I hope this is the right place to post this... I am planning a honeymoon next summer in Croatia. We will fly LAX-VCE then travel by ferry to croatia (porec) and travel down the coast, and probably fly out of DBV. I am planning on getting the tickets on an AAdvantage award. I will have 120,000 miles after flying to a friends wedding in a couple of weeks - so I think the all-partner award is the way to go? Any advice about how to avoid having the LHR-LGW connection?
Anyway, I was wondering about advice about how to get some "free" hotel stays. I don't have any points in any hotels - but my fiance has about 35,000 AA miles. There aren't very many international hotel chains in Croatia, but it looks like there are two 5-star resorts that we wouldn't mind spending a few nights at:
1. Starwood's Le Meridian Lav near Split
and/or 2. Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik.

I don't really know of any others, but we would also consider using any points we have/convert for a hotel in Venice.

The Le Meridian Lav requires 10,000 starwood points, which is what you get as a bonus for signing up for their creditcard. Is it worth it? Is there any other way to get these points other than using the credit card or staying at the hotels? Should we both sign up and each get 10,000 points? Could we stay 2 nights somehow by doing that?

The Hilton Imperial requires 35,000 hhonors points. My fiance has about 35,000 AAdvantage miles, so converting them to hhonors would give us enough for 2 nights there at the 2:1 ratio. Since it costs about 250 to 300 euros/night, it seems like a very good use of AA miles... I think (~2.2cpm). Am I thinking about this right? I have never redeemed any kind of awards like this.
Any other advice about better things to do would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry about the long post. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Last summer I stayed at both the Meridien in Split and the Hilton in Dubrovnik. I highly recommend both hotels.

The Meridien is outside of Split, but the hotel provides a free shuttle to downtown. The shuttle runs in the morning and again in the mid-afternoon - not the most convenient schedule. Restaurants at the hotel are expensive and there aren't many options near the hotel.

The Hilton is right outside the the walled city. The location is extremely convenient. Again, restaurants are expensive in the hotel, but there are lots of options close by. We also enjoyed the Exec Lounge where there was free flowing wine from Hvar.

And we used points at both places. However, remember that if you have no status, you won't get any upgrades. For your honeymoon, it might be better to just pay cash and book a nicer room.

I have heard that the Hilton Imperial is very nice.... what if you got the Hilton Honors credit card, and then planned on four nights in Dubrovnik? Here's how:There is a deal right now with the Hilton Amex where you get 10000 pts on your first purchase, 2500 pts for adding a cardmember (your wife), then 30000 pts after you spend $1500. That right there would give you 42500 pts.

Then combined with your transfer of 35000 AA miles into 70000 HH points, you'd now be at 112,500 pts. With a few nights in a Hilton, or some spending on the card, you'd be up to 125,000 points in no time, which is enough for an AXON award (4 nights at a cat 5 or 6). With a room at the Hilton Imperial going for about $450 a night, it seems like a pretty good use of points/miles to me!

Was at Hilton in May. Nice hotel. Used points, otherwise would have not payed cash. But very good location, and breakfast was solid!

yes..Hilton Imperial is very nice....

Thanks for the advice. Where do I find the offer for the Hilton Amex? The only offer I found (linked from Hilton's website) doesn't mention anything about 30000 pts after spending $1500.

Although it would be nice to stay in an exec room at Hilton, I don't think we would pay $450/night for a hotel in Dubrovnik. Since we are both grad students, we don't have a ton of money to spend, but we are able to take some time off. We are planning a slightly longer than usual honeymoon (~3weeks) with slightly less luxury (we budgeted an average of about $150/night for hotels- not including venice). That is why it would be nice to spend a few nights at some nice places along the way if we can do it relatively cheaply.

I should have searched the internet before posting the last response, but I actually found an even better offer linked from here:

http://tmtravelworld.blogspot.com/20...-to-62500.html

Just thought some people might be interested.

Croatia is a beautiful country and I highly suggest you go. As far as places to stay, I don't know exactly how much traveling you'll be doing inside the country, and though this isn't answering your question and probobly deterring you from your original thought, I would highly suggest you not stay at a hotel chain.

The Croatians are very sweet, welcoming people and many, many of them offer their homes and rooms in apartments for you to "rent" (many will rent for only a day or so if that's all you want) and will do all the hospitable things that make the experience even richer. Many will show you around their city, make you food and clean your room, etc, etc. There are so many websites online that offer reviews and talk about the services; take a look around at some of those. That and they're far cheaper than hotels, as you expressed some concerns over prices.

As far as avoiding London, that's easy. I suggest flying through VIE or FRA, though FRA has many more US/Intl connections. Both airports are relatively easy to navigate and usually ontime. DBV has a few connections to both (I think 2 or so) each day too! The airport you connect through depends on the airline you want to fly ex-USA; if you want to fly a US-based airline, FRA would probably be the best option: United has a few, as does Delta and to a lesser extent Continental, American and US-Scareways. Lufthansa has many US-bound flights from FRA (including Detriot, Denver (right?), and West Coast cities) and Singapore Airlines offers, in my opinion, the best Europe-USA flight from FRA-JFK.

Enjoy!

Wow, nice offer! This one is 20,000 pts after first purchase instead of the 10,000 pt offer I signed up for.

Perhaps a way to avoid the LHR/LGW dance is to use Iberia, an AA partner, for LAX/JFK/MAD/VCE. There are also IB options through MIA and MEX. Coming back from DBV via MAD requires an overnight there, but there are worse things. This return could be interesting: ZAG/BUD/LHR/LAX using a combination of Malev, BA and AA or even more exotic: TGD (Podgorica, Montenegro, about a 100Euro car ride from DBV) to BUD on Malev, then BA to LHR & AA to LAX. Among the downsides are that you would have AA reward reservations scratching their heads. In any event start working on it 320 days from your scheduled return home and good luck.

No need to switch airports in London. BA starts LHRVCE service with the winter schedule on October 26. Good connection from US flights as it leaves LHR at 10:05AM

Cheers and congrats!