How I Booked a Family Trip to Italy and France for 4 Using Points and Miles

I managed to earn over 300,000 points in 6 months and planned a once-in-a-lifetime vacation for my family. It was a daunting task, especially as I had only ever booked award flights and hotels for up to 2 people at a time.

But I was up for the challenge and plotted a 9-day escapade to Rome and Paris over Thanksgiving weekend — with points and miles comping the majority of the out-of-pocket travel costs. Here’s an inside look into my strategy and how you can do the same.

Overview of Travel Dates and Destinations

When planning a trip, you’ll likely start with a destination in mind, but I usually plan in reverse. Once I have an idea of general travel dates, I’ll compare available award flights during the timeframe and then land on a destination.

This year, I wanted to book a family vacation for my mom, brother, boyfriend, and me for roughly 10 days around Thanksgiving. Here are the other details that helped me book this trip:

• Hometown airport: Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU)
• Destination(s) in mind: Somewhere in Europe, going wherever we could get the best award deal!
• Points and miles: Over 300,000 points in several credit card reward programs
• The goal: Book business class on the way there and economy for flights home

Flight #1: Business Class Flights for 4 People to Rome

I started the search on my favorite award booking tool, seats.aero, casting a wide net to find as many bookable routes as possible. First, I looked up flights from “USA” (all major U.S. airports) to “EUR” (all major European airports) and entered a 3-day window from my ideal departure date.

As a pro user, I’m able to enter the specific number of seats needed on a route. Although my home airport, RDU, offers a growing number of nonstop routes to Europe (Iceland, Paris, London, and, most recently, Frankfurt), I was open to the possibility of taking a positioning flight to another major airport to hunt down award availability for 4 passengers.

After comparing the options, I landed on a business class ticket from Air Canada Aeroplan. This program has some of the best ways to get to Europe using points and miles:

• Chicago (ORD) to Brussels (BRU) on United Polaris in a Boeing 787-10 aircraft
• Brussels (BRU) to Rome (FCO) on Brussels Airlines in an Airbus A319 aircraft

The entire itinerary was bookable for 70,000 points plus under $100 in taxes and fees per person.

There were exactly 4 tickets still up for grabs on my ideal travel date, so I moved quickly to transfer my stash of points to the Aeroplan.

I needed 280,000 Aeroplan points to make this redemption happen. Fortunately for me, there was a 20% transfer bonus from Amex Membership Rewards to Air Canada Aeroplan at the time. Using the Upgraded Points transfer partner calculator, which takes into account any active transfer bonuses, I realized I only needed to transfer 234,000 Membership Rewards points.

Once I booked that flight, I booked positioning tickets from Raleigh-Durham (RDU) to Chicago (ORD). It was quite affordable at $59 per person, and we’ll have several hours to enjoy the ORD Polaris lounge before takeoff. I’ve never flown United Polaris before, but I’m mostly looking forward to the ability to get some good quality sleep on the transatlantic flight.

With these one-way business class tickets costing well over $3,000 per person, I redeemed my points for over 4 cents each.

More importantly, we avoided paying over $12,000 for 4 business class tickets by leveraging points and miles.

Flight #2: Economy Flights for 4 People From Paris

Once I secured flights to Rome, I needed to find a way home. Thanks to Air France-KLM Flying Blue’s Promo Rewards, which is a monthly promotion of award flights between Europe and the U.S., I found a great deal. I could book Air France’s nonstop flight from Paris (CDG) to Raleigh (RDU) for just 15,000 miles per person, with plenty of availability in early December.

Even with the taxes of roughly $200 per person, this was totally worth it in my eyes. I transferred 60,000 Wells Fargo Rewards points to Flying Blue, and I received those instantly.

Since most flights from Europe to the U.S. operate during the day, I don’t need the luxuries of a lie-flat seat returning home. Plus, the real luxury here is hopping on a nonstop flight from Europe to my home airport.

By booking this flight, my itinerary quickly formed: going to Rome and Paris for 9 days. I’ve never been to Rome, and it has been over 7 years since I visited Paris to study abroad, so this sounded like the perfect itinerary for our family trip.

Booking Accommodations

Booking the flights for 4 people definitely put together a large part of the puzzle. With about 4 months left until the trip, I have time to peruse potential accommodations in Rome and Paris as needed.

Although I have some points with Hilton Honors and World of Hyatt, we won’t book hotels this time. It can be difficult to book 1 hotel room in Europe for 4 adults because of strict occupancy limits, and we’ll probably want more space.

