My parents and sister are going to London and the French Riviera in August! Read about how they got three tickets to Europe on United and Austrian Airways, four nights at the 5-star Hilton London on Park Lane and five nights at Le Meridien Nice across from the beach on the French Riviera for $862…
Here’s a preview of the scenery they’ll be visiting in the Riviera…

 (photo credits: Dmitry Brodsky)

They are taking a 10 day vacation leaving for London on Saturday, August 24 and returning on Labor Day Monday, September 2. Here are their costs:

 

Item	Retail cost	Cost to parents
3 tickets to London and return from Nice	$1000 each* 3 = $3000	180k US Airways miles + $390
3 tickets from London to Nice	$100 each* 3 = $300	$300
4 nights at London Hilton Park Lane with breakfast	$834 a night * 4 = $3336	145k Hilton points
5 nights at Le Meridien Nice	$340 a night * 5 = $1700	48k Starwood points

 

If they were to pay for this exact vacation out of pocket, it would cost them $8336. But we did it for $862…

Step one: Plane tickets to London and the French Riviera with US Airways miles

Plane tickets are usually the toughest part. Much tougher than hotels.

We looked at using American Airlines AAdvantage miles or US Airways Dividend miles. American Airlines miles can be used on oneworld partners, but oneworld didn’t have any availability for direct flights to London. So we went with Star Alliance instead.

US Airways allows you to redeem Star Alliance awards that you can find at the Saver level on the United Airlines Mileage Plus award search engine. They price according to the US Airways partner award chart for a roundtrip award ticket to Europe is 60k miles in August. US airways also allows you a stopover *or* an open jaw on each international roundtrip award booking.

My parents got three tickets:

Newark to London: Saturday. Aug 22, depart Newark 9 am, arrive London 9 pm
Nice to JFK: Monday, Sep 2 depart Nice 6 am, stop in Vienna, arrives 12 pm to JFK on Austrian Airways

This ticket is an open jaw. It arrives in London and returns from Nice.

They technically could have instead made London a stopover on the way to Nice and had gotten the flight from London to Nice on the same itinerary, but Star Alliance doesn’t fly directly between the two cities. Also, they would have to pay transit taxes through Austria or Germany, which can be around $30 each. Given that direct flights from London to Nice weren’t too expensive, they decided to buy 3 direct tickets from London to Nice for $100 each.

Total costs for the flights to London and Nice:

180k US Airways miles + ($80 per ticket in taxes + $50 US Airways booking fee per ticket)*3 + $300 = $690

How they got the miles:

1. Barclays Bank US Airways card gives 40k miles signup bonus with first purchase and 10k miles as an anniversary bonus when you pay the annual fee. You can also get this card more than once. They got 3 of these for 120k miles.
2. Last summer, the signup bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card card was 50k Ultimate Rewards points after spending $3000 in 3 months (this offer is no longer available).

Svetlana needed United Airways miles for a trip to Cayman Islands and Rio de Janeiro with me and had 60k US Airways Dividend miles. Since US Airways miles are worth a little less than United Mileage Plus miles (United miles are more flexible and US Airways charges a $50 international award booking fee), they traded 60k US Airways miles for 50k United miles.

 

With flights out of the way, it was time to look at hotel options…my parents’ total vacation will be 9 nights. With two cities, it’s a good candidate to cash in on multi-night awards.

First stop: Hilton London on Park Lane

4 nights with breakfast included for 145k Hilton HHonors points

My parents have Gold status with Hilton, which will give them free breakfast, possible room upgrade and free internet for stays with Hilton. They also have an American Express Hilton HHonors co-branded card, which gives them access to the AXON awards that includes award discounts for stays of exactly 4 nights at a Hilton.

The Hilton London Park Lane is a 5 star hotel. It’s Hilton HHonors Category 7 and will cost 145k points for 4 nights with an AXON award. I don’t know whether these are the usual rates, but I checked on Expedia and that hotel is $834 a night for Aug 24-Aug 28!!! For a sanity check, I also checked in February and the hotel is $489 a night then. It would make sense to have about a 40% discount in mid-winter over summer so I suppose these rates are consistent.

For four nights, the hotel would cost $3334!

I wouldn’t say they saved $3000 here as it’s not as if they would pay that. London has plenty of nice hotels you can get on Priceline for under $200. You may not get the Hilton Park Lane (or maybe sometimes you will!). 4 nights at the Hilton Park Lane is worth somewhere between $800 and $3000 to them. In practicality, the value is probably much closer to the lower end of that range… but psychologically, it feels good to stay at an $834 a night hotel, get free breakfast, a possible room upgrade and be treated especially well for being a VIP Hilton HHonors Diamond member!

Total cost in points for four nights at London Hilton Park Lane:

145k Hilton HHonors rewards points using the American Express AXON Award

How they got the points:

They still had 50k points, Gold status and access to the American Express award discounts from signing up for the American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass card previously.

They also signed up for the Bank of America Virgin Atlantic card. which gave 50k Virgin Atlantic points with first purchase. These transfer to Hilton HHonors at 2:1 ratio.

Next stop: The French Riviera

5 nights at Le Meridien Nice

My parents wanted to visit Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo… the French Riviera.

Unfortunately, Hilton does not have any properties in the South of France so they went with my second favorite program, Starwood. Le Meridien Nice is a Starwood Category 5 hotel, redeeming for 12k points a night. It’s not far from the train station so they can visit Cannes and Monte Carlo by train. It’s on Promenade des Anglais, across the street from the beach.

Le Meridien Nice at that time costs $340 a night. Again, I would not say they are saving $1700 as they wouldn’t pay that much for a hotel out of pocket… but, again, psychologically, it feels nice to know the rate.

Starwood Free Night Awards has a deal where, if you use points to redeem for 4 nights, you get the 5th night free. At 12k points per night, their five night hotel stay will cost 48k points.

Total cost in points for Le Meridien Nice:

48k Starwood points using the 5th Night Free Redemption option

How they will get the points:

They signed up for one Starwood American Express card. This comes with a 25k Starwood point signup bonus after $5,000 spend in 6 months.

They will need to spend $23,000 on the card to get to 48k, but they are going to meet this requirement by using a personalized Bluebird strategy I designed for them (details coming soon!). They will have to take a few trips to CVS, buy $23,000 (over a few months, not in one day!) Vanilla reload cards, load them onto the American Express Bluebird prepaid card and then use the Bluebird card to pay off the Starwood American Express Credit card. At $3.95 for each $500 Vanilla reload card, their total fees come to $172.70.

I outline meeting spending requirements and collecting miles and points cheaply in my post: The Bluebird and Vanilla Reload cards: The Ultimate Ticket to Luxurious Vacations

Summary

• My parents are taking a nice, luxurious 9 night vacation with my sister to London and the French Riviera
• Their flights, stays at 5-star London Hilton Park Lane and Le Meridien Nice would have cost them $8300 if they paid for this exact vacation.
• They are using 180k US Airways Dividend miles, 145k Hilton HHonors rewards points and 48k Starwood points.
• The vacation will only cost them 3 credit card signups each, $862 and 12 trips to the local CVS near their house.

Lesson learned: Take advantage of multi-night awards for discounts on reward redemptions.