How I Used Points and Miles To Save $2,000 on Last-Minute Travel to an Adele Concert

Adele has long been one of my favorite artists — I’ve listened to her music probably every day since blasting her first album 19 on repeat since my uni days. Seeing her live was on my bucket list, and I finally got to tick it off in Hyde Park, London, in 2022. The way she engages with her audience with every lyric is something special.

Determined to see her again, I considered heading to Vegas but was put off by the exorbitant ticket prices. Then, completely out of the blue, Jaz — a dear friend of 20 years — messaged me to say she had a spare ticket to Adele’s opening night concert in Munich on a Friday.

Without even contemplating the logistics, I said yes. Then, I saw the price of flights and hotels that would take the cost of this short trip to over $2,000. With a bit of flexibility, thinking outside the box, and good luck to boot, points and miles saved the day and made this trip financially feasible.

Redeeming Avios for Flights to Munich

Living in London, a quick 90-minute hop to Munich (MUC) should only have cost me a couple of hundred dollars max, right? Wrong.

August means it’s the peak summer travel season in Europe, so flights are already pretty full. Add in the fact this was a very last-minute trip at just 2 days before I would fly, and prices were sky high.

Hot Tip:

I always use Google Flights when researching my options thanks to the many intuitive tools and features that help me find exactly what I’m looking for.

As the show was due to start at 7:30 p.m., I wanted to make sure I’d be in Munich around midafternoon to account for any delays and give me time to drop my bag off at the hotel. The lowest priced nonstop options were super early in the morning and already well over $400, with the cheapest departure at 6:55 a.m. coming in at £333 ($424).

As someone who needs at least 8 hours of sleep to function properly, I’m pretty steadfast when it comes to early flights and will avoid the grogginess and brain fog that comes with getting up before 6 a.m., if I can.

Things were already looking expensive, but I was sure I could find something better. My next port of call was to log in to my trusty British Airways Executive Club account. Despite the ridiculous taxes and fees that BA adds onto long haul redemptions, the airline’s Reward Flight Saver redemptions for short haul flights can prove excellent value.

When I first checked on the Tuesday that I found out about the ticket, the only Avios option available would have had me arriving after the start of the concert.

At this point, I almost gave up.

Knowing that airlines update award seat availability on a regular basis, I checked again as soon as I woke up. There was availability — only in business class — on a flight that would get me from London Heathrow (LHR) into Munich at 3:45 p.m. Perfect.

BA’s Reward Flight Saver redemptions also let you pay with a combination of Avios and cash. I went for the 9,750 Avios plus £37 ($47) option, a balanced mix of Avios and cash. (In comparison, the economy seats left on this flight were on sale for around $700 one-way.)

I wouldn’t normally choose to fly business class on short haul flights in Europe_, as there’s really nothing special about it. However, given this was my only way of not paying hundreds of pounds to fly economy, I went for it.

I tend to fly British Airways less and less these days, but that’s a story for another day.

Needless to say, I’ve never had reason to complain about business class catering on departure from Heathrow, and this salmon and avocado salad with a dreamy chocolate dessert was no exception.

I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed the meal so much had I paid the full $1,200 fare without Avios!

My flight landed on schedule, which meant I was able to make it to Adele World on time. Adele’s specially designed, 80,000-capacity venue was impressive, to say the least.

Booking A “Free” Night at a 5-Star Hotel in Munich

Before deciding where to stay after the concert, I checked both my Marriott Bonvoy and World of Hyatt accounts to see which would offer me the best value redemption.

Bonvoy showed zero availability using points at any of its Munich properties. Meanwhile, Hyatt saved the day with availability showing at only 1 hotel — the Andaz Schwabinger Tor, where I stayed back in April for the first-ever Lufthansa Allegris flight. I really enjoyed my stay the first time around, so I was happy that it would be my only option.

The 1-night stay would have set me back just 20,000 Hyatt points, which was nothing short of a steal considering the nightly cash rate was €703 ($766)! For reference, Upgraded Points values 20,000 Hyatt points at around $300.