Instead, we’ll set our sights on booking a vacation rental. While I haven’t done this just yet, there are several ways I’m thinking about booking a vacation home:

1. Book an Airbnb through the Delta SkyMiles Airbnb portal to earn 1x miles on the Airbnb, and pay for the expense with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card to earn 2x miles. I also can redeem Capital One miles at a rate of 1 cent each for travel purchases within 90 days, should I wish to offset the cost.
2. Transfer points to Marriott Bonvoy to book Marriott Homes & Villas properties starting at ~30,000 points per night.
3. Redeem Expedia OneKeyCash to book Vrbo properties and get a 1:1 dollar value when booking properties.

With 9 nights to book, I’ll likely do a combination of all 3. I can tap into my family members’ stash of rewards to accomplish this goal.

Hot Tip:

Referring your friends and family members to credit cards is a win-win to earn a ton of bonus points. Check out our extensive guide on the best credit card referral bonuses.

How To Earn 300,000+ Credit Card Points

With over a dozen credit cards in my wallet, I’ve slowed my roll on submitting new applications. I’m trying to be more strategic with the cards I apply for, as credit card issuer application rules can often complicate whether you are (or aren’t) eligible to earn a welcome offer in the future.

That said, I opened 2 cards within a 6-month time frame: The Business Platinum Card^® from American Express and the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Card.

Finding a Targeted Welcome Offer on the Amex Business Platinum Card

The Amex Business Platinum card has a $895 annual fee (rates & fees) and boasts the following welcome bonus offer:

• Earn 150,000 200,000 points after spending $20,000 in eligible purchases within the first 3 months.

While that’s certainly a great deal of points, American Express can bring even juicier targeted welcome offers for eligible applicants. We’ve covered targeted offers extensively here at Upgraded Points, so take a look at each elevated offer that you could come across with the Amex Business Platinum card:

All told, it absolutely matters which welcome offer you apply for — in this specific case, putting up to 33% more points on the table. When I was targeted for the huge 200k welcome bonus offer, I took the leap. As a self-employed business owner, expenses such as quarterly tax payments, business travel, and a new MacBook helped me reach the $8,000 spending requirement in no time.

Of course, the Amex Business Platinum card offers a generous earning rate beyond the welcome offer, especially for business owners. I was able to rack up an additional 35,000 points from everyday business expenses over 6 months of card membership, which brought more than 235,000 Amex Membership Rewards points to my account when accounting for the welcome offer and points earned from the spending required to unlock the bonus.

Applying for a New Travel Credit Card

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card launched earlier this year, and it has quickly become one of my favorite credit cards in my wallet. The $95 annual fee is quite affordable (rates & fees), and the rewards rate ensures that I continue to rack up bonus points on travel and everyday purchases.

Currently, the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card has the following welcome offer:

• Earn 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in purchases in the first 3 months.

We value Wells Fargo points at 1.5 cents apiece, so the welcome offer is worth a solid $900 for travel.

After a few months of holding the card, I earned an additional 15,000 points from spending — particularly on dining (3x points) and hotels (5x points). That tallied up to an impressive 75,000 points in my Wells Fargo Rewards balance.

Spending on Other Credit Cards

As mentioned earlier, I have numerous credit cards in my wallet. Here’s an overview of some of the credit cards I have and how I racked up thousands of points and miles from everyday spending:

• Bilt Mastercard (closed to new applicants; rates & fees): Earn 1x points on rent without a transaction fee (up to $100,000 per calendar year).
• American Express^® Gold Card: Earn 4x points at U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 per year).
• Ink Business Unlimited^® Credit Card: Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase made for your business.
• Citi^® / AAdvantage^® Platinum Select^® World Elite Mastercard^®: Earn 1x miles on all other eligible purchases. I like to put all “non-bonus” spend on this card, as I’ll also earn 1 Loyalty Point per dollar spent on card purchases, helping to retain my AAdvantage elite status.

Note that you have to make a minimum of 5 transactions on your Bilt Card during each billing period to earn points.

Final Thoughts

I can’t say my award travel was booked for free, as there was a lot of credit card spending involved, and I’ve paid hundreds of dollars in annual fees to amass the right amount of points to make this trip happen. We also paid taxes and fees on our award tickets for the flights.

That said, I was able to book a mixed-cabin itinerary for a trip to Rome and Paris for 4 people, which is a major win in my book. While booking award travel for multiple people isn’t for the faint of heart, the effort was worth it in the long run, and I’m more than happy about the points and miles I’ve put to good use.