Airline/Hotel Loyalty Programs

[Pelado]

the hotels hardly require any stairs. they are close to the gates. It is an amazing experience.

Correct. It’s uphill definitely but not too many stairs. You’ll hit a ton of stairs getting to the abbey entrance. If you spend the night there, be sure to watch the tide come in to surround the island.

I watched a couple YouTube travelogue videos last night about it. I was thinking to get a rental car to explore the Normandy beaches and then head over to MSM for the night. Looks like we'll have to park on the continent and then take the shuttle bus (or walk) to the island. Is that right?

I need to check for how late they keep things open. Don't want to be stuck on the wrong side of the gates with a hotel reservation on the other side.

[Moliere]

the hotels hardly require any stairs. they are close to the gates. It is an amazing experience.

Correct. It’s uphill definitely but not too many stairs. You’ll hit a ton of stairs getting to the abbey entrance. If you spend the night there, be sure to watch the tide come in to surround the island.

[Pelado]

the hotels hardly require any stairs. they are close to the gates. It is an amazing experience.

Good to know.

[BigPiney]

My wife wasn't excited about visiting Normandy when I brought it up, but staying at Mont Saint Michel might sway her into thinking Normandy is a good idea.

Actually, looking at their site, I think she'd really like the room and/or experience except for climbing a bunch of stairs carrying luggage (even though I'd likely be doing most if not all of the luggage carrying).

the hotels hardly require any stairs. they are close to the gates. It is an amazing experience.

[Pelado]

Early may is my favorite time in Normandy. You'll love it. Just bring a couple layers and an umbrella. The spring rain tends to come for one very short period of the day. So it'll rain like crazy for 15 minutes and the rest of the day will be nice. If you have the time, I'd recommend a full day tour wiht Overlord tours. We've used them several times and have recommended them to others and everyone has had a great experience. Also, if you can, take a day and drive to the mont saint michel. I promise you it'll be worth it. We actually stayed in a hotel on the island, which was fun since they kick everyone else out after a certain time.

My wife wasn't excited about visiting Normandy when I brought it up, but staying at Mont Saint Michel might sway her into thinking Normandy is a good idea.

Actually, looking at their site, I think she'd really like the room and/or experience except for climbing a bunch of stairs carrying luggage (even though I'd likely be doing most if not all of the luggage carrying).

[Pelado]

My only critique is that you should have checked SFO, LAX, and SEA - those are all a short flight from Boise and all offer non-stop routes to LON with Seattle being the fastest at 9.5 hours. SFO is a United hub and United has 3 non-stops a day out of SFO so you may have been able to use your United miles more efficiently through there.

I did consider Seattle and San Francisco. I examined several options that included them, but did not do extensive research on them because I didn't want to backtrack. There were also several options routing through Toronto or Montreal on Air Canada, but those tended to cost a few more miles than I wanted to part with. Also, I wasn't sure if the business class experience would be up to par.

I, too, am too fat/old/tall for comfortable travel in economy. I was originally planning to suffer through it for this trip but, thankfully, Covid restrictions delayed it enough that I could accumulate enough points to avoid suffering through it.

I just did a quick check on Seattle and San Francisco options. If there are any direct flights available for reward travel, then they're charging a lot more than 60k miles per person each way (which is the pricing I got through Chicago). The cheapest option through Seattle costs about 181k miles more than my Chicago itinerary, takes longer, and a greater proportion of the trip is economy rather than business class. It also resulted in a shorter-than-ideal time frame for the travel. The cheapest options out of SFO were about 167k worse than my Chicago itinerary and suffered the same other problems as the Seattle options. In fact, the SFO itinerary routes through Chicago and Denver before going back to SFO. My plan already has us returning through Chicago and Denver, but then we get to go Denver -> Boise instead of Denver -> SFO -> Boise.

