Our next reader success story comes from Kristi, and she shares how she and her husband took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy. Here is here story:

 

Flights

My husband and I planned and executed our first-ever trip to Europe, specifically Italy. We travelled in the fall of 2024. With Pam’s expertise, we secured our first-ever lie-flat seats through Air Canada for 70k points + $ 80 each by transferring points from Capital One to Air Canada. But those lie-flat seats were from JFK to Rome, so we also had to get to JFK from the North Coast of California. To do that, we used 11k points +$85 each from United to get from our small town in Northern California to Denver, and another 9.1k Delta miles to position ourselves from Denver to JFK. We vowed that next time we would try to find a flight right from LAX or SFO.

To get back to the States, we used 40k United miles + $85 each to return with upgraded Economy Plus seats that cost another $300 each. We had front-row seats, which made flying Economy Plus much more bearable.

 

Accomodations

For our accommodations, we used Chase Ultimate Rewards® and transferred them to Hyatt to book three nights right on the Grand Canal in Venice at Palazzo Sant’Angelo (a Small Luxury Hotel).  Sadly, the SLH brand is no longer partnered with Hyatt.

We also used Hyatt points to book three nights at the Park Hyatt Milan, right next to the Mall and Duomo. For the rest of our accommodations, we used Booking.com and paid with our Capital One cards so we could erase those expenses with points. Over the 24 total nights of accommodations, we spent a total of $1,950, averaging $81/night.

We stayed at some pretty nice places: Hotel Monte Cenci in Rome, Palazzo Ravizza in Sienna,  Firenze Suites in Florence, a beachfront property in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre, and an Airbnb in Sorrento.

 

 

Other Credit Card Perks Used

We booked most of our train connections in advance with our Capital One cards, which boosted our points and let us cancel accommodation expenses. We used the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to book our four-day one-way car rental from Florence through Tuscany, returning it in Pisa. We also used our Capital One cards for shopping, dining, and tourist attraction tickets, to then be able to erase other travel expenses.

 

Bottom Line

We had been using various airline points for flights for years before this, mainly to see kids or go to Hawaii, but we had never planned such a huge trip or used points for accommodations until we learned about all the possibilities from Points Talk Squad! Between the two of us, we accumulated points for about a year to make this all happen. There is no way we could have afforded this trip if we had paid in cash. Thank goodness for credit card points!

Thanks for your trip report, Kristi. Kristi and her husband, Dennis, are good friends of mine from when we lived in California. It is so fun to see friends excel in this hobby!

 

Related Posts

Reader Success Story: Ten Days in Italy

Reader Success Story: One Month in Italy

Reader Success Story to Budapest

Reader Success Story to Poland on Miles and Points