San Sebastián, Spain (photo credit)
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Oops, I did it again.
For the 3rd year in a row we are headed to Europe and the United States for the summer.
For the 3rd year in a row, we will be circumnavigating the globe.
And for the 3rd year in a row, a substantial portion of our transportation costs will be zero.
Another Round-the-world Trip
What can I say, we like Europe in the summer. Conveniently that aligns with Jr’s summer holiday and when the temperatures in Taiwan start to exceed the melting point of human flesh.
This year we plan to start by visiting friends in London, sample the world famous pintxos in San Sebastián, Spain, swim along the Costa Brava, and then meander through Poland, the Baltic states, and Scandinavia. If fortune wills it, we may also take the ferry to St. Petersburg, Russia.
After spending 4 months in Europe that past 2 years, this year’s 7 weeks feels much too short. The struggle is real. That’s how life works now that we are following the school calendar.
Europe 2018
It was interesting (to me) to see how Europe 2018 overlaps with Europe 2017 and Europe 2016. We will be adding 7 (or 8) (or 9) new countries to our running total, while also returning to a couple favorites. (Maps made with Travellers point.)
Europe 2016, 2017, & 2018
On the other side of the pond, we will be visiting family around Minneapolis (camping Up North) and visiting friends in Seattle. Perhaps a meet up is also in order?
“Free” Flights
Our flights from Taipei to London, Oslo to Minneapolis, and Seattle to Taipei had a sticker price of over $7,000.
I paid $221.95. This includes “checked bag fees” for the whole trip, since we travel with a full assortment of stuff.
Europe
First up, we had to get to Europe. Due to planning a little later this year, there was no convenient Business class award availability unless we wanted to travel for 36+ hours with multiple connections. No thanks, direct will be just fine. That’s a bit of a bummer because I’ve always enjoyed British Airways’ Business class product.
Direct flights to London from Hong Kong in Economy cost $1,084. A flight from Taipei to Hong Kong cost an additional $136. (We already have HK lunch plans with friends.)
Or, using Avios Points those same flights are 19,500 and 4,500 points, respectively, with combined tax of $68. That is a valuation of ~5.4¢ and ~2.5¢, both quite respectable. We generated those Avios Points by transferring from our Chase Ultimate Rewards account. It’s a good thing I booked these flights this week, as there are no more BA direct fights for our dates, now requiring connection in Helsinki or Dublin.
Alternatively I could have purchased flights from Taipei with connections (16 hours in Guangzhou?) starting at $500 or direct flights from Taipei to London for ~$900. You have to pay me more than $400 to spend 16 hours in Guangzhou.
Europe to US
I was hoping to write about the super sweet Business class seats I booked from Oslo to Minneapolis, but they “sold out” the day before I could book them. And generally speaking, I’ve not found great valuations for booking economy class tickets from Europe to the US, often with fuel surcharges.
For example, I could spend 45k miles + $197 for these nice flights on Icelandair. And how about those checked bag fees? $95 + tax.
Those same flights are available for $577 on Icelandair.com, which values those points at 0.8¢. Plus bag fees. Pass.
Or… what’s this? On the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal I could buy that same flight for $552, with a free checked bag. Which is what I did.
Icelandair flights from OSL to MSP
This is the first time I’ve seen the Chase portal with lower prices than the airline, but I’ll take it. This yields a 1.5¢/point valuation since we hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. (See my review here.) However, this is 25,000 fewer points than if I transferred them and booked an award ticket.
I could argue that we fared better than 1.5¢/point since the airfare was ~10% lower and we saved the baggage fees, but I won’t since we could have purchased at these rates with no points.
US to Asia
Getting back across the Pacific, there are usually good award options for 35k miles in economy or 80k in business. Unfortunately I wasn’t getting any good options for flights without connections from Seattle to Taipei.
I could pay 35k points for flights with 4 – 6 hour connections in San Francisco, or pay cash for direct flights. Again the Chase travel portal cost about 10% less than what I was getting quoted from the airline, so once again I traded Ultimate Rewards points for flights at1.5¢/point.
This was effectively 7% more expensive than booking as an award ticket on United, but I’ll pay 7% more for a direct flight every time.
Round-the-world summary
When I add all of that up, total fares for the flights we booked comes to a bit more than $7k. Our out of pocket expenses total $221.95.
In total we spent 300,861 Ultimate Rewards Points, for an effective redemption of ~2.3¢/point.
I’ll take it.
How we got so many Ultimate Rewards Points
Where did the 300,000 Ultimate Rewards Points come from? A combination of Credit Card Signup Bonuses and heavy optimization of reward category bonuses.
