Planning an Overseas Vacation in 3 yrs- tips & tricks

[Soror]

I think we will likely go to Rome as that has always been dh's dream but I'm not for sure. I'm wondering are any of the airline mile credit cards worth it? With this much time we should be able to get quite a few points and since flying will be by far the biggest expense I want to get on that fairly quick if it is worthwhile. Favorite books, blogs etc to teach me tips and tricks to do this economically but also see what we want to see and stay safe? We've never been overseas and I've never even flown. I've been playing on Expedia trying to figure out when it will be the cheapest to go, just for an idea.

[Brenda in FL]

We are planning a vacation for next May using airline miles and just booked our flights.  It was recommended from the reservationist that we do so when they become available.  When we thought we would try this past May with just a couple months notice it was difficult to find flights with points. 

 

We did use new card promotions to build up points.  Also, the amount of points may change, this past May overseas flights were 20,000 points, for the upcoming year they are 30,000.  (We had to buy points - bummer).  DH had most of the points saved up from business travel.

 

If you book your flight when reservations open - wait a day or two.  For both our outgoing flight and returning flight, the lower point flights didn't show up on the first day reservations opened.  I believe my husband waited two days for the 30,000 point flights.

[whitestavern]

We are hitting the Cinque Terre area in Italy, the Switss alps, and Provence next June. I started planning by getting a few library books on Europe. Narrowed it down into countries. Then I got library books of those countries to narrow down which areas we wanted to visit. Now I have books of those areas to find things to do and places to stay.

 

I have found the Trip Advisor forums to be an immense help. They have forums for general areas down to specific little towns. Many people helping you are local. They're very helpful.

 

About all I've gleaned re airfare is purchase six months in advance for best prices on European flights. We are attempting to use points as well. Capital One has no blackout dates and at least appears to be the least hassle. Unfortunately we have a lot of AmX points but not enough for the 4 of us. Not sure how we'll handle that.

[regentrude]

Airline credit cards are totally worth it.

We use ours all the time, pay every dime we can with them (I only use cash at the Farmers Market), pay the balance off every month and collect miles.

This year, we got two overseas tickets and two domestic tickets from accumulated miles.

[hornblower]

We don't do points (or rather, I cash in my points for dollars & small merchandise) 

 

For flights, I mostly use Google Flights to scope out prices.

We stalk several airlines, subscribe to deal emails, have a price point & then jump on it.  

One of my local travel agencies at the mall had a thing saying they'd beat any online price. I got a really good price from Google Flights, went in & yeah, they beat that by another $50 per ticket & actually gave us a better routing. 

Depending how long you want to go for, my main concern is just getting to Europe. I look for cheap flights to any major capital & then sort out train fares after. I love train travel.  On our trip before last, we wanted any major city in England, France or Italy.  Sometimes weird routings are cheaper than other flights. One of the times I was looking, it was cheaper to fly to YVR to Venice via something (Frankfurt maybe?) than the YVR Frankfurt flight alone. 

We've been to Italy twice now & I would go back in heartbeat.  

 

I found TripAdvisor forums very good for tips.  The year we went they were just trying out tours of the underground / back of the Colosseum and the people there had all sorts of helpful advice on how to get advance tickets because it was a thing you couldn't really book once you were there. Same for the Vatican tours and tickets to various museums / exhibits everywhere else. You get lots of great tips which often help you beat the line ups & many of the people are super nice. 

[Frances]

I think credit cards with points are definitely worth it. We have one that is not specific to any airline, so no blackout dates. We're going to Europe in 6 weeks and both tickets were free, and we will also have enough points left for two domestic tickets to visit our moms when we return. We put everything on the card and pay it off every month. And I use google flights to watch for the best prices.

 

I'll second Trip Advisor as a great resource. We've never been disappointed when following recommendations whether for accommodations, sites, restaurants, or bike tours. And a great website I discovered while planning our trip is rometorio.com. You can put in any two destinations in the world and it will give you all of the transportation options with links to purchase tickets, get schedules, rent cars, etc.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Frances

[J-rap]

We do all sorts of credit card tricks, and have gotten many, many tickets that way.  If you do a little research now and find out what the major (and best priced) airlines are that take you there, then you can keep an eye out for their promotional credit card offers.  For example, we recently got a Delta American Express card that gave us 60,000 miles after charging $1,000 in three months.  That was simple!  We just charged everything to that card for thee months.  At least as of now, that's enough to get you one free roundtrip ticket from NYC to Rome and back.  Plus, whatever you charge on that card from now till then will increase miles.

 

Apart from that, I know that Capitol One and USBank offer really good travel points when you use them.  I'd guess that you could earn enough to get another ticket that way pretty easily.  So, I'd pick two cards - a promotional airlines credit card and a card like Cap One or USBank.    You may be able to build up enough miles for two people per card.  (We usually build up enough for an international trip on each card, per year.  But we charge everything, even college tuition.)

