We’re getting ready to embark on another European adventure, although this time we will be on separate vacations. Jenn is visiting Munich and Dublin with our daughter, her sister, and our niece. That was planned as a girls’ trip to celebrate our niece graduating from High School.
Meanwhile, my son Alex and I will be visiting Dresden and Berlin, and spending a significant amount of time hiking in Saxon Switzerland National Park on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic.
It’s getting a little weird, this being our fourth trip to Europe in three years, since I thought that a European vacation was out of reach for us a decade ago. Knowing how and where we can save money on these trips makes all the difference.
For instance, for Alex and me to go on our trip, the round-trip flight cost $264 in taxes and fuel charges on top of the 81,600 Delta Skymiles. We will be taking Flixbus from the airport to Dresden and then from Dresden to Berlin the following week. Those bus tickets will cost a total of $80. We will spend about $140 for two Deutschland tickets, which will cover all of our public transportation while we are there. That means that our transportation costs are a total of $484.
Knowing that we would spend only a little time in our Airbnb, we rented a small apartment near a train stop in Dresden for $490 for 6 nights. We also have two nights in the Holiday Inn Express Alexanderplatz, where we will use two IHG free night certificates.
That means that, outside of food and activities, we will spend less than $1,000 on the trip. I get a lot of odd looks from people who can’t believe that we can afford to keep going to Europe, but it’s absolutely possible if you know what you’re doing.
IHG Bonus
Jenn earned the first of her bonuses on the IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card. She signed up for the card when there was a 140,000 point bonus after $4,000 in 3 months and an additional 60,000 points after $9,000 spent in 6 months.
IHG isn’t a luxury brand, but it offers many affordable options and has locations worldwide. I’ve especially been pleased with its footprint in Europe. Plenty of hotels are available wherever I look in Europe on the IHG app. Having a stash of IHG points will be nice to have when planning trips in the future.
On to the Point Check!
Most of our spending was done on the two cards for which we are working on signup bonuses. That would be my Chase Sapphire Preferred and Jenn’s IHG Business Card. There was some spending done on cards that we use for recurring billing. We’ve optimized them so that we earn 5x on utilities and 8x on gas with the Wyndham Business Earner card as well as 5x on streaming services and cell phone plans on the Ink Cash. All of that means that for these cards we earned 8.3% back on all spend on the cards listed below – not too bad.
| Card Used | Spend | Points Earned | Point Value | Points Per $ | Return on Spend |
| Ink Cash | $502 | 2,510 | $51.46 | 5.0 | 10.2% |
| Wyndham Business Earner | $407 | 2,234 | $24.57 | 5.5 | 6.0% |
| Amex Gold | $165 | 660 | $13.20 | 4.0 | 8.0% |
| Total | 1,074 | 5,404 | $89.23 | 5.0 | 8.3% |
In addition to the spending listed above, I also spent a little less than $3,000 on my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, earning around 4,700 Chase Ultimate Reward points. Jenn spent over $3,100 on her IHG, earning 11,900 IHG points as well as the 140,000 point bonus for spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. If she ends up spending an additional $5,000 over the next 4 months, she will earn an additional 60,000 point bonus.
At the end of the month, we had a grand total of:
- 185,000 IHG points
- 161,800 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
- 124,600 Amex Membership Rewards Points
- 93,000 American Airlines Miles
- 81,100 Wyndham Points
- 79,100 Alaska Miles
- 32,300 Citi Thank You Points
- 16,700 United Miles
- 15,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
- 9,300 Hyatt Points
- 1,500 Delta Miles
- $132 in Cash Back
According to the Points Guy’s valuations, the grand total of those points, miles, and cash back is a little less than $11,600. That is an increase of around $800 from the previous month, as our point totals finally start to recover from the massive amount of point redemptions we made at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Of course, the most important thing is that we get to enjoy another wonderful vacation.
Newby to Expert Traveler 