The fastest way to earn a ton of points is almost always signing up for a new credit card. We earned signup bonuses from the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom, and Chase Freedom Unlimited cards.
Based on current offerings, you can earn 60,000 Ultimate Rewards Points with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. To see these and other reward card options, click here.
Each card has unique earning categories. The Chase Sapphire Reserve earns 3 pts/$ on travel and dining. The Chase Freedom card earns 5 pts/$ on revolving categories. The Chase Freedom Unlimited earns 1.5 pt/$ on everything. By putting all travel & dining on one card, all groceries on another, and everything else on the 3rd we can maximize total points.
To see these and other reward card options, click here.
Thoughts on Redemption Valuation
Our effective redemption value for this trip was ~2.3 ¢/point, but a good portion was redeemed at only 1.5¢/point. Previously I even got 20¢/point redemptions. Obviously we can do better.
Typically I strive to maximize redemption values. It’s fun and rewarding. But… we have been earning points faster than we have been spending them.
I could have paid cash for several legs of this trip, earning even more points, with the expectation that we would get better redemptions in the future.
Or… I can not spend thousands of dollars and just get more points.
Common Questions
Doesn’t this hurt your credit score? No, it makes it better (and credit scores are dumb anyway.)
What about the interest on credit cards? Pay in full every month. We’ve never paid a penny of credit card interest afair.
What about annual fees? Calculate the ROI – I’ll happily pay $100 in fees to get $1000 in flights. More of that, please.
Isn’t it hard to meet the minimum spend? Just use the cards for your normal everyday spending. Plan ahead. Ideas here.
Do you really earn points on everything you buy? Yes – We even earn points paying taxes.
Summary
We are looking forward to our 3rd year in a row of following the good weather through Europe and the US. The Baltics States and Scandinavia have long been on our list. Friends and family get togethers along the way are sure to make it extra special.
I’m certainly looking forward to the Spanish cuisine and beaches, visiting a bunch of new (to us) countries, and enjoying the Great Outdoors in my home State.
As a bonus, our flights are once again basically free. I love credit cards.
Have you used credit card rewards to fund your own travels?
A big reason the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is one of our favorites is you can combine points with other Chase cash back cards like Chase Freedom and Chase Freedom Unlimited under the Chase Ultimate Rewards Program.
Chase Freedom allows you to earn 5% cash back in categories that change quarterly, and the Freedom Unlimited earns a flat 1.5% on all spend) Using the right card for different types of spend means you earn free travel even faster! And they also have their own signup bonuses!
Compare both of these Chase Cash Back cards against other cash back cards HERE.
Editorial Note – Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
How do you use the Chase freedom abroad with no transaction fee?
I use it only when purchasing stuff in the US or from a US source.
So does that mean you primarily use the Sapphire Reserve for your Taiwan purchases? Or have you got a TW specific card?
We use the CSR for dining/travel wherever we are, including Taiwan, and use other cards on other categories. Most recently that other card was a new gold biz Amex to meet minimum spend requirement. Sometimes it is SPG biz card.
Great job again. Mrs. RB40 just applied to the Chase business card last week. Now, we need to spend $5,000 so we can get the 80,000 bonus. Should be pretty easy because we have to pay the IRS this year. I hope to get to your level at some point.
That’s probably my next card too.
I love paying taxes with new cards, it’s a sweet way to get a ton of points fast. Here is one example.
Just an FYI, if you apply in branch and get approved, they increase the bonus to 100k UP points.
Nice work travel hacking! We’re actually going to similar countries (back to Poland soon and eastern Europe in the summer). Maybe we’ll see you there in Aug, or if not, in Taiwan to escape the cold :) Happy travels!
We’ll be in the US for most of August, but you guys are welcome in Taiwan anytime. This will be our first time in Poland – looking forward to it!
Hey! I saw you featured in a segment on early retirement that aired on a local Boston TV station over the weekend.
Yeah, we were on ABC News this weekend (8 million viewers, I think!) Crazy!
You are lucky that US has so many more rewards credit cards to choose from. We are a bit limited up here.
Got rates love using points to travel. When are you guys in Seattle?
IKR? I thought I was doing well getting my flights at half price – and that consumed all the points of a years worth of spending. I wish local cards had the same rewards options as US ones.
If there’s any meetup scheduled in Seattle, plz plz let me know!!
Not yet, still figuring it out. Stay tuned!
We will be there the last week of August. Might try for a meet up that Tuesday, August 28th. TBD.