 

As far as when to actually purchase them, you can look at graph charts on Kayak.com I believe.  But also, there is a relatively new app called Hopper that tells you when to purchase your tickets based on past sales and prices.

 

I also learned that you can make purchases at many major online stores and restaurants through the airline site (so basically linking other purchases you make to your airline points account), and earn even more points that way.

[nd293]

Exciting!!

 

For us using air miles doesn't work because we wouldn't accumulate enough for the 4 flights and the relevant airlines are so much more expensive than the cheaper ones we'd normally opt for that we wouldn't come out ahead. But we're not in the US, your situation is probably entirely different.

 

I always like to fly with a stopover in an 'extra' country. This time (Dec) we're stopping in Abu Dhabi. We're just sleeping over on the way there, and taking 2 days on the way back. Apart from the sightseeing aspect we get to our destination ready to hit the ground running.

 

I used Visit a City as a starting point for planning itineraries. You can start with, for example, a 4 day family trip to Rome and then add or delete sites or activities, adding days if necessary. It plots best routes, gives you travel times between points etc. It's a lot of fun to play with!

 

I love Trip Advisor for info. I tend to Google weirdly specific questions ("best place to hire a car to travel from London to Stratford") and Trip Advisor will always have a helpful discussion.

 

How long are you going for? For us the airfares are such a big chunk of the expense that we're doing a longer trip with 4 cities.

 

We've booked mostly Air BnB for accomodation with a couple of youth hostels and hotels. We're coming out at under AUS$150 per night for accomodation for the family of 4, which I'm very happy with. We couldn't do that at home.

 

Staying safe: I don't think its that hard... common sense and avoiding "travel clothes" that make you stand out as a tourist is probably a good place to start. I did look at some YouTube videos of child pickpockets in Rome which a little alarming, but very instructive.

 

I did/am doing all my planning online. As I'm the one 'in charge' which I find stressful I'm collecting detailed information on pretty much everything (like alternate travel routes from Site A to Site B within a city for instance) and saving it all in Evernote so when we're actually there I get to enjoy things rather than spend my time Organising. Compared to the 'old way' of guide books the Internet allows you to cover every single aspect and answer every question, and I'm already feeling much less stressed and somewhat 'familiar' with the places we'll be visiting as I'm prepared for most eventualities.

 

For anything train related The Man in Seat Sixty-One is absolutely fantastic. (We're traveling by train from London to Paris, Paris to Venice, Venice to Rome and Rome to Naples/Pompeii).

[Soror]

So, it looks like I should head over to Trip Advisor for their forums and should look more into airline cards, seems like we might be able to get enough for a couple of tickets maybe and at a $1000 or so each that would be well worth it. I definitely would like to see some tips as to where to go and what to do. I don't want to get stuck in any tourist traps.

 

What does not dress like a tourist mean!? How do you make sure not to stick out like a sore thumb? 

 

(We're traveling by train from London to Paris, Paris to Venice, Venice to Rome and Rome to Naples/Pompeii).

I hadn't thought about the possibility of doing a train to various places once we get there. Although, I had thought it would be nice to hit Greece while we were so close. 

[mommyoffive]

We are planning a vacation for next May using airline miles and just booked our flights.  It was recommended from the reservationist that we do so when they become available.  When we thought we would try this past May with just a couple months notice it was difficult to find flights with points. 

 

We did use new card promotions to build up points.  Also, the amount of points may change, this past May overseas flights were 20,000 points, for the upcoming year they are 30,000.  (We had to buy points - bummer).  DH had most of the points saved up from business travel.

 

If you book your flight when reservations open - wait a day or two.  For both our outgoing flight and returning flight, the lower point flights didn't show up on the first day reservations opened.  I believe my husband waited two days for the 30,000 point flights.

 

Wow what airline had overseas flights for 20k? I haven't seen that?

And to where?

[mommyoffive]

I like 

thepointsguy.com

 

We just started learning how to travel hack with credit card points and stuff.  I wish I would have known about this sooner.  

I was to scared to try it.

 

But it is paying for our flights for 7 to Calgary coming up for our family of 7.   Huge savings.  We plan on doing it more so we can travel more.

[Luckymama]

I follow airfarewatchdog on twitter for price deals. Some are very short-term (as in, for next month) but recently I've seen deals to Europe for next spring. That $390 JFK-Paris had me twitchy!

 

If you go to their website, you can set email alerts for your preferred airport(s) and/or airlines. You can get a very good idea of pricing trends by watching for a period of weeks or a few months :)

[lmrich]

a crazy idea... some cruise ships offer an Atlantic crossing deal once a year (I guess twice when they come back) but it takes a lot of time. But I always thought would be neat. 

 

I loved train travel in Europe so easy and so fast. Have fun planning!

