From snowy markets to sleeper trains: How I’m spending Christmas in Europe using points and miles

14.10.2024 - 22:06 / thepointsguy.com / Agatha Christie

When TPG Senior Writer Ben Smithson alerted me to Air France-KLM Flying Blue's July Promo Reward sale — flights from Denver International Airport (DEN) to Europe started at 15,000 Flying Blue miles each way — I was excited. Deals like this aren't exactly rare, but most of them depart from either the East Coast or West Coast, and I'm based in Colorado. I've considered booking positioning flights to take advantage of past deals, but the cost and hassle never ended up being worth it.

Needless to say, I jumped on the chance to fly straight from Denver to Europe for only 30,000 miles round-trip later this year. But since my partner and I were already planning — and paying for — our wedding and honeymoon in October, we decided we would only book the trip if we could get all of it (including airfare and lodging) for basically free using points and miles. Here's how we did it.

Related: Why you should use points and miles to book holiday travel

Not only did Flying Blue's July Promo Rewards include flights to and from our home base, Denver International Airport (DEN), but they also included several European destinations. We had our pick of cities in France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Norway and more.

We ultimately narrowed down the list based on which dates worked best for us and which cities had plenty of hotel options that we could book with our Marriott Bonvoy and World of Hyatt points. We also considered European train routes because we knew we wanted to check an overnight train off our bucket list.

We settled on flying into Prague a few days before Christmas and flying out of Brussels a week later. We would spend three days exploring Prague's magical Christmas markets, then take the European Sleeper to Brussels and end our trip with two days in the Belgian capital. As an Agatha Christie fan, I was particularly excited to explore Brussels, the home of one of my favorite fictional characters: detective Hercule Poirot.

Our flights from DEN to Prague cost 15,000 Flying Blue miles plus $116 in taxes and fees, and our flights from Brussels to DEN cost 15,000 miles plus $182 — for a total of 30,000 miles and $298 per person.

Our tickets are economy standard, meaning we'll each get a free checked bag, carry-on and personal item. Interestingly, our journey home from Brussels is one of Air France's combined plane-plus-train tickets, meaning we'll depart from the Brussels South/Midi Train Station (ZYR) and take a train to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) for our flight to DEN.

I'm not a frequent Air France-KLM flyer, and my Flying Blue account held a whopping 0 miles. No problem — I collect Chase Ultimate Rewards points and Capital One miles, both of which are transfer partners with Flying Blue.

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