Europe - europe trip for frugal traveler

I am planning another trip this spring to Europe and am curious to have some recommendations from the FT crowd on what they think are good ways to spend time over the pond.

The Stats -
AA miles 33,000
*points 75,000

- We can find flights to do the 20k each leg on AA cause we are very flexible over there and back, so i am curious. would you guys transfer 40k *points to get another 50k miles and have 'free' flights over there? or would you do something different. Airports for leaving are MSP or FSD.

Places high on our 'want to see' list.
Cambridge, London, Lake Como, Venice, and the Alps. and Monte Carlo(kind of)

I miss cambridge and london with a passion. But i understand london is near impossible to stay in for relatively cheap (without being in a dark alley).

- What would you recommend for places to visit/stay? Doesn't have to be starwood, but would like to keep it under 200 a night if not.

I like seeing the roads less traveled and visiting the off the beaten path gems...


I am just curious to see the reports you guys have and where you would send us...

oh sorry, one last question...
- Trains - which places to use to buy tickets, stations to avoid, etc... i am not very knowledgable on them at all.. but know its probably cheaper to use them than a car.

Thanks in Advance, FT community

Luke

come on, 75 views and not one opinion... Help a brother out!

I can comment on a couple things.

If you are flexible and don't care about being like RIGHT BESIDE the major
tourist things, my experience was that you can stay in London for fairly cheap even with the crazy weak dollar.

It was about a year and a half ago but I was able to priceline the Hilton Hyde Park for $75USD. And I think the exchange rate was about what it is now too ($1.50-$1.60 to a pound) Obviously no idea if that's still there and that was in the off-season (March) but just an example. It was quiet area across from Hyde Park and it was right next to a underground station so you were just a 10min ride into central london and all the tourist things.

So my thought is you can save a ton of money by staying a little outside central london and just taking the underground in. Quick and easy and cheap.

Then the biggest thing I wanted to stress is with the trains, get an idea of a daily schedule down and BOOK IN ADVANCE! Trains in the UK are insane expensive if you just buy them the day of at the station. They are WAY WAY WAY cheaper, I'm talking like 80% less sometimes if you book in advance online. (try http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets) It's very easy, you just bring your confirmation number and the credit card you used to buy with online to the station and print your tickets at one of the kiosks. The disadvantage is of course you are on a set schedule. Less freedom. You cant just walk in whenever and buy a ticket for any time. But you save a TON if you can stick to advance buying.

That was my experience anyways. And yes I do think the trains are the way to go. No driving/traffic worries and they were all very nice, fast and on-time.

Oh and when you land at heathrow buy a "oyster" card from the window at the underground station. That makes traveling on the underground easy and cheaper as well. Its just a pre-paid travel card.

Maybe you'd get more suggestions if this were posted in the Europe forum instead of the SPG forum? Or maybe it's just me..

thanks for the europe idea, will do. But i was mainly curious what people would do with the points and what off the beaten path starwood places there are... if any.

And thanks for all the help with the info on the trains and priceline.

Some quick thoughts - if you're frugal 200/night for 2 people total for hotel is a lot. I shoot for $60 pp a night unless I'm with a GF in which case I balance price vs comfort. I stay in places that I'm sure most people would complain about. I simply view the hotel expense as a pain in the neck that I wish I didn't have to pay so I minimize.

Recommend if you want to see Monte Carlo you don't stay there, but travel in from Nice/another surrounding city. The hotel rates are cheaper (in general, but YMMV).

Depending on your length of stay and how often you'll be on the tube you can buy unlimited pass for various lengths of time. This just is loaded onto your oyster card.

As for transferring points and what to use where, put together a sample itinerary and then price using a one way to Europe, round trip, and then the remainder of your Starwood points. There is no magic, it all depends on how you feel like you get the best deal, which depends on how much everything costs for the dates you select.

I am planning another trip this spring to Europe and am curious to have some recommendations from the FT crowd on what they think are good ways to spend time over the pond.

The Stats -
AA miles 33,000
*points 75,000

- We can find flights to do the 20k each leg on AA cause we are very flexible over there and back, so i am curious. would you guys transfer 40k *points to get another 50k miles and have 'free' flights over there? or would you do something different. Airports for leaving are MSP or FSD.

Places high on our 'want to see' list.
Cambridge, London, Lake Como, Venice, and the Alps. and Monte Carlo(kind of)

I miss cambridge and london with a passion. But i understand london is near impossible to stay in for relatively cheap (without being in a dark alley).

- What would you recommend for places to visit/stay? Doesn't have to be starwood, but would like to keep it under 200 a night if not.

I like seeing the roads less traveled and visiting the off the beaten path gems...


I am just curious to see the reports you guys have and where you would send us...

oh sorry, one last question...
- Trains - which places to use to buy tickets, stations to avoid, etc... i am not very knowledgable on them at all.. but know its probably cheaper to use them than a car.

Thanks in Advance, FT community

Luke

Shop around regarding your train tickets. Sometimes a eurorail pass is cheaper in the states and Asia than in europe and not because of the exchange rate.