[nd293]

What does not dress like a tourist mean!? How do you make sure not to stick out like a sore thumb?

 

I hadn't thought about the possibility of doing a train to various places once we get there. Although, I had thought it would be nice to hit Greece while we were so close.

I was thinking of travel threads (here and elsewhere) which say things like: You'll need pants with 12 pockets! And quick dry fabric that dries in 10 minutes! And the skirt than doubled as a poncho/sleeping bag/hat! Well, I'm making those up, but that's the general idea 😄 I started thinking like that too (especially because we're only taking a carry-on backpack each for winter travel) but then I asked myself why I wouldn't just wear the same clothes I do at home with a warmer jacket. I figure I might look a lot less touristy that way!

 

Actually we are going to Greece too, I didn't mention it as it wasn't train-related. The 4 flights on RyanAir from Rome to Athens were £200. We have an open jaw flight, so into London and home from Athens.

[Lanny]

The least expensive fare for a trip from the states to a European destination will be a Round Trip ticket,  to a single city, purchased approximately 90 days before your departure. The time before departure date from the origin city, will vary with the season. In "Peak" season it might be longer than 90 days, in "Value" season it might be 30 or 35 days.  I had a lot of Delta Frequent Flyer Miles and Delta began serving Colombia, late in 2000 as I recall. From Atlanta to Bogota and V.V.  We live in Cali, so we had to pay for round trip tickets from Cali to Bogota.  We could have gone to any destination Delta served in the USA (ie: Anchorage or Honolulu).  We chose Las Vegas as our final destination, with a stop in Dallas/Ft. Worth on the way back. We bought a ticket for DD, who was 6 months old,  this was in April 2001, because I am a former airline employee and am violently opposed to people with  babies in aircraft who are not in an approved car seat, for their safety.  One thing I did, before our departure from Colombia, was to READ COMPLETELY, the rules that applied to us, as Frequent Flyer passengers. We got to  the Delta Ticket Counter in El Dorado Airport in Bogota, with DD and a lot of baggage, at about 4 or 430 A.M.  When it was our turn, the agent told us, "The flight from Atlanta last night had a problem and terminated in Miami. We do not have an aircraft for your flight to Atlanta.  Come back tomorrow".   I politely told her, "I read the rules and we have the same rights  Full Fare Passengers have".  She went to check the rules, and several minutes later, she came back and told us, "You are correct, we will send you on American to Miami and then back on Delta to Atlanta and Las Vegas".  BOTTOM LINE:  If you go on Frequent Flyer tickets, read, thoroughly, every word of the applicable rules.  

Edited July 13, 2016 by Lanny

[vonbon]

It's already been a decade, but for what it's worth, we got 2 round-trip tickets from the West Coast to Europe using airline miles.  We had to be strategic and call on some exact day to get the flights we wanted, but it worked.  I don't remember the details, but I remember I blocked off time on the calendar to just sit, poised at the phone, to make the call at some particular time.  

 

It's worth it to read the fine print and to call ahead (like even a year or more) to see what's involved in terms of details to make sure you can actually use the miles you accumulate for what you want to do.  

 

For tickets that were probably worth $2000 at the time, I guess it was worth it.  There were a lot of details, though, in terms of how / when they could be used.  I remember the process being somewhat frustrating--navigating blackout periods, etc.  We went to using a cash-based budget system and we've not tried to accumulate points again, but now I'm inspired to check out some options.  The Internet is broader now than it was then.  

[vonbon]

As far as tips on traveling safely, packing well, traveling with kids, having fun with travel in Europe...Rick Steves is a good author of travel books and shows.  The TV series might be a bit nerdy for some, maybe too upscale and basic for the super-frugal world traveler, but I love the beautiful footage and I think most of it is solid info on traveling Europe and beyond--especially for the beginner.  The concise experience he passes on regarding packing lightly, currency exchange, apparel, trip planning, etc., makes the series (books or DVDs) a great place to start.  I noticed my local library has his DVD series.  I know he's covered Rome quite extensively.  At the very least, you'll be inspired!

[livetoread]

I relied heavily on Trip Advisor, Rick Steves, AirBnB, and others mentioned.

[Soror]

Thanks so much for everyone's tips and tricks. I'm trying to soak it all in, I'm sure I have more questions but am not feeling well so my brain just isn't working. Hopefully it returns soon and I can figure out what I need to do next.

[mommyoffive]

Are you taking the kids with you?

 

I think it is wise to start getting miles now with ccs if that is the way you want to go.  I haven't seen the uber low prices on tickets to Europe.  

 

That said we did our first travel hacking.  We got tickets to Calgary on sale for 19k miles.  This is the basic economy on delta.  It wasn't hard to get them.  It sure is going to save us a ton.  The prices of the tickets in dollars is 700 -1000 a ticket.  

Edited July 14, 2016 by mommyoffive