First let me say that, compared to just about everyone here, I have zero experience with travel. While I fly a few times a year, it's typically on someone else's expense, and I haven't taken a personal vacation in quite some time. While I've used points in the past, this is my first venture into using them for travel purposes.

I'm trying to plan a trip for me and my girlfriend to Paris for a week, a city I've had the pleasure to visit a handful of times, but that she's never seen (she's never been out of the country). I currently have about 60k rewards point on my Amex Platinum, and around 60k on my Chase Ultimate Rewards. I'm thinking of taking it late in May or early fall, but that's all TBD. For the past couple weeks, I've been browsing various travel sites, trying to get an idea of how to work the logistics of the trip out.

So far, what I've found is that it seems cheaper to go through something like Travelocity or the Amex Travel site and book hotel + flight together, than to book everything separately. Separately, the best I could find was flight for ~$1k / person, while the hotel an addition $1k, for a total of $3k. Combined, I was able to find "packages" for ~$1k flight and hotel / person for a total of $2k. Adding a car, etc, did nothing, but arriving and returning on a Monday (vs Saturday for example) seemed to shave a lot off the price. I also noticed that taxes are sometimes more than the airfare. I priced out several flights on sites such as Air France and BA, and the flight itself came to around $500 while the taxes were around $600. I found this interesting, because many of the reward redemption policies state that points would cover the airfare, but I would be responsible for the taxes, etc.

Now, from what I understand, in order to redeem points, I would have to transfer points from my card, to that airline program, and book the flight through the airline (likewise for hotel, which is a bad deal from what I understand). That said, the flight would be around $1k, half of which would be covered by points, the other half would be on me. This, combined with the price of the hotel, would bring the total from $3k to $2k; essentially the same price if I just didn't use any points and booked together. I could "pay with points" using my Amex card, which seems like a bit of a waste of points as they aren't terribly high valued.

I feel like I'm missing something. Is there another way to do this that works out a bit better for me? Any tips or tricks that I'm just completely oblivious to? Any help or guidance is appreciated. Sorry for the long post and completely elementary nature of the problem.

Welcome to FT, camhabib! And no need to apologize for being new as we all were at one time or another.

Since you'd posted in the Mileage Run Discussion forum and it's really meant more for topics realting to earning more miles with interesting routings, etc. I'll move your more general query about combining hotel points and frequent flyer miles over to a better venue for such matter, the MilesBuzz forum where the good posters can help with suggestions.

Enjoy your time on FT and good luck with the plans.

tcook052
MR Moderator

You're all over the place on this one. If you use "miles" you may have to pay the taxes, if you use "Points" you can just redeem them against the cost of the ticket.

Really hard to help because you're so vague. But basically look at how many miles it takes to get where you want to go. In this case North America to Europe is about 40-60k round trip depending on the carrier. If you can fly for $1k then just buy the ticket as the miles you would use aren't worth it.

Also don't redeem "points" for 1 penny per, as you can get much higher value out of them in the future and for other types of trips. Both MR and UR points now transfer to airlines and turn into miles which can be very valuable, sometimes worth 4+ cents per miles.

All in all it is your call, but once you start learning the ropes you'll be traveling much more, and for much less.

So my 2cents is to just book the trip with cash at this point, and work on mileage for a future trip. For example maybe your next trip will be to Paris in Business/First... all for about the same cost as a coach ticket? Sounds good, right?

Do you have more information about your trip, such as dates and preferred carriers? It would help us know the situation better and answer your question more accurately.

Focus on paying cash for the flights.

Use the Ultimate Rewards for 3 nights (66,000) at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome. That is good value for the going rate.

For the Amex points, I would look at the Best Westerns. You can probably get 3 nights at a nice Best Western (as you know, they have a different reputation in europe and can be quite nice) - that might be good value.

Cheers.

I think you need to pick a program, UR or MR and commit to racking up some more points. For Paris, I'd recommend that you sign up for the Chase Hyatt card, and use those 2 free nights at the Paris Vendome. You can also use UR points for Hyatt redemption, might be able to get a few more nights that way. Then possible use the MR points for your flight...look at the MR transfer partners and see what it takes to get two RT tickets. Delta's and the Skyteam Alliance is probably your best bet...and it looks like it will take 60k-90k/ticket for a coach class redemption. You should be in the ballpark of getting free flights, there are some cards you can sign up for the bridge the gap points-wise, you just have to pick your routes with your points.

camhabib...as others have said if you can provide some more details about the kind of trip you are looking to plan, folks here can provide at a minimum some general direction and more than likely can provide some very specific suggestions.

If you are going in May, things are a bit more urgent...however if you end up deciding to go in the fall this may give you the opportunity to build up some additional points that you may be able to use for your trip.

What airline(s) are you looking to travel on? Based on your current miles/points it may be tough to leverage points for airfare depending on where you are traveling from. Might make sense to find a good deal on tix you want for the time frame you want and pay cash for the airfare and utilize the points for the hotel.

Depending on what kind of accommodations you are looking for you may be able to combine your points from AMEX and Sapphire into one hotel account and score 2-4 nights at a higher end property, or might be able to snag 5-6 nights at a more basic property like a Holiday Inn etc...

