I just bought $22,000 flights😮

Sound the alarm. I’m going to Europe, in style, next summer.

My toddler is gonna sleep (we pray) in a lie-flat business class seat!

I’m here to break down the whole deal for you.

Buckle up.

I’m not kidding about the $22,000.

Flight #1: Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany.

Lufthansa business class. Boeing 747-8 (double-decker plane!)

Price for 3 people? $18,051. 

Flight #2 (going home): Geneva to Chicago.

Air France Premium Economy.

Price for 3 people? $4,062.

Total cash price of my flights: $22,113.

But, you guessed it. I didn’t pay that much.

Some background here. We’ve been wanting to go back to Europe for a while. We’ve been saving up cash & points to do it in style.

Our first flight to Europe with a baby in economy was…. miserable.

I’ve never seen my wife more physically uncomfortable.

So we’re doing it differently this time.

We’ll be crossing the ocean with a 3 year old & 8 month old… but in lie-flat business class seats!

We’re going to experience the beauty & culture of the French & Swiss Alps!

Here’s the dealtails:

We’re flying from Chicago to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in business class.

While the cash price of each ticket is over $6,000, I paid 70,000 points + $93 for each ticket.

How?

I booked through Air Canada Aeroplan.

I found the deal using Seats.Aero, my favorite award tool, and couldn’t believe how good it was.

By the way, you could join me on this flight with just the bonus from this card.

It’s very hard to find business class deals, especially during peak travel season.

For reference, there were zero business class options out of Chicago for June & July, but a decent amount in August (when we’re going)!

I can’t wait to see my 3 year old sitting in one of these seats sipping orange juice.

And the food will be next level:

And I’m hyped for the breakfast + shower in the lounge when we land in Frankfurt before we connect to Switzerland.

So how did I get a Lufthansa flight through Air Canada?

Because Air Canada & Lufthansa are in the same airline alliance (Star Alliance). Air Canada is an amazing way to fly in business class from anywhere in America to many cities in Europe on airlines like United, Lufthansa, Swiss Air, LOT, Austrian Airlines, and more.

Just to show receipts in case you don’t believe me, here’s my actual receipt:

I transferred 210,000 Chase points to Air Canada to book this. This is a CRAZY redemption value: 8.46 CPP.

More dealtails:

The flight home isn’t as big a deal because it’s during the day, so I didn’t want to shell out even MORE points for business class again.

But, we knew after business class we wouldn’t make it in economy with the two little kids.

So, that’s why, on the 6th day, God created premium economy.

We’ll be flying in Air France’s premium economy cabin back home to Chicago.

It looks nice!

Similar to domestic first-class seats.

These seats were priced at 35,000 points per person + $233. The fees were painful, but that’s just part of flying from Europe - you’ll often see fees like that!

The value was still great.

For 2 adults & 1 child, it was 96,250 points + $701.

The total cash price? $4,062.

3.49 cents per points is SOLID!

AND, we get 2 checked bags per person.

We transferred over 97,000 points from Capital One to Air France.

So, to summarize.

We used:

• 210,000 Chase points

• 97,000 Capital One points.

• $980

To get us $22,113 of flights for our big summer Europe trip.

Not bad at all.

I’d had enough of my clients snagging all these deals, I wanted to get one myself!

Want to know something really cool?

The majority of those 200k Chase points I used were earned from referrals on the Ink Business Preferred, from this newsletter.

So, you all are literally paying for me to go to Europe in a lie flat seat. Thanks!!!

My family is so excited.

If you want to start experiencing flights like this and don’t want to do al the research, let me do it for you.

Check out my trip planning services.

Have a great week everyone!