What do Canadians or yourself do for travel hacking? – Michael CPO – Christian Professionals Overseas
Dude, nice score! That’s one heck of a ur stash you got going :)
When I graduated middle school, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents in Poland for a summer. My grandmother took my brother and I on a church tour of Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia. Imagine taking a bus around to look at churches with a group of Polish grannies shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed. I remember the bus driver saying the most expensive hotel in Lithuania was $10/night, we drove right by it to some crumbling building. Our hotel rooms were without working electricity and toilets were communal and without tp…. Street kids outside the hotel in Belarus were trying to jump people for change, hanging off of cars and getting run over… Today I realize we were spoiled just by virtue of having lived in the US. I have a feeling things are going to be a lot better now 20 some years later.
Say hi to my peeps :)
I think that is the hotel we are staying in
Those new cards usually waive the annual fee in the first year. What do you do in Year 2? Do you cancel the card or pay the fee? If you cancel, are you able to still keep the sign-up points?
I calculate the ROI. I’ll happily pay $100 in fees to get $1000 in airfare. Some cards we keep, some we replace with a new one. Yes, the sign-up points are yours if you move on in year 2.
Mike – If it’s a card you actually use you can call up and indicate that your considering cancelling. Often they will give you an incentive to stay another year. I just called on by SPG card. They offered 7,000 miles if I stay and spend $1000 within the next 3 months. So it’s worth it to me to pay $95, keep the card and get 7,000 points.
‘temperatures in Taiwan start to exceed the melting point of human flesh’ – I love this. This is why my wife isn’t interested in living in Taiwan. I only got to experience this last time when we were in Taiwan into May last time around… it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. We spent so much time in shopping malls just escaping the heat :P
Sometimes in summer walking outside feels like swimming in a bowl of soup. A/C is mandatory.
Love it! You could always homeschool GCC Jr. and stop worrying about the school calendar altogether – that’s what we do ;) We’re looking at a Spain/Portugal trip soon as the idea of expat’ing (is that a verb?) there is looking like a possibility… I’ll look forward to your trip reports!
It’s a verb now!
We still toss around the idea of home schooling, particularly for the early elementary school years. He really likes playing with a big group of kids everyday now though.
We love the freedom that homeschooling gives us, and look forward to traveling more. But yes – there’s definitely a benefit to having a “tribe” as well. Still trying to figure out that balance!
About homeschooling. My wife Yeh Liping had done her second degree while we sailed across the Pacific on our trusty trimaran DHARMA BUM II with the University of London, Birkbeck College. The whole thing went amazingly well. So, when our daughter Aurora Ulani was born, I did some extensive research on home-schooling worldwide. There wasn’t only the syllabus, the quality of the material and the cost to consider. Many of the programs assume that you have regular access to the Internet and were therefore ruled out. Others expected you to mail in and/or pick up stuff every month or even every week. Those wouldn’t work for us. In the end, only two programs were of interest to us. The first one was CNED, the National Centre for Distance Education in France. The other one was Calvert School Homeschooling from Maryland. I thought it a bit daunting to teach our daughter all alone in a foreign language and so we opted for Calvert.
We have rarely made a better decision. Every year a big box would arrive, which contained everything you need. The costs were more than reasonable. We only went for the basics and corrected everything with the answer keys by ourselves. I had been in teaching children for more than 20 years and was absolutely amazed about the course. Everything is interrelated and the teachers manuals were the best we had ever come across. We taught our daughter from pre-kindergarten when she was 3 years and 8 months old. In the first year or so, we taught much faster than originally designed, but we had Calvert’s blessing for that. Aurora Ulani was so pleased with everything, that she was quite upset when we weren’t able to teach her some of the days. Later on we normalized the speed to what Calvert recommended. We taught seven days a week and we never took any vacations. Those came of their own accord, when we had to provision the boat, fix something, see immigration or when we went one one of our numerous excursions or met friends on other boats or on land.
We stopped doing only Calvert when Aurora Ulani was 10 years old, we had completed the circumnavigation and we moved back ashore. My parents were getting quite old and I had been gone for 31 years. Our daughter seamlessly fitted into the German school and soon was one of the best. She was years ahead of her classmates here in Germany and she is still one of the best students in her class now. I highly recommend checking it out!
Ah, us too! We have our Spain/Portugal trip planned for August (also booked round-trip for 3 with AA miles and $162 in fees). We’ll tramp around the area for almost 4 weeks before returning after Labor Day. I’m so looking forward to this trip as I’ve heard awesome things about the Iberian peninsula. Homeschooling our soon-to-be 10th grader so we’re with you!