Avoid the big cities. even if you have the points for a free night in a place like Rome or Venice, you will pay through the nose for food and drink. Rather overnight outside the city and make a day trip into the big Tourist areas.

Avoid european holidays like the plague. shoulder seasons will allways have some good deals around.

Innsbruck for example as an off the beaten track I can recommend, and not just cause I live here, it's Disney Land without the Kitsch. Stay in guest houses and Pension. you get generally a clean comfortable room, most of the time breakfast is included, a lot of them are Family run, and prices will range between 26 Euro to 80 Euro depending on where and when.

best place to find those is to get in touch wiht the local tourist boards - they will allways be able to help, won't charge you for the info, and a lot of them have booking platforms for the private sector. The only thing you won't get are miles and points for your stay

hope that helps

When are you going?

I personally find that hotel points can be a far greater value then transferring to airline points. If you are going in the off-season, you should be able to find plane tickets for ~$500 round trip. You can then use your hotel points to stay at some nicer hotels closer to where you want to be, plus you will earn all the airline miles.

you might want to ask the moderator to move this to the Budget travel forum since you aren't looking particularly at Starwood.

Personally, I'd choose Lake Como

Look into nights & flights. I converted 70K *points to 50K AA miles and 5 nights in London at the Park Lane.

2 birds with 14 pounds :cool:

I am looking to go within a couple weeks of May 1st (anniversary)

And i will try to get this moved to the europe travel section.

Sent on to the Europe forum from Starwood.

SanDiego1K
Starwood Mod

How much time do you have? Seems like the UK trip could be its own thing...Venice, Como, Alps, and Monaco are all 'relatively' close to each other...

looking for roughly 10 days over there. planning on doing 'flights and nights' with SPG so probably 5nights in london (which will include my day trips to cambridge and what not). so at least 5 days to eurostar to another area... maybe up to 12days total (so 7 for the other tour).

I agree with what this person said.

Everyone has a different idea of what "frugal" means to them, but for me I generally like to pay half as much and go twice as often or long.

Here are a few thoughts for you, based on the discussion here.

London -- if you're going there, don't forget that the UK charges very high taxes (I think they're the highest anywhere). I'm not sure whether an AA award ticket would charge the fees, but you should price it out on the AA website. (Now I'm curious and I'm going to check for myself later).

AA redemptions -- lately I've been taking advantage of sales and buying tickets, but now I'm going to redeem AA miles, in case they get devalued. I'm not sure if you're aware, but for the 40,000 r/t rates, you need to keep to a single airline. Coming from your airports, that probably means going to destinations to which AA itself flies. There's an easy list on Wikipedia "american airlines destinations". I looked at that list and am thinking of redeeming a flight to Budapest and that area, but they also go to London and Rome for the destinations you mentioned.

Trains -- In my experience, going between cities via bus is often much cheaper than train (especially if you don't want to be locked in to a pre-set schedule), and the buses are usually a lot nicer than in the US, and don't take much longer sometimes because they're going from A to B without making a lot of intermediate stops.

Hotels -- I usually stay at the smaller hotels that are more popular with Europeans than Americans, small chains or independent ones. I don't like hostels (one exception is the hostel in Venice, which is nice and is directly across the canal from Piaza San Marco, the main tourist point.)

Check out the website Eurocheapo.com. I found a small hotel in Paris there that wasn't great, but good enough for me -- a private room with shared bath cost me about EUR200 for a week.

Have fun!


Some quick thoughts - if you're frugal 200/night for 2 people total for hotel is a lot. I shoot for $60 pp a night unless I'm with a GF in which case I balance price vs comfort. I stay in places that I'm sure most people would complain about. I simply view the hotel expense as a pain in the neck that I wish I didn't have to pay so I minimize.

.

If you are thinking of going around 1 May in Europe DON'T!!

Depending on where you're travelling, May1 is a public holiday - ok it also falls on a Sunday this year - for many countries - Workers' Day. And France certainly has a public holiday on 8 May .... and many people travel at this period making bargains few and far between.

Seriously, research your dates. You may find that hotel chains such as Formula 1 or Etap (both part of the Accor group) will help your budget though the comfort will be summary.

London -- if you're going there, don't forget that the UK charges very high taxes (I think they're the highest anywhere). I'm not sure whether an AA award ticket would charge the fees, but you should price it out on the AA website. (Now I'm curious and I'm going to check for myself later).

Well, I did a little check today out of curiosity. BOS to LHR on AA, the fees were about $155. By comparison, BOS to CDG were about $80.

So, London is more expensive, but maybe not WAY more expensive.

I would recommend avoidng Switzerland since it is so expensive. Venice is spectacular another nice and fairly cheap city is Salzburg. Berlin even though it can be a bit pricy it is still a must see in my view.

Its the taxes flying out of the UK that are much higher than other European countries, at least until Germany and Austria implement similar taxes in the near future.

Well, I did a little check today out of curiosity. BOS to LHR on AA, the fees were about $155. By comparison, BOS to CDG were about $80.

So, London is more expensive, but maybe not WAY more expensive.

This might be fun.

http://cambridgerooms.co.uk/

But if you miss Cambridge, maybe you've stayed in the dorms. It looks like they open reservations only 2-3 months in advance.