, unfortunately his current balances in British
Airways and American Airlines are not incredibly useful to us, given that he
doesn’t have enough AA miles and his Avios points will come with hefty fuel surcharges. Luckily, there
are a number of ways to get to Europe on one single credit card. In this case,
though, to cut on costs, we’re gonna get two credit cards.
American Express Premier Rewards Gold
50,000 Membership Rewards points after $5,000 spend in 3 months
No annual fee first year
Barclaycard Arrival
40,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months
2 points earned per dollar spent
No annual fee first year
Total General Points: 97,000
Total Cost: $0
Flights
In the
interest of variety, I have taken it upon myself to avoid both Chase cards and
United miles for this trip. United is by far the best and easiest-to-use
mileage program, in my opinion, so usually I find flights using their miles. However,
not everyone has the credit to get Chase credit cards, so today we will focus
on two other issuers: Amex and Barclays.
Amex
Membership Rewards points transfer to a number of airline partners. One in
particular, Air France, is interesting because they have some pretty good
redemption options for long-haul flights. A lot of Europe is only 50,000 miles
roundtrip. Air France lets you use their www.airfrance.us
site to search for award space even if you don’t have enough miles in your account.
Since Membership Rewards should transfer instantly to your Air France account,
you can search for the award space and know what you want to purchase before
having to transfer miles.
For
September there is a ton of space going to Madrid and out of Barcelona.
DC to Madrid
There is a
significant amount of availability:
The return is looking pretty darn good as well:
Barcelona to DC
So for
50,000 miles and $279, we can go to Barcelona and come back from Madrid. But
wait, there’s more!
Let’s put
the $279 in taxes and fees on our Barclaycard Arrival. Now, for 27,900 points,
we can “erase” that purchase. Our Arrival card allows us to erase travel
purchases at a rate of 1 cent per point.
Finally, we must
get between Madrid and Barcelona. We’re in luck once again. Take a look at
these fares:
We have about 20,000 Arrival points remaining, 4,000
of which will be needed to cover one of the first two flights.
Total Points
Used: 81,900
Total Cost: $0
Here’s a look at the actual price for flights on the same days:
Flights
Total Savings: $1,369
Need help thinking about the right credit cards for you, or how to book
this kind of trip? Head over to WenneTravel at www.wennecorp.com and we’d be happy to chat
with you.
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