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As many of you may know, I am a college student by day and the amusing, yet mystical, Bengali Miles Guru by night. After traveling almost 100,000 miles since January, I knew that my upcoming spring break trip would have to be amazing. It would also have to help me attain my 12 months, 12 countries goal.
After giving it some thought, the best idea was to include my friends into the crazy trip I’m about to embark on.
Introduction:
I didn’t know where to go but naturally, I thought that maybe it should be Europe since I just flew to Asia a month ago. I set my sights on a Eurotrip themed adventure! I knew that it would have to be awesome and that my friends would have to be amused as well. I finally settled on this proposed route plan:
Los Angeles-Frankfurt
1 night in Frankfurt (Hotwire a Hotel)
Drive to Amsterdam
2 nights in Amsterdam (Radisson Blu Amsterdam)
Drive to Paris
2 nights in Paris (Radisson Blu Champs Elysees & Radisson Blu Le Dokhan’s Hotel)
Drive back to Frankfurt and visit cities a long the way.
Frankfurt- Los Angeles
Last time I drove in Germany, we somehow got this car:
The hotels alone were an absolute wonder to book. In Frankfurt & Amsterdam, I resorted to Hotwire and was able to get great rates that were sub $100 per night! The best feeling was going to hotels.com and seeing that the Radisson Blu Amsterdam was $296 on the nights I wanted to go. I got the same hotel on Hotwire for $86 plus tax!
In Paris, I elected to use my Club Carlson points to book two nights at two different hotels since we have a lot of people going. I was able to use the free bonus night stay that comes with the Club Carlson card and for 100,000 points, I got 2 rooms in Paris for 2 nights each (4 nights total for the price of 2)
In Paris, the hotel prices were about 330-430 Euros/Night depending on the hotels so I think I got great value from those points! (2.1 Cents)
It proved to be a stellar trip but I yearned for more, and that’s exactly what I got.
After booking my friends on a LAX-ATL-FRA-ORD-LAX flight (in Business Class because, you know, college students need to travel in style) for 100,000 miles, I looked into my own flights. Sure, I was going to all these cool places with my friends but I also wanted to make a great Trip Report out of it. I also wanted to get the most value out of my mile. 😉
I sat down and thought about other routes till I could think no more. I came up with this masterpiece:
Los Angeles-Frankfurt in Lufthansa Business Class (A330) Part of US Airways 90K US-Europe-Asia
Paris-Kuala Lumpur in Malaysian First Class (A380) 105,000 Amex-British Air Points
Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok in Lufthansa First Class (Yes, it’s not wrong) United 70K First Class Award. Picture could change based on flight availability.
Bangkok-Hong Kong in Thai First Class (A380) United 70K First Class Award
Hong Kong-Frankfurt (Lufthansa 747-8i 70K United Award)
Frankfurt-Los Angeles (Lufthansa First Class 70K Award)
To make things more complicated, I used a 90k US Airways redemption to go US-Europe-Asia. I scheduled Europe-Asia as a later trip in September so technically, I end in Europe for now. I then transferred some Membership Rewards to get myself on the Malaysian Airlines A380 from Paris-KUL. I was never supposed to come back to Europe from Malaysia but I realized my flight wouldn’t make it in time to take a free ticket I had from Singapore-Los Angeles. That’s when I dipped into my United Miles to book a return from Asia-Los Angeles.
The Total Costs:
90,000 US Airways miles & $200 in Taxes
105,000 American Express Membership Rewards & $1,000 in Taxes
70,000 United miles & 100 in Taxes
The best part of this trip is that I get to test out a bunch of new products and hopefully report them back to you guys!
Some interesting tidbits about this trip include:
Kuala Lumpur – Bangkok is actually operated by Lufthansa. It is part of their Bangkok – Frankfurt flight so it goes KUL-BKK-FRA.
Overall, this trip should be fun for me and terrifying for my mom who will probably be worrying a little too much.
By flying this route, I’ll be at 4 different A380 First Class cabins in less than 3 months of each other! I’ve already flown Lufthansa & Singapore! Adding Malaysian & Thai to the mix will only leave me with Emirates, Korean Air, Air France, China Southern, & Qantas. I am most interested in flying Emirates and China Southern’ A380s in the future!
If you don’t see me on one of these flights in the upcoming days, you’ll surely see me at FTU DC in a few weeks! Hope to meet you all! You can also follow this trip on Instagram with the hashtag #flywithbmg.