Very cool! We are pretty new to the travel hacking game, but we should have plenty of UR points with our new Chase Sapphire and Ink cards to get a sweet deal of some sort – I played just a little bit with numbers and we should be able to do RT for all 4 of us – just need to figure out the best deal now ;)
Kate,
Homeschooling is illegal in Spain. Just something to keep in mind if you’re considering living there full time. You could get away with it for a year, but visa renewal requires a letter from your child’s school.
We just finished a week in Amsterdam after redeeming 330k Marriott points (2 SPG bonuses + 1 Marriott bonus) for a flight + hotel package (7-night stay + 120k miles). Quite a deal. The Netherlands are a fantastic place for bike touring with a kid in tow (or in front, rather). And, if you haven’t biked in Amsterdam like a local, it should seriously be on your life list. Happy travels!
Very nice!
Pretty impressive! Travel hacking is not something I know much about yet. I’ve filed it away as something I want to learn about in the future. Most of our trips right now are road trips. I’m excited to get our Westy out on the road for the season! Your country list for the summer sounds amazing.
Sounds like a great summer! Do you stay in hotels at all? (cuz free hotel nights…)
Not a whole lot right now. We’ve been more into van camping lately! But I want to revisit this post in the future when we take the tiny one on a farther flying trip with us (especially now that she’s no longer a lap baby and we have to pay for her!)
So at only 2.3¢ per point, you’re probably not too much better than the Fidelity 2% cash back card, right? Of course, there are other perks (free checked bags, etc) that add to the appeal of travel cards.
Nevermind; wasn’t thinking about this right. The 2.3cents is value of points, not % of spend. So, you are waaaaay better off with the point rewards cards. The Fidelity card would take something like $350k of spend ($7000 / 2%) to get the same value!
We earned 1.5 – 5 pts/$ on the spend side, so 2.3¢/pt is between 3.5% and 11.5% back. Better than 2%, yeah?
Can you just, like, adopt me or something?!? ;-)
This is such a great strategy. The only problem I’ve run into is Chase’s 5/24 rule. I went hog wild on new Amex and other cards so I’m in a holding pattern with Chase for about another year and a half.
Let us know when you’re in Minneapolis – would be great to meet up.
This is where a good husband/wife team approach works wonders. Winnie got the CSR whereas I couldn’t due to 5/24, for example.
I’ll look at an MSP meetup.
They are tightening up even more on this rule. I just tried to get the CSR and received a notice that I was denied because I have had ONE Chase Sapphire (preferred or reserve) sign on bonus within the past 24 months.
But it was an easy work around. My wife got one instead :)
Nice job (again) on traveling the world on credit card points. It’s incredible that you seem to do this continually without hitting churn rules like Chase’s 5/24 rule!
Impressive!
just out of curiosity, if GCC hasn’t hit 5/24 for Chase, is there any particular reasons why not consider Ink Business Preferred?
No particular reason, no. As I said to Retire by 40 / Joe above, that is probably my next card.
I’m over 5/24. Or was all of last year. I should be good to go again now
Am I the only one that isn’t impressed? I think credit cards are morally questionable at best. You do realize that everything you buy would be 2 or 3% cheaper if credit card companies didn’t exist? Really if you’re smart you might break even with the credit card companies. So maybe you should all join me in my futile boycott of credit card companies. The world would be a better place overall if these companies would go out of business. Think about it.
“You do realize….”
No, I don’t. This is an overly simplistic perspective. Credit cards systemically increase some costs and reduce others.
There is actually a high cost to using cash for merchants/banks/consumers, which is due to loss/damage of currency/exchange fees/storage costs/etc. Banks are paid a kickback from V, MA, AXP for interchange fees, and the card networks receive a swipe fee from the merchant. The merchant gets the advantage of banking without cash, utilizing 30 day credit for expenses but collecting revenue immediately. It can create a situation where customers are financing the business through negative working capital. It’s really a win/win/win for all stakeholders.
Will you keep the credit card for next few years or you cancel the card after signing up and used points? If you keep it you need to pay annul fee every year for each card.
https://www.gocurrycracker.com/credit-card-annual-fee-debate/
Hey GCC,
Enjoyed the article, I’m also doing a RTW trip this year with my wife but unfortunately we have to do it in half the amount of time that you do! And yes the vast majority of it is covered by miles and points. And I, like you, no longer worry about the cpm ratio, some trips you do well with and some you don’t, There are so many ways to earn miles that it is not worth sweating about the cpm ( in the past I would get upset if I didn’t didn’t get a certain ratio when actually I should have been happy about the free travel!!).
We will end up spending somewhere between 1.6-1.7mm and points for the flights and hotels along with a cash layout of $1740 ($580 for taxes and fees and $1160 for a seaplane transfer). Way more than what we usually spend but this is a very special trip that will net me somewhere between 50-60k in free travel and really anyone can do it!