What ever you do, don't just "pay with points"....you are correct that it really is a poor value. There are a lot of terrific folks on this site who will try to help you get much more value out of them then that......you also have a responsibility as well though...you should also keep doing research on your own so that you continue to learn more about what potential options are etc...

I apologize to everyone for the lack of details and direction; I'm trying my best to learn as I go along.

Dates I'm looking at are either the second to last week of May or first / second week of August. Those dates can be moved around quite liberally, as my schedule is completely flexible. Would like 5 nights, can go longer but not more than 7. Looking to just get a full breath of the city, not going for any single purpose or event.

If I were to book this trip with cash, would it be possible to upgrade rooms or flights using points after the fact? How much does something like this typically run (just an estimate, know it's hard to give exact numbers) and how do I go about doing so?

Traveling from Boston, MA. I have no preference on airlines or hotels, except that it not be a bargin basement trip. I don't want to spend a fortune, nor to do I want to wind up with a horrible flight and room just to save a few dollars. I'm trying to spent $3k max for 2 people, just on flight and hotel. The points from Chase were a recent acquisition (signed up for the 50k points promo) while the Amex is my main card.

I guess what I'm wondering is how can flight + hotel be $2k while the same exact thing, booked separately, be $1k more? Is it possible to get the "package" rate with the reservations booked separately, and apply any miles or points to that?

Thanks for all the replies and help so far.

Where are you based?
Do you have any miles in any FF programs?
Welcome to FT!

If I were you I would go on AC (you get 24 h or less free in YUL both ways, and you also get 100% of miles.)
Their fares to PAR are good for now.
For hotels I have gone with others who were going to be in the room anyways, or I have used my points, so I can't speak for you.

So a quick search on Kayak shows you could go BOS-CDG non stop Aug 30 (arrive Paris morning of August 31)-Sept 5 in coach for about $2500-2600 round trip total for airfare on Air France. Which means you would then need to find a way to cover 5 nights with points to keep you under your $3k goal for air and hotel.

One way to do that would be to take the suggestions that jd1006 made which is to get the Chase Hyatt card which would snag you 2 free nights after your first purchase which could be used at the Paris Vendome if available. If you can scrape together another 6K reward points on the Sapphire care (for 66,000 total) could transfer those to Hyatt and that would cover another 3 night at the Paris Vendome. So now have the 5 nights covered at a top tier property in Paris...and still have your 60K Amex points (not sure if that could be used to try to upgrade air or not....not familiar with the Air France program).

Please let me know if you need any other suggestions for Paris... I just came back from a yearlong trip!

If she's a good enough girlfriend to take to Paris, then she should also be open to getting her own Chase Hyatt card! Then you have four nights at the Park Hyatt and can add two more with Sapphire points transferred to Hyatt.

In terms of your question about better rates with packages - booking packages is often better since the airlines wholesale the tickets to their package division. Prices can actually be amazing for Business Class tickets where the package price is less than just the two tickets!

Finally, there is some Coach availability on Air Canada from Boston with a stop in Canada - think the dates I saw were Aug 8-15. You can get one ticket on miles and one for cash. That would mean then entire trip for the price of one ticket + Air Canada fees. I also found Air France Coach availability for similar dates. Both are AMEX transfer partners.

Paris is my favorite city and the Park Hyatt is easily my favorite hotel. Looks like you're going. Enjoy!

It has become mine also. Worth noting for a new member is that there is a "France" forum on FT as well so any feedback about neighborhoods, restaurants, sights, etc. you could search and/or post more there.

I am doing something similar, so let me share my thoughts.

You might not be in the greatest position in that (a) Amex and Chase might not have the same rewards partners and (b) you're on somewhat short notice to really rack up rewards.

I got tickets to Paris for the minimum, which is 60K coach and 100K business. Actually we are flying eastbound separately, so going coach, then flying home business class together. If you could cobble together 120K or more points on Delta, and are somewhat flexible on your dates and persistent in calling Delta, you might be able to get tickets.

I also just got a Hyatt card for myself and am trying to get one for my wife. I second the idea of using the free nights at the Park Hyatt Vendome. That's what I"m trying to do. Note that all nights are not necessarily available.

I suspect you can get a better deal transferring points and then using them for flights, than using "pay with points." You will get value of 1.25 cents from Chase. It wasn't clear to me where you were leaving from, but you probably can get an award ticket at a better value than that. I would suggest, given the nature of the trip, that you try to get the extra points and fly business class, if you have the time to collect them first.

You might check out the "coupon connection" on this site. There are sometimes people offering to trade points, so you might be able to get the Chase Hyatt cards for your hotel stay, and trade your UR points to someone for Amex points deposited to your Delta account, then fly on Delta. A lot of people like to fly the Airbus A380, and Air France (Skyteam partner) flies that from IAD to CDG.

Keep in mind that if you do stay at the Park Hyatt, you will not want to use, say, 4 free nights and then pay for the 5th. The cheapest room are $700 a night.

Also consider using Priceline, rather than rewards. For example, a 4-star hotel in Paris will be about $300 a night from the hotel, but $150 a night from Priceline. That may well be a better value than using points.