We (family of 5 with 2 high school, 1 college) are doing IHG two rooms with 4th night free in Barcelona, Air BNB in Norway for $200 - $250 a night, IHG x 2 rooms in Dublin, and then air BNB elsewhere in Ireland next summer. When we went to Oz I used AA miles to book a condo in Cairns for a week. It was a lot of miles but Citi seems to like me (on my 14th personal and 6th biz platinum card in the last 4 years now) and it saved cash for the dive trips to the reef. AA has a surprisingly good selection of properties that would host families but they aren't cheap unless you are flush with AA miles
Quick search of AA shows a 4 star hotel in Milan at 22.5 k miles per night with a queen, twin, and a set of bunkbeds that has free breakfast.
Florence is 44.5k miles per night for lowest and Venice is 73k per night
Last edited by g8trgr8t; Nov 27, 2018 at 4:14 pm