Didn’t want to bore you with the breakdowns in what miles and points along with the cost of the flights and hotels but if you want a breakdown I’ll be more than happy to give you one. And no, neither my wife or I travel for work, this was all strictly due CC bonuses, reward category maximization and manufactured spending.
Looks like a nice summer! (even though it is shortened) Still 7 weeks isn’t too bad of a chunk of time. Hope you can get in to see St. Petersburg!
Me too, I’ve always wanted to go. Gotta get in there before the Mother-of-all-Sanctions get imposed…
7 weeks in Europe and 4 in the US, so still a healthy amount of travel, but it feels like so little while planning compared to past few years.
Hi, are you collecting the miles/avios/points for your little one? How? I had different flights with him but I am not sure how to do it. Thank you. Enjoy your trips
Works just like with adults. If you buy a ticket you get points. Some airline programs now also have group/family options.
I have 220K Chase points and want to get 4 people from [Japan or Korea] to [SEA or SFO or LAX or NYC] sometime in July 2018.
How do you find these cheap business class tickets?
For example on United.com, Business flights from Japan to LAX in July cost 175K points per ticket.
Asiana and Korean air business class starts at $2000/ticket…
John,
Unfortunately, you do not have enough points to do business class for 4 people even if you transfer them to another airline besides United which have lower redemption rates, your best bet is to look for economy award flights.
None of our flights are biz class this year.
Nice job on working the credit card points. Incredibly impressive!
I think saying you only spent ~$200 is a little misleading. That 300,000 UR is a currency that can be directly exchanged for $3000 cash. The way you used the currency saved you $3900 that you might have spent anyway. So, good job! You got the flights for less than half price. But those flights still cost you over $3000. You just earned that $3000 differently than you earned the money that pays most of your other expenses.
Always good to see a different perspective, thanks.
Very cool trip! How will you bounce around Europe – train, bus, flights? We have our trips to/from Europe in the bag with AA miles but between stops there are a lot of options to explore for travel.
some of each – planes, trains, buses, rental car, ferry. British Airways has distance based redemptions, so can be just 4k Avios 1-way. The discount airlines are also pretty good (Ryanair, Easyjet, Norwegian, Wizz, etc…)
nice timing! Chase funded our trip to Japan (which we’re about to go on tomorrow). I signed up for Chase Reserve and that paid for our flights. The $300 travel credit covered most of our airbnb stay. In term of evaluation I probably didn’t get the best bang for my points but given our vacation time restrictions it was alright. Either way, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out :)
The other nice thing about using UR points through the Chase travel portal is that you’ll each earn airline miles on the trips since they are revenue flights as far as the airlines are concerned.
I have the city bank card with 2% back. Every 1000 I spent I get $20 back. Is there any credit cards that gives more value and flexibility after the initial bonus points.
Sure. The Chase Sapphire Reserve earns 3 pts/$ on travel and dining. I cashed those out at 1.5¢/pt, which equates to 4.5% back. The Chase Freedom earns 5 pts/$ on categories that change each quarter. At the same 1.5¢/pt, that is 7.5% back. 2% is the bare minimum.
We are going to be in Stockholm, Oslo and Bergen late June and early July. Would love to meet for a coffee or picnic if you are there then as well.
We’ll miss you by a couple weeks. Have a great trip!
Using the chase travel portal also has the benefit of being able to earn more points along the way, since they are revenue flights. It’s a good strategy to continue/attain status using this maneuver, since status can save big money on baggage/upgrades/bonus miles. Iceland air and British Airways are Alaska partners, so using the portal to book flights with them nets you the 7.5% return on spend/redemption, as well as an additional 1-2.25 Alaska miles earned (depending on MVP status). United flights can offer status matching to get bonus miles there as well. If you are an Alaska MVP, you’ll get 1.5 miles per mile flown on partner flights, which means Olso to MSP nets you 6,000 AS miles which are worth over $100.
One of the best explanations I’ve seen on travel hacking – thank you! Question – do you ever close the credit card opened specifically for the sign-up bonus? And, if so, when do you close it?
I almost always keep every card for a full year, and then calculate the ROI to decide what to do next.
The way you & Winnie saved the money on credit cards points are amazing. But have you had any problem in applying credit cards without an employment income? In Canada, the banks like to see NOA more than deposits in accounts.
No, it hasn’t been a problem. I just put the income from our tax return on the applications.
What do the numbers on the map mean? Also, how do you decide to go to the lesser popular countries in the EU?
I don’t recall… something Travelers Point put in there. They’ve updated their maps and look way nicer now without the numbers.