[Pelado]

Pelado, your creative flight itinerary and use of rewards points is commendable. The airlines really screw you on the points required for the domestic legs of an international business class trip so I've often resorted to similar tactics. Based on my experience, your assumption that you will have to retrieve and recheck baggage for every separately booked flight is correct. My only critique is that you should have checked SFO, LAX, and SEA - those are all a short flight from Boise and all offer non-stop routes to LON with Seattle being the fastest at 9.5 hours. SFO is a United hub and United has 3 non-stops a day out of SFO so you may have been able to use your United miles more efficiently through there. Maybe you checked all those and just didn't note it?

Another trick I often use going is Air Canada flying either out of Vancouver or Toronto. Depending on the destination, they fly non-stop up over the top of globe so Vancouver to, say, Delhi is a great non-stop flight. Ttheir business class is just fine (basically the same as Delta One and United Polaris), their prices are pretty good, and they are Star Alliance so you can earn/redeem United miles.

I can handle any flight in the continental US in Economy class but I'm too tall, too fat, too old, and too grumpy to fly across an ocean without going Business class.

I did consider Seattle and San Francisco. I examined several options that included them, but did not do extensive research on them because I didn't want to backtrack. There were also several options routing through Toronto or Montreal on Air Canada, but those tended to cost a few more miles than I wanted to part with. Also, I wasn't sure if the business class experience would be up to par.

I, too, am too fat/old/tall for comfortable travel in economy. I was originally planning to suffer through it for this trip but, thankfully, Covid restrictions delayed it enough that I could accumulate enough points to avoid suffering through it.

[Bo Diddley]

Pelado, your creative flight itinerary and use of rewards points is commendable. The airlines really screw you on the points required for the domestic legs of an international business class trip so I've often resorted to similar tactics. Based on my experience, your assumption that you will have to retrieve and recheck baggage for every separately booked flight is correct.

Yes, I've done this once or twice as well. You will have to recheck your bags. I like to book a back-up flight through SWA if the connection is tight. For example, we had a direct flight from LGW to LAX. We booked a return (LAX to SLC) first class using points on Alaska. The flight from London was delayed a little late. We had to book it from the international terminal to T6 after waiting for our luggage to unload. It was tight but we made it because the Alaska flight was also delayed. Our luggage even made the flight. But we had a later flight booked through SWA that I cancelled and got our points redeposited.

By the way, I much prefer to use a backpack and carry on all my luggage. The missus doesn't. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.

[BigFatMeanie]

Pelado, your creative flight itinerary and use of rewards points is commendable. The airlines really screw you on the points required for the domestic legs of an international business class trip so I've often resorted to similar tactics. Based on my experience, your assumption that you will have to retrieve and recheck baggage for every separately booked flight is correct. My only critique is that you should have checked SFO, LAX, and SEA - those are all a short flight from Boise and all offer non-stop routes to LON with Seattle being the fastest at 9.5 hours. SFO is a United hub and United has 3 non-stops a day out of SFO so you may have been able to use your United miles more efficiently through there. Maybe you checked all those and just didn't note it?

Another trick I often use going is Air Canada flying either out of Vancouver or Toronto. Depending on the destination, they fly non-stop up over the top of globe so Vancouver to, say, Delhi is a great non-stop flight. Ttheir business class is just fine (basically the same as Delta One and United Polaris), their prices are pretty good, and they are Star Alliance so you can earn/redeem United miles.

I can handle any flight in the continental US in Economy class but I'm too tall, too fat, too old, and too grumpy to fly across an ocean without going Business class.

[Moliere]

April-May. I'm concerned it may be a bit overly cold and rainy. But, whatever.

Early may is my favorite time in Normandy. You'll love it. Just bring a couple layers and an umbrella. The spring rain tends to come for one very short period of the day. So it'll rain like crazy for 15 minutes and the rest of the day will be nice. If you have the time, I'd recommend a full day tour wiht Overlord tours. We've used them several times and have recommended them to others and everyone has had a great experience. Also, if you can, take a day and drive to the mont saint michel. I promise you it'll be worth it. We actually stayed in a hotel on the island, which was fun since they kick everyone else out after a certain time.

