How to Book A Winter Round-Trip to Europe for 30,000 US Airways Miles
Note: The credit card offer mentioned in this post is no longer available.
One of my favorite deals with US Airways miles is its off-peak award chart and it’s definitely something that I’ve been looking at lately. Now that summer travel season is over, I know many of us are looking toward the winter travel we’re planning. I’ve written before about the US Airways off-peak award chart and wanted to go over these very good deals. They may very well be disappearing once US Airways and American Airlines merge toward the start of 2015 as the combined airline may have a very different award chart.
Among these deals is the ability to fly to Europe for 35,000 miles round-trip between January 15 and February 28 provided you find award space on US Airways flights. Holders of the US Airways Premier World MasterCard receive an additional 5,000 mile discount when booking the ticket making the flight 30,000 miles round-trip instead. There is a $50 international award processing fee and you have to pay the taxes, but 30,000 US Airways miles + taxes + $50 is an amazing deal if it fits your plans! The card itself earns 40,000 US Airways miles immediately after the first purchase and paying an $89 annual fee.
Where Can We Fly?
US Airways has flights from:
- Philadelphia to Glasgow, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Zurich, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid and Athens
- Charlotte to Dublin, Rome, Frankfurt, London, Paris and Barcelona.
Keep in mind some of thes services to the above cities are seasonal so do check your city is served in the winter. You’ll have to connect in one of the above cities, but there are plenty of destinations in Europe!
How to Book Round-Trip to Europe for 30,000 Miles
I took a look at availability between many cities and destinations in Europe and it’s actually pretty good. To find and book awards:
- Visit the US Airways website.
- Type in your dates and select US Airways flights only.
- Select days where flights are 17,500 miles each way.
- Once you select your flights, they will automatically price at 30,000 miles round-trip provided you hold the US Airways credit card.
As an example, let’s try searching from Philadelphia to Paris to understand how to book flights. Since the off-peak award pricing only applies to awards on US Airways operated flights, we need to check US Airways flights only.
On the next page, we see days that are available for 17,500 miles each way. Those would be all the days that are light blue and other days will cost more miles.
Once I select my dates, I can see the total cost of the trip: $143 (which includes $93 flight taxes and $50 award processing fee) and 35,000 miles. Of course, once I log into my account, I will immediately get a 5,000 mile discount for holding the US Airways credit card.
Let’s check out some more availability:
Philadelphia to Madrid:
Philadelphia to Amsterdam:
How to Earn US Airways Miles
As you can see, there is plenty of award space and there’s also plenty of time to collect the miles and book flights. The US Airways Premier World MasterCard is a good card to sign up for, if you don’t already have it, and is going to stop taking new customers soon once it converts to an American Airlines credit card. It has an $89 annual fee, but offers 40,000 miles with no spending requirement at all. You also get a US Airways Companion Certificate to fly up two additional passengers for $99 each, a 5000 mile discount on US Airways carrier award bookings and free checked bags. I managed to get two of these cards two years ago and still have both.
US Airways is also a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest. For every 20,000 Starwood points you transfer to your US Airways account, you will receive 25,000 US Airways miles. Typically, the card offers 25,000 miles after spending $5,000 within 3 months.
More posts you may like about US Airways miles:
- Using the US Airways Companion Certificate to Fly Two Additional Passengers for $99 Each!
- The US Airways Dividend Miles Off-Peak Award Chart
- Visiting the Caribbean with a Free Stopover with US Airways Dividend Miles
- A Round-Trip to the Caribbean Plus a Free One-Way from 30,000 US Airways Miles Total
- How to Fly to Easter Island with US Airways Miles
- What Will Happen to US Airways Miles and Credit Card with the Merger?
Great post! I actually just looked for tickets to Barcelona in February for Valentine’s Day and found plenty of award space. Looks like I’ll be booking in the next few days. Thank you so much!
Nice post. One thing I’ve noticed on this is that it might take US Air a little time to pair your Barclay card to your account and give you the 5k discount. Seems like it took them a few weeks when I signed up a couple years ago. More recently I think it took them a few days when my wife signed up a couple months ago.
There’s no Glasgow or Edinburgh service in winter. Unless I’m missing something?
You’re correct. Some of those services are seasonal and I added a note for that.
Awesome.. I would love to take the Mrs. to Paris.. but in the winter.. I’m thinking it’s pretty frigid there… :) but 30k is steal!
booking for 2 to paris for 315 bucks and 70k points…i think thats a good deal since the cash tickets are $1215.00 a person…right?
That’s definitely a good deal for Paris :) Over 3 cents per mile in economy class is an excellent value!
Is flying in Economy to Europe comfortable? This will be my first flight overseas so I don’t know what to expect. I have flown a lot domestically in the US..and I know a 4 hour flight in Economy is NOT comfortable.
Different people have different comfort levels when it comes to economy seats. To me, travel is about the destination so, although I often do get to redeem my miles for business class, I would fly economy if I didn’t have the miles to do it.
This is an excellent deal. But the steal of the century is the Off-Peak Biz Class to South America: 1-2 weeks in each of Aug, Mar, and Apr, 60K miles, or 55K with the Barclays Elite Credit Card. Non-stops are only from Charlotte, but still a good deal.
I’m not keen on South America yet. I really want to visit Europe first :)
Aaaannnddd the Miles Professor does it again!
She’s already our hero for her awesome post about the ritz card deal, and now we’ve just used this post to book a trip to Ireland in February!! I am so beyond excited and can’t WAIT to dust off my passport!
Miles Prof, you are SO on my Christmas list!! You’re the best, thank you again for sharing great info!
That’s great! I’ve never been to Ireland, but definitely looks exciting. Have a great time :)
Unfourtunately I can’t travel in winter:( Can you please give us an information for spring break trip? Our dream vacation is going to London from Los Angeles in this coming April. My husband and i saved up about 250000 chase points and 100000 us air points. Our club carson points ( 800000 each) will cover our hotel stay, but i need airline tickets. I have been reserching on the web, but i can’t decide which way is the best way to use the points we have. We want to go to London and Scotland with two kids(16 and 19).
Please help us,
Sorry. We have about 180,000 us air points. Can we use these points for the American airline off peak award(40000 for us to Europe)?
Unfortunately, you can’t use US Airways miles with the American Airlines award chart yet. I don’t know exactly when, but sometime in late 2014 or early 2015 I expect that the US Airways miles should be able to transfer to American Airlines miles. Right now, the 180,000 US Airways miles would only be enough for 3 tickets to Europe as they cost 60,000 miles each.
love the open jaw as well. CHO-FCO/MAD-CHO for Mrs. Smoke and I. Will see how little smoke does on my lap!
Excellent post!
If I add an additional segment, to get from my home airport to PHL, would it still only require 30k miles? Or do I need to purchase a ticket to get from my home airport to PHL?
It’s 30k miles as long as you find US Airways award availability on US Airways flights. That is, you can fly ORD-PHL-Paris-PHL-ORD no problem and it’s still only 30,000 miles (35,000 minus 5,000 for having US Airways credit card).
maybe it’s because I’m doing it from my phone but when I follow your instructions, whether I select January dates or February dates (even though I talk all that my dates are flexible) I get an error message saying you selected US Airways flights only but all of the award availability is on our partner airlines and those are 30,000 each way. I just wanted to get to the screen where it shows the January and February calendars so that I can select the days that have the low award prices but I get this error message before I even get to see the calendar. help!