Central Europe with Travel Rewards

This May, Mrs. Done by Forty and I will be traveling to central Europe with our close couple friends. We'd all gone to Hawaii a couple years ago and had a fantastic time so, we figured, let's try it again. We'll visit five cities over sixteen days: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow, and Prague. It is hard to express how excited I am about it. And thanks to Brad over at Richmond Savers, we'll be traveling with some (nearly) free flights and hotels, too.

Being fairly new to the whole travel rewards thing, we find ourselves questioning how this is all possible. Why should these credit card companies give us flights and hotel nights in the first place? What's the point of giving away thousands of dollars worth of benefits to deadbeats like us, who never pay interest? Like grandma told us, it is better to just accept the gift horse.

Normally I'd write about this travel while we were actually abroad or when we got back. But I'm planning on leaving the laptop behind this time around, and making due with only a cell phone. Unless the good folks at the hotel don't mind me clacking away on their lobby computer for a while.

So, I figured I'd write a bit about our upcoming trip, in case anyone's interested in replicating the process for themselves.

Key Concepts:

• Never pay interest. Pay off your entire credit card balance every month (or, if you're a weirdo like me, every weekend).
• Work in pairs. The hotel card we used really hinges on two people working this plan together, so find the love of your life if you haven't already. Or, you know, a buddy.
• Get organized. Create a spreadsheet that shows when you signed up for the card, what the sign up bonus requirements are, when the annual fee will be due, and how many points you currently have. 
• Optimize your spending dollars on the right cards. Let's say that in a given year, you put about $11,000 on credit cards for groceries, gas, restaurants, whatever. For every dollar you spend on a credit card, you can get back a certain type of reward. For us, getting two trans-Atlantic flights and 16 hotel nights was worth more than the 1% in cash we'd get on that $11,000 ($110). But for someone who doesn't have any interest in travel, or would rather have funds to pay down debt or invest, the 1%, 2% or rotating 5% cash back may in fact be a better deal. Optimize your spending for your own situation.

Step One

Look around to get the Chase United Card when it has a 50,000 mile bonus (like it is now for business cards). Normally, the bonus seems to be 30,000. But when we logged in to our United frequent flyer account, we noticed that they'd occasionally have banner ads offering 50,000 miles (if you spend $3,000 in the first three months). You need 60,000 for a flight to Europe, so just fulfilling the sign up bonus requirement gets you most of the way there (50,000 bonus and another 3,000 for the money you actually spent on the card). Add your buddy/significant other as an authorized user and that gives you another 5,000. If you had any United miles at all before, like we did, you're probably over the 60,000 needed already. If not, you can just spend another 2,000 on the card in the coming months.

Repeat this process for the other person's card, and you have all the airline miles needed to get the two of you across the Atlantic. (Our flights also cost us about $150 in taxes and fees each, but that is somewhat dependent on your itinerary. Different airports seem to charge more than others.)

Step Two

Get the Club Carlson hotel card. Spend $2,500 in the first three months to get 85,000 points. While you do have to pay a $75 annual fee for this card, it does have a crazy benefit. When you book a stay for two-or-more nights, you get the final night for free. The best utilization of this benefit is staying in two-night increments. So, if you stay for two or four nights in a city, you get a 50% discount on any points used.

Here's how it breaks down. We organized the trip to spend two or four nights in each location. I will book the first two nights of our stay, getting the second night without having to use any points (a net 50% discount). Then, Mrs. Done by Forty does the same for nights three and four. So long as we stay in a place for two or four nights, we can maximize the "free last night" benefit. (In between nights two and three, we plan on just asking if we can stay in the same room, under two different reservations. I don't see this being a problem but, if it is, hey, new room.)

Again, we have Brad at Richmond Savers to thank for this tip. With our two cards, we had enough points for 16 nights at different Radissons in the cities we wanted to visit: four in Vienna, two in Bratislava, four in Budapest, four in Krakow, and two in Prague. I'll write a quick review on the hotels when we get back, but from afar they all seem to be good, sometimes-bordering-on-fancy places to stay either in the city center, or a short tram ride away.

Step Three
Start looking far ahead for flights and hotel availability. We booked our flights about eight months in advance, and our hotels maybe six months out. It did take some coordination between the four of us, with conflicting work schedules and whatnot. My recommendation, if you're trying to do a large group together, is to try to plan the dates out in person or when all of you can get on a call.

That's pretty much it. I'll admit that it does take a little planning and effort but, oddly, I found it all to be kind of fun. Maybe even a bit exhilarating. As someone who loves getting a good deal, travel rewards hits a very special nerve: it's the equivalent of finding an airline ticket in the 'give-a-penny, take-a-penny' tray. With the Euro taking a nose dive and the four of us only having to pay for meals and our train tickets between cities, everything's lining up for a great, affordable vacation.

This all probably seems like bragging, doesn't it? Maybe it is. But I've always been one of those people who will tell friends about a deal I got. I'll tell my neighbors about our cheap cell phone plan and my family about the deal we negotiated with our internet provider. I can't help it. It may be a faux pas to speak about these sort of things. But isn't it a greater one to keep a secret like this all to yourself?


*Photo of Prague is from Fil.ippo at Flickr Creative Commons.