[Bo Diddley]

April-May. I'm concerned it may be a bit overly cold and rainy. But, whatever.

I've been there that time of year when the weather was great.

We like to stay in hotels with a short walking distance to the tube station. I think the only hotel we've stayed in more than once was the Hilton next to the Victoria station. I have status with Hilton, and the free breakfasts are decent.

When you figure out what you want to see there, that might help decide where to stay. I've posted about some of my trips there. We could talk over the phone if you have a bunch of questions.

[Pelado]

What time of year are you headed over?

April-May. I'm concerned it may be a bit overly cold and rainy. But, whatever.

[Bo Diddley]

What time of year are you headed over?

[Pelado]

It's incredible. I'd never been to the Orangerie until we took our middle child last summer. It is now MJ's favorite museum in Paris and a close second for me (behind the Musee d'Orsay). We spent a good 4 hours in there. You should also watch Midnight in Paris where that water lily room makes a cameo as well.

Another half day trip from Paris is to Giverny, Monet's hometown and a quaint town on the Seine. Definitely worth the trip in the spring when the garden is in bloom.

I have seen Midnight in Paris, but I must have watched it before I'd seen the Rick Steves episode about the water lily room, because I don't remember the scene(s) making any particular impression on me. Of course, another possibility is that I fell asleep during the movie.

[Pelado]

I booked some reward travel. Here are the points I had available to me:

Chase Ultimate Rewards - 355,456
United MileagePlus - 63,274
Southwest - 54,025

I tried using Virgin Atlantic to get space on Delta One, but I couldn't find any available awards. I tried finding space through Flying Blue on Air France or KLM. I found several available spots there, but the pricing was upwards of 500k points per person - not particularly affordable.

Round trip pricing from Boise to Europe and back on United was possible (with the right dates), but would eat up pretty much all my Ultimate Rewards and MileagePlus points. So I did some research looking at other options for the launching point - SLC, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, and Dallas/Fort Worth. I tried to get as much business class travel for the least amount of reward points and the shortest travel times. I figured this itinerary would need more than two weeks but tried to keep it under three weeks.

I had to get a bit creative. I ended up using the Southwest miles to get us to Chicago (ORD) to start the United portion of our trip - where I think I'll have to fetch luggage and check back in. We've also got a return trip on Southwest from ORD after the United portion is over (which will likely include another trip to baggage claim and security check in. Southwest is obviously not business class travel, so that sucks, but using Southwest for that leg allowed me to preserve my Ultimate Rewards points. It would have cost an additional 70k-ish points to do that segment through United, which would still have been economy class and likely still require that I fetch luggage both times.

From Chicago, we fly economy to DC and then United Polaris to London. I'm thinking we'll spend a few days in and around London, spend a day or two in Wales, and then take the Chunnel train to...Amsterdam. Then we'll make our way back to France - spending some time at Normandy before heading to Paris. After a few days in and around Paris, we fly to Florence (business class on Lufthansa and then Air Dolomiti) through Munich. We'll be in and around Florence for 2-3 days before taking a train to Rome where we'll spend the remaining 2-3 days before flying home. The flight home is through Brussels (business class on Brussels Airlines) and back to Chicago (United Polaris). Then we're back to slumming it on Southwest to get back to Boise.

We leave Boise at 5 am on the first day of the trip and return at 12:05 am on the 20th calendar day of the trip.

The trip cost me 43,326 of my Southwest Rapid Reward points, leaving me with 10,699 remaining.

The portion booked through United cost 240k MileagePlus miles, so I had to transfer 177k Ultimate Rewards points to cover it, leaving me with just 274 MileagePlus miles.

After transferring points to United, I was still left with 178,456 Ultimate Rewards points.

I'm planning to use some of those UR points to book some Hyatt hotel stays in London and maybe Paris/Rome. I can get some of them for as little as 5-9k points per night. We'd also like to stay at some bed and breakfast places and such for at least some of our time there. Any suggestions for cool lodging experiences in or near London, Wales, Amsterdam, Normandy, Paris, Florence, or Rome?