I'm planning a trip over Christmas break to visit Germany. Specific flights I'm looking for are:

Los Angeles -> Stuttgart on 12/18
Stuttgart -> Los Angeles on 1/3

What airline and hotel credit cards should I aim for?

The only credit card I have with worthwhile points is the Chase Sapphire Preferred with 65k points. The only hotel card I have is the Chase Hyatt card which gives a free night per annum. For United, each leg normally costs 65k points, so I'm still missing another 65k for a round trip (a super saver fare is 30k, which I might be able to get.)

I signed up for the Barclay Arrival+ Card in July 2014 but have already used up the points there.


For reward flights, it seems like United MileagePlus is the way to go. Each leg costs 30k or 65k depending on whether it's the super saver fare or not (is there even a difference in the seating?). I heard that the Lufthansa rewards program has ridiculous surcharges.

The roundtrip ticket costs either 95k or 130k points depending on whether I'm okay with the ...... time for the super saver fare on the return leg. So if I get the United Explorers card with 50k points it'll get me the round trip immediately or still leave me 15k points away.


For hotels, I am thinking of getting:

Citi HHilton - 40k points gets a free night at a low-mid tier Hilton, with no annual fee ever
IHG Chase - 60-70k points should net a free night or two
Club Carlson - Not sure how hard it is to get Premier, but if I do, the 85k points should be good for 2 nights + 1 bonus award night