A Preview Our European Multi-City “Tag Team” Vacation!

Everyone loves visiting Europe in the summer and we’re all going to be starting our vacations soon. We are quite excited about our plans this summer and quite proud of ourselves for making it happen. My family, Svetlana, Natalya, our friend Irena and I all independently managed to arrange multi-city European trips with miles. What’s particularly exciting is that we managed to arrange our schedules too so we can overlap and travel together, meeting up in some cities along the way.

Here’s how we did it:

My Parents and Sister

My parents and sister are starting off first and leaving next week. They’re visiting Rome, Prague and Vienna beginning with a four night stay at the Waldorf Astoria Rome Cavalieri.

For their tickets, they booked their flights there for 20,000 American Airlines mile per person and got a free one-way from St. Martin in April when stopovers with American Airlines miles were still allowed. Their flights back cost 30,000 United Airlines miles each. Total miles spent: 150,000. They are buying their own tickets from Rome to Prague (though these only cost $60 each) and taking the train to Vienna.

The hotel looks amazing, but I’ll be missing that part of the trip… even though I’ve already been to Rome twice, hopefully I’ll visit again someday and get to stay there. After a few days in Rome, my parents are heading to Prague where….

Myself

I am going to meet them in Prague three days after their arrival. We’ll be spending another three nights in Prague together before heading to Vienna on the train. We are going to be checking into the brand new just-opened super highly anticipated Park Hyatt Vienna for five nights in a suite!

I am flying in Business Class on a ticket I booked right before the United Airlines devaluation. I am flying into Prague and returning from Vienna. For 100,000 miles, I got the round-trip ticket in Business Class and also added a free one-way from Los Angeles earlier this year. Total miles spent: 100,000 miles.

To read how I booked my award, check out the post:  How to Add Free One-Way Trips On United Airlines Awards

Svetlana

Which brings us to Svetlana’s trip. She is going to be arriving in Vienna from Los Angeles on our third day there. My parents are going to take off for home the next day and Svetlana and I will tour the sights of Vienna for another two days.

Svetlana will be visiting a few more cities with Irena and she booked a multi-city United Airlines award for 60,000 miles that included her flight to Vienna from Los Angeles, to Nice from Vienna and from Ibiza to Los Angeles. She had to pay separately for a ticket from Nice to Ibiza, but the United miles covered most of her flights. Total miles spent: 60,000 United miles.

To read how she booked her award, check out the post:  Visiting Multiple European Cities On a Single United Airlines Award Ticket

Irena

On our last night in Vienna, our friend Irena arrives. The next day, I’ll be flying back to New York while Svetlana and Irena will just be getting started. They’ll be spending a week on the beaches or Nice in the French Riviera and Ibiza in Spain. After they part ways, Svetlana is going to spend a night in London on her way back to Los Angeles and Irena is going to visit her family in Belgrade for another two weeks. She’s also planning a side trip to Dubrovnik.

Her ticket was booked in a similar way to Svetlana and she spent 60,000 United miles.

Summary

That’s definitely a lot of cities we’re visiting all with miles! Rome, Prague, Vienna, Nice, Ibiza, Belgrade and Dubrovnik. Together, we spent 370,000 miles on all our flights from the USA and got a lot of good travel out of them. I’m sure we’ll have many stories to tell when we get back.

Anyone else planning a European summer vacation?