Family Trip to Europe with Miles Tutorial: The True Cost of a “Cheaper Than Free” One-Way from the Caribbean

My parents and sister are planning a two week trip to Europe this summer. The vacation will be for three people and cover three different cities in Europe. As an added bonus, they decided to include a trip to Saint Martin in the Caribbean taking advantage of a “better than free” one way trick to save on American Airlines miles. Just about everything (flights, hotels, fuel surcharges) will be paid for with points. This post is part of a tutorial series to follow along step-by-step how I planned their trip!

Series Index:

• Overview

• Finding American Airlines Award Space to Europe

• Adding a “Cheaper Than Free” One-Way from the Caribbean

• The True Cost of a “Cheaper Than Free” One-Way from the Caribbean

I know what you’re thinking. This is a family trip to Europe. What does the Caribbean have to do with anything? As I outlined in the last post, my family got a “cheaper than free” one-way to the Caribbean by taking advantage of one of my favorite tricks: Booking the 20,000 American Airlines miles for a combined one-way trip from the Caribbean in Spring and a one-way trip to Europe in Summer! By just booking tickets to Europe in summer with American Airlines miles, the trip would cost them 30,000 miles per person for the one-way economy flight. However, by starting in Saint Martin in April and putting a stopover in New York City, they were able to book both one-way trips together for just 20,000 miles.

Of course, the one-way back from Saint Martin added onto their American Airlines ticket only takes care of half the trip. They needed to find tickets there too! American Airlines lets you hold award tickets for up to 5 days. Having found their flights from Saint Martin to New York + New York to Rome two months later, they the combined itinerary on hold and went to look for their flights to the Caribbean.

This brings us to the question that everyone always asks:

How much do these free one ways really cost?

Many readers have correctly identified and pointed out that “free one-ways” or “cheaper than free one ways” aren’t truly free. After all, they’re only one ways and it will cost additional miles or money to get there or back.

In our example, by adding a trip to Saint Martin, my parents saved 10,000 American Airlines miles per person. The departure taxes are $80 per person so that’s an additional cost they’ll have to bear… although they plan to pay all the taxes and fuel surcharges by redeeming their miles with the Barclaycard Arrival MasterCard. I’ll be discussing using points to cover these fees in the next post.

To figure out what their additional trip to the Caribbean will cost, we need to think about the costs of the total round-trip ticket they’re essentially paying. We have few options for getting to Saint Martin:

• American Airlines miles.
• British Airways miles.
• Cash or fixed value points.

Under each of these options, we will answer: What is the cost of a round-trip ticket to the Caribbean above the cost of the ticket to Europe? That is, once the trip to Europe is booked, how much more will a ticket to the Caribbean cost?

American Airlines miles

If they used American Airlines miles to fly to Saint Martin, the cost is 17,500 miles for a one-way flight in economy class with SAAver award space.

• Each person would save 10,000 American Airlines miles by adding the trip back.
• Each person would spend 17,500 miles + $80 getting there.
• Total cost for the round-trip: 7,500 miles + $80.

A round-trip to Saint Martin for 7,500 miles and just $80? A great deal if you ask me!

British Airways miles

In reality, we don’t really like to use American Airlines to fly to the Caribbean as the Caribbean is quite close to us. British Airways has a distance-based award chart where shorter flights cost fewer miles. According to their award chart, a non-stop award flight in economy class on American Airlines from New York city would cost 10,000 British Airways Avios. Let’s calculate:Each person would save 10,000 American Airlines miles by adding the trip back.

• Each person saves 10,000 American Airlines miles by adding the trip back.
• Each person spends 10,000 British Airways miles + $80 getting there.
• Although these are different miles, let’s net them out for simplicity. We’re paying $80 for a round-trip ticket!

British Airways miles can be an amazing deal for booking tickets to the Caribbean. They can be used on American Airlines flights without any fuel surcharges. I previously wrote a full explanation on how to save miles to the Caribbean with British Airways: British Airways Miles to the Caribbean: As Few As 4,500 Miles Each Way!

Cash or fixed-value points

In my parents case, they could not find award availability with miles. This did not deter them, however. They went to their flexible stash of points that can be used on any flight: US Bank Flexperks and Citi ThankYou Points. These particular points have a fixed value without any award hunting. They found non-stop tickets on American Airlines miles to Saint Martin for $340 per person. I know that sounds expensive for a one-way ticket, but let’s look at the total cost for their round-trip.

Because we’re using miles and money, we need a single metric to value them. It’s easy to value fixed-value points or cash so let’s value American Airlines miles at 2 cents each. That is, let’s count the 10,000 miles they save as $200 each.

• Each person saves 10,000 American Airlines miles (or $200) by adding the trip back.
• Each person spends $340 + $80 taxes and fees getting there.
• The total round-trip ticket then costs $220 per person.

This may not be as great a deal as using British Airways miles, but $220 for a round-trip to the Caribbean is pretty good. And don’t forget they’re not actually paying $220; they’re using fixed-value points for all of it.

So how did such an expensive trip turn out to be so inexpense? The main ingredient lies in saving the 10,000 miles going back. Although the tickets there cost $340 each plus $80 departure taxes, we get to offset this cost with the 10,000 miles savings… coming out to a pretty good deal even without being able to find award space!

How My Family Booked Their Tickets

My family likes flying non-stop to the beach and booked the most convenient flight to Saint Martin for a five day vacation. They found tickets for $340 and booked:

• Two tickets with U.S. Bank FlexPerks points: Each ticket cost 20,000 U.S. Bank FlexPerks points.  With 20,000 FlexPerks points, we can buy any ticket up to $400.
• One ticket with Citi ThankYou points: This cost 27,200 Citi ThankYou points because I have the Citi ThankYou Premier card, which allows us to redeem each point for 1.25 cents toward airfare. For an in-depth tutorial on how to book flights with Citi ThankYou points, you can read the post: How To Book Flights With Citi ThankYou Rewards Points.

Summary

With three tickets to Saint Martin booked, let’s take a look at where we are in the process:

So now that we have found a flight from Saint Martin, let’s see where we are in our plan:

• Find flights to Saint Martin: Two tickets for 20,000 FlexPerks points each, one ticket for 27,200 Citi ThankYou points (booked!)
• Book a hotel in Saint Martin.
• Find award flight from Saint Martin: Three American Airlines non-stop award tickets included with the trip to Europe (put on hold for 5 days)
• Find award flight to Europe: Three American Airlines award tickets New York to Rome connecting in London (put on hold for 5 days)
• Find award flights from Europe.
• Find flights and train tickets within Europe.
• Book hotels in each city.