Also, if you like what you see, use our Award Booking Service to build a trip like this! We’ve helped tons of people book trips of a lifetime!
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Great trip! Did you use Miles & More to book the LH legs? Or how did you manage to get LH premium class availability so far in advance?
I didn’t! I used United Miles and just kept checking the ANA tool. It’s actually working out perfect because the Lufthansa 747-8i starts it’s inaugural service to Hong Kong on the 31st of March and I leave just a few days later!
BMG, am I missing something here? The trip above costs almost 300k combined points which does not seem that exciting. How is this itinerary special?
Hi Jeff,
You’re right it is but I’m merely outlining what products i’ll get to try and test and also getting a one way from Europe to Asia – USA in business class later on as well! I was just really excited to try out some of these products and pass the reports along to my readers!
Jeff,
I just caught this now but I transfered a ton of points into British Airways when they had the 50% offer a few months ago so that first class trip from CDG-KUL was 70K points Amex points.
90+70+70 is still really high but im getting a lot of access to a bunch of first class cabins and for that 90k, im able to go from Europe-Asia-Europe-USA in September!
BMG,
Thanks for clearing that up. As always, your trips are very complicated and interesting. I just wanted to make sure I did not misunderstand anything here. Anyway, keep up the exciting works!
Jeff
How did you get the hotel so cheap?
Mike- I suppose I just got really lucky! Hotwire was like my best friend on this trip!
Is there bidding on hotwire like priceline? Or you did a simple search and it was that cheap?
There’s no bidding on hotwire but I did use betterbidding.com to kind of scope out what hotel I would get and I was about 98% sure before I booked that it would be the Radisson
Big T, you so crazy man! I love it! awesome tip about hkg-fra…also betterbidding.com…very cool
i’m also wondering how you’re going to rent a car and with whom?
thanks Ryan! It’s actually easy to rent a car from places, you just have to look at the age restrictions. I used autoeurope for this trip and paid about $270 for 7 days in a vw golf. It’s working out great for us!
It looks like 90k Avios points for one-way CDG-KUL on Malaysian in First Class, with $309 in taxes and fuel surcharge($192). With that expired 50% Amex transfer bonus wouldn’t that still have required 60k MR versus 52.5?
You’re absolutely right!
I apologize as I replied in haste. I used 70K, got 35K because the most expensive route is 105k with the least amount of taxes. 90K has a bit higher amount taxes. At the time of my booking, it was 105K. Now, it might be 90.
How did you get first class on Thai’s A380? I have a flight with them in October using united miles and they seem to block it.
How did you get Thai First class on the A380? I just redeemed united miles for a first class trip on Thai and it seems that its blocked.
They dont block it! I was able to find BKK-FRA in Thai First. Also CDG-BKK is always wide open on the TG A380
I just checked all of October and November and don’t see any availability for 2 people in first on the CDG-BKK A380 flight. The best i get is a pale orange OK which according to the legend is Unavailable and i can’t click it and continue.
Hi Javier,
You will rarely find first class space for 2 on the same A380 flight. However, on the 777-300ER, you can get a better option with thai because they feature full enclosing suites!
My recommendation to you if you have the time is to route something like FRA-NRT on LH F and then NRT-BKK on the 777-300ER First Class. I can personally attest that i’ve found space for 2 ppl on both these routes. If you really want to fly TG F, you should do BKK-HKG as that’s always open.
Also, the best space opens up 2 weeks before travel. Keep that in mind if you want to book business class for a certain route and maybe it’ll open up a few days before!
You are missing the HKG legs on your map.
Fixed!
Hey Babon- Which club carlson hotel did you like best in paris? I booked the Radisson Blu Metopolitan one but I think you booked a few for your trip so thought I’d check which you liked better. Thanks!
Hey Nadia,
I booked the Radisson Blu Le Dokhan & Radisson Blu Champs De Elysees. I suggest the latter because the rooms are bigger and it is more modern. not to mention it’s RIGHT by the Arc de Triomph. It’s also close to the subway which helped me get to the airport.
Dude, your euro trip is almost identical to the trip I just took (leaving out all the crazy extra flights). We did AirBerlin LAX-DUS direct, then drove a big circle around Belgium, Paris, and Germany. Stayed in the Radisson Blu Champs De Elysees as well. If it’s not too late and you are looking for spots in Germany, I would recommend Heidelberg. It’s a bit south of Frankfurt and has an impressive castle (I lived there in college for a bit).