The best part of the miles and points “game” is when you’re truly able to LEVERAGE your points into much more than you’d pay for cash. I used 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer to Amtrak to pay for a trip that would have cost me $6500
That’s a value of about 6.5 cents per point. Â Short-haul flights on British Airways are also a good example. Â Because flights under 650 miles only cost 4500 Avios, you can get a lot of value that way. Â For example, a nonstop one-way flight from my home airport of CVG to New York can often run $300 or more. Â But paying 4500 Avios means that each Avios point is saving 6.7 cents per point.
Flights in red are only 4500 Avios; Flights in green are 7500 Avios one-way
If you’re looking for the absolute maximum “value” for your points, you can’t really get better than international premium cabin airline travel. Â In my introductory post on “The Basics” of how to use miles and points, I shared an example of how you could use 42,500 miles to take a flight that would cost you $8,764, which is nearly 21 cents per mile!
I say “value” in quotation marks, because I don’t feel like that’s really a fair comparison, because nobody I  know would actually pay 9000 dollars for a flight 😀
I’m heading to Europe!
After months of planning, my wife and I are heading to Europe this fall. Â Here is our basic itinerary:
- Cincinnati to Boston: 12,500 Delta Skymiles one-way in economy
- Boston to Dublin: 25,000 Avios on Aer Lingus one-way in business class. Â We booked this before the recent British Airways devaluation; this flight would now cost 37,500 Avios
- Dublin: 1 day
- Train from Dublin to Belfast, Northern Ireland
- British Airways Belfast to London. Â This is our “free” domestic connection that used to be allowed with British Airways. Â We’re then using our free British Airways stopover (what’s the difference between a stopover, layover, and open jaw?) in London before continuing on
- 3 days in London
- British Airways London to Nice, France (measuring in at a cool 647 miles, just under the limit to make it 4500 Avios one-way).  We’re staying at the Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée using the free night with the Chase Hyatt card.
We’re staying at the Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée
- After a day in Nice / Monaco, we’re flying Vueling, a low-cost carrier from Nice to Rome, and staying 3 days / 2 nights in Rome. Â We booked 2 nights at the Radisson Blu Rome before the recent Club Carlson devaluation. Â Since we were blowing points, we spent 66,000 points (rather than 44,000) for the “business” award, which includes breakfast, and of course got the 2nd night free.
- Then we are returning in business class Rome-London-Chicago-Cincinnati, for 50,000 American AAdvantage miles each. Â I am hoping that some better space opens up, or a schedule change that allows a direct flight from Rome which will a) be better because it’s nonstop, b) allow another night in Rome and c) save me money because I can pay less UK Air Passenger Duty (it’s not TOO egregious because I only have a layover in London). Â I actually had a connection through Dusseldorf and having our overwater flight be on airberlin, but I was waiting for my US Airways miles to combine with my American miles, and had not yet realized how to put an American Airlines award on hold (for free!) for 5 days!
Hotels I’m staying at in Europe
I already mentioned that I’m staying at the Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice, France and the Radisson Blu in Rome.  We also have a 2nd free night available from our Chase Hyatt card, and we both have the IHG cards, which means that we can use 2 free nights there as well
(SEE ALSO: Why you should get 2 IHG cards at the same time)
I have a surplus of Hilton points, and Hilton Gold status which gives us free breakfast at Hiltons. Â We have looked at the Hilton Park Lane as well as the Morrisson Hilton in Dublin.
If anybody has any suggestions of places to stay, things to do, or other comments, I’d love to hear them! Â It’s so hard to strike a balance between wanting to see more places, and wanting to be able to have this vacation be somewhat relaxing!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I recently used a suite upgrade at the Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée, and it was a wonderful experience. I’m certain you’ll enjoy the hotel even without the upgrade. Thanks for the tip about the London to Nice BA ticket for 4500 Avios! In return, here’s one for you — Nice taxi drivers have fast fingers with their meters. If you are presented with an outrageously high fare from the airport, either ask for a receipt with the cab number clearly indicated and offer to pay by credit card; or, even better, let the doorman who greets you at the hotel discuss the fare with the driver.
Yay! Enjoy looks like an awesome trip and well planned. 🙂 Have fun
We just stayed at the IC London Park Lane on a 20 hours connection with three free IHG nights (three rooms for one night, I had all 4 kids with me) from the last promotion. The hotel is beautiful and the staff were very helpful as Bank of America had chosen that day to shut off our bank cards (after we had used them over the last two weeks in Greece, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey without a problem). They told me that we had a room upgrade, although I couldn’t tell one room from another, so who knows? The downside is no free breakfast, regardless of your status. You could combine your free Hilton nights with your free IHG nights as they are about a block apart. We saw a show (Wicked) in the London theatre district (actually this one is not really in the theatre district, but you get what I mean!) and they are a much better deal there than in New York, so that might be an option for you. London has Uber. If you are arriving into Heathrow, it is about 60% of the price of a black cab. If you are adventurous, the tube runs out to Heathrow and would be less than half what the Uber is. It also will be faster and will drop you pretty much underneath the Park Lane hotels without a transfer. If you are arriving into Gatwick, the train is a better deal (not the express, the regular train, it only takes about 5 more minutes).
Last year we took my father in law back to his hometown in Germany. He had left when he was 7 and finally went back when he was 67! Couldn’t have done it without points and miles.
Thanks for the tips! We are potentially looking at the IC Park Lane. We don’t have free NIGHTS with Hilton (just Hyatt and IHG) but have a bunch of Hilton points so was looking at spending the 70K or so on one night at the Hilton Park Lane. We are planning on taking the tube from Heathrow into the hotels
If you have any Club Carlson points left I would highly recommend the Radisson Blu in Dublin. They give breakfast to golds but no upgrade. If you are going to stay with Hilton Points the Morrison has the best location for a quick trip to Dublin. Look at taking the bus to/from the airport. Cabs are about 25 Eur I think. I took the bus one way and a cab back to the airport on my recent Dublin trip.
Thanks for the tips! I think we are staying at the Morrison and we are going to take the bus from the airport. We’re leaving from the train station so we won’t have to go back to the airport – from what I could see the train station was pretty close to the Morrison
Great post, and nice to read some of these helpful comments. My wife and I also have a trip coming in September to London, Paris, and ending with a few nights at the Hyatt in Nice as well! Excited to hear how your trip goes!
Next time, you should try using avios to get to BOS from CVG! It’s only 9000 miles in economy! Then again, you might have valued the non-stop flight more. Nevertheless, options are great 🙂
I did think about Avios but since I’m already running the risk of taking connecting flights on different airlines, I didn’t want to risk ANOTHER connection
We also took a ferry from Belfast to Scotland, and we really loved Scotland more than Ireland. We then took the the train onto London. Maybe next trip you can squeeze Scotland in.
Can you explain how you actually booked the trip from US to London. I intend to fly to London next summer and intend to fly Bos -Dub via AerLingus. How do you book the Belfast to London leg. Thanks
I’m not sure what you mean? I just booked a ticket from Belfast to Nice. Since British Airways prices everything by leg, they allow unlimited free stopovers. The only “tricky” thing was that it used to be, that you could get a free domestic leg if you were flying out of London. That’s why I flew out of Belfast (UK) versus Dublin (not UK). That is no longer the case, so unless you have a hankering to see Belfast, I’d just fly DUB-LHR. Email me if you still have questions