Back From 3 Weeks In Europe For Almost FREE!

President's Palace in Berlin, Germany

Yes, we just spent 3 weeks in Europe for almost FREE. I'll break down the trip in this post for you and show you how we did it. Then I'll write follow up posts breaking down each city, what we saw, what we did and how we saved money.
First, let's talk about the flights. Getting there is the biggest expense, headache and much more. So if you can take care of flights and hotels, you are really on your way to almost FREE family travel.
I blogged about how I secured these flights before when I did it, but here's a recap.
I had enough points collected already on United for 3 one way tickets to Europe. Course, there are 5 of us so that's hardly a drop in the bucket.
But it's a start. We opened 2 American Express Premier Credit Cards with a bonus of 40,000 points each. I transfered those points to Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer and topped it off with Starwood points. Starwood gives a bonus of 5,000 points for every 20,000 transferred to Kris Flyer.
Also Singapore Airlines which is a Star Alliance partner sells their award seats for 27,500 points instead of 30,000 points like United. Same flights, but they cost less points. Woohoo!
Now I'm able to book 5 round trip tickets and just pay taxes. We end up flying United to London and then SAS to Stockholm. For the return, we flew Lot Airlines from Warsaw to Vienna and then Austrian Airlines from Vienna to LAX. Perfect.
Great flights except Heathrow Airport is a nightmare. Because England is not in the EU, you have to go through security which takes forever and they are diligent about checking each bag. Even though we had 1.5 hours to transfer to our connecting flight, we almost did not make it.
But the flights cost approximately $450 for airline taxes. That's 5 round trip tickets to Europe from LAX for less than $500. Woohoo!
Now onto hotels, I booked 2 bed and breakfast hotels for my daughter and I in London and Paris. Both included breakfast and together were about $600 total. We booked 2 rooms at the Sheraton Berlin Grande Hotel Esplanade. One we charged to my Starwood American Express Business Card so we could take advantage of the club. The Sheraton club serves complimentary breakfast and happy hour. For a family of 5, this is a huge savings.
The other room was just $81 per night through Expedia so we chose to buy it rather than use points. I booked the room through Ebates so I get a percentage cash back. Ebates just told me I can expect a $50 check in the mail. Nice! Plus I charged this hotel to my new Barclays Arrival Plus Card and then used points to cover it. So it was FREE.
I'll review the hotel in a later post.
In Prague, we stayed at the Ramada City Centre. This is a Wyndham property so we were able to use 4 FREE nights since we both opened Wyndham credit cards with a 45,000 bonus. This hotel also included FREE breakfast.  More on this hotel in a later post.
In Krakow and Warsaw, we stayed at the Hampton Inn by Hilton. 5,000 points per night in Krakow and 10,000 points per night in Warsaw. Both included breakfast. More on these hotels in a later post.
So hotels and flights cost less than $1,500 for a family of 5 for 3 weeks in Europe. Wow!