Unlike when redeeming miles for flights, there are no taxes and fees to be paid when booking a stay with points at a Hyatt hotel. So, for all intents and purposes, this does mean my stay at the Andaz was technically free.

Hot Tip:

There are a variety of best Hyatt credit cards to choose from that come with benefits when staying at the chain’s properties.

Returning to London From Munich With Avios

At first glance, it didn’t look like I’d be able to get home from Munich on Saturday with no award availability. To make things even more complicated for myself, I was moving on Saturday back in London, so needed to be on a flight landing in the early afternoon, at the latest.

I did check my Air France-KLM Flying Blue account, but these flights were via Paris (CDG) or Amsterdam (AMS), so the journey times would have been unnecessarily long. Not only that, but the cheapest one-way back from Munich to London was around 44,000 Flying Blue miles that I didn’t have in my account.

Hot Tip:

Air France-KLM’s Flying Club might not have helped me this time, but the program often has excellent redemptions from the U.S. to Europe from as few as 37,500 in business class one-way.

This particular instance was a great example of flexibility being key to a successful miles redemption.

With nothing available from Munich, I tried other airports where BA flies to that were less than a 3-hour train ride from Munich.

After checking availability from Frankfurt (FRA) and even Salzburg (SZG) and Innsbruck (INN) in Austria (where I now realize BA only flies seasonally in the winter for skiing), Stuttgart (STR) came up trumps with award availability on the 12 p.m. departure, once again in business class.

Even though this would mean a ridiculously early start on Saturday morning to arrive in Stuttgart enough in advance of my flight, this was the only way I could make this happen.

Another 9,750 Avios and £37 ($47) left my accounts, bringing my running cash total to just £74 ($94) for return business class flights to Germany. Not bad, right?

Taking the French TGV From Munich to Stuttgart

The next item on my agenda was booking the journey from Munich to Stuttgart Airport.

I headed to the Deutsche Bahn website, which is the hub for all rail travel within Germany. There was a train departing from Munich’s Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) at 6:49 a.m., with a scheduled arrival in Stuttgart at 9:01 a.m. before it continued to Paris.

I could have booked a slightly later train (and had a little more sleep) operated by Deutsche Bahn, but taking a French train in Germany that would cross international borders is a fun quirk of continental European train travel that I find rather fun.

The 2-hour journey in regular class cost €29 ($31), which I thought was a bargain. At the payment stage, I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to first class for €9 ($9.80) which, of course, I did.

With the cost of my train journey at $42, the final cash total for the transportation for this trip came to $136. That’s less than half the cost of what a one-way from London to Munich would have cost me in economy if I didn’t have Avios!

I chose the upstairs of the double decker first class carriage. It featured large comfy seats with a table or tray for each passenger, as well as European power outlets and a small trash bin.

An announcement at the start of the journey stated that first class passengers would enjoy an at-seat service, which I took as meaning complimentary. Unlike in the U.S. and the U.K., though, first class passengers aboard this French TGV had to pay for their drinks and snacks.

Nothing on the menu really jumped out at me. As I’d only had a McDonald’s espresso at this point, I was starving. So I went for a simple ham and cheese sandwich and a sparkling water.

My “breakfast” cost me a total of €10.30 ($11.20). I’d have probably asked for a refund if I’d paid any more, as this was the driest, most flavorless ham and cheese sandwich I’d ever had in my life.

Return Flight to London

The meal on the return leg back to Heathrow looked colorful and delicious, but the chicken was very dry. The quality of the meal was nowhere near as good as on my flight from Heathrow to Munich.

Final Thoughts

Points and miles are certainly the key to flying in the world’s best first class or staying at the swankiest resorts in dreamy destinations like the Maldives.

However, saving money on last-minute trips is, without a doubt, one of my favorite ways to use my points and miles. In the end, my total spend for business class flights, a first class train ticket, and a night in a 5-star hotel came to just $136!

Was I knackered after a whirlwind 20 hours in Germany? Yes. Was it worth it to see one of the best female singers of all time? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Without a doubt.