How We Made Our Europe Trip Affordable -- Hotels

Hey ya'll! The Dr. returns to give another update about using miles and points for our trip to Europe. Spoiler alert: we stayed in some dreamy places!

Hey I’m back again to write a little more about our trip to Europe. If you didn't catch my first post about How We Made Our Europe Trip Affordable -- Flights you should check it out.

During our trip we were in Europe for 14 nights and we stayed in some amazing places!

Let’s get to the trip! To be equitable, we split the trip in half. Sarah planned the locations of the first week of the trip and I planned the second. This was Sarah’s first trip to explore Europe. She served as a missionary for our church in Southern England but didn't get to see much of London itself. Sarah was so excited and wanted to see Paris, London, and visit some friends from her mission in Western England. I wanted to relax in Nice and also check out Barcelona.

Here’s a little chart showing our location and how many nights we needed in each location.

Location	Nights in that Location	Hotel Nights Needed
Paris, France	2	2
London, UK	2	2
Western England	3	0
Nice, France	5	5
Barcelona, Spain	2	2

Starting from nothing, we needed to get 11 nights at hotels. It seems impossible but, you know what? We did it! And basically for free!

View from our room at Park Hyatt Paris Vendome

After studying several of my favorite travel blogs (Million Mile Secrets is a favorite), I discovered that credit card sign-up bonuses offer probably the greatest value for getting free travel. After understanding how my credit score works, I decided to take this approach to get free stays for this trip.  (Follow-up: Both Sarah’s and my credit score are now much higher than it was last year before applying let me know if you are interested in me writing a post about how your credit score works)

For the hotel stays for this trip, we signed up for a total of 4 credit cards. All four of the cards have an annual fee, however the fee is waived for 3 of the 4 cards in the first year. Here is a list of the cards and their sign-up bonus at the time:

1. Chase Hyatt Visa- in Sarah's name: 2 free nights at any Hyatt hotel (+2,000 Hyatt points after minimum spending requirement)
2. Chase Hyatt Visa- in my name: 2 free nights at any Hyatt hotel (+2,000 Hyatt points after minimum spending requirement)
3. USBank Club Carlson Visa: 85,000 Club Carlson Points & 2^nd Night Free points stays (+15,000 Club Carlson Points after minimum spending requirement.
4. Starwood Preferred Guest American Express: 30,000 Points (+5,000 SPG points after minimum spending requirement)

Every Point Currency has a different value and redemption rate at different hotels. This is how I redeemed the points I got from the credit cards we opened. I also used 16,000 additional Chase Ultimate Rewards points converted to Hyatt points for this trip.

Location	Hotel Brand	Hotel Name	Nights	Points Cost	Cash Price
Paris, France	Hyatt	Park Hyatt Paris Vendome	2	2 Free Nights	$2,584
London, UK	Carlson	Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer St	2	50,000 Club Carlson Points	$910
Nice, France	Carlson	Radisson Blu Nice Cote d’Azur	2	50,000 Club Carlson Points	$1,380
Nice, France	Hyatt	Hyatt Nice Palais de la Mediterranee	2	2 Free Nights	$1,112
Nice, France	Hyatt	Hyatt Nice Palais de la Mediterranee	1	20,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points	$556
Barcelona, Spain	Starwood	Four Points Barcelona Diagonal	2	14,000 SPG Starpoints	$530
		Totals	11		$7,072

I got about $7,000 of value out of the 4 card sign-ups and I had 16,000 SPG points leftover. Note: We did pay about $100 over the 11 nights for room taxes and upgrades.

Common-Sense Check: I would never pay cash to stay at a place that is $1300 per night. So, I looked up hotel costs and by choosing the cheapest economy hotels available I could have done the trip for a little over $2,000 + tax in hotels. With points we were able to stay in some of the nicest & newest places in Paris, London, Nice, and Barcelona rather than the cheapest. And we always felt safe and comfortable which definitely has it's own value. I estimate the true value we would have spent on hotels this trip would be somewhere in between $2k to $7k.

Here are some highlights from the hotels we stayed at:

Our Room at Park Hyatt Paris Vendome

The posh bathroom at Park Hyatt Paris Vendome

Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer St at the Seven Dials in Covent Garden

View from our room at Radisson Blu Nice Cote d'Azur

Radisson Blu Nice also had a cool Rooftop Pool! And we had Super Expensive Virgin Pina Coladas

Hyatt Nice Palais de la Mediterranee during the Day

Hyatt Nice Palais de la Mediterranee at Night
The breathtaking Cote d'Azur is directly behind you as you look at the hotel

View of Sagrada Familia at Four Points Barcelona Diagonal

Bidet first-timer! It was pretty nice. 

Sarah at Parc Guell in Barcelona

Our three nights in Western England: If you know someone in a place you plan to visit, consider asking to stay with them if it’s not too much trouble. Sarah had some amazing friends from her mission to England. They were so friendly and generous with their space for 3 of our nights in Europe. We stayed with the Taylors in Torquay and with the Smuteks in Melksham. The Smuteks even let us do a load of laundry at their place which allowed us to pack very light- each of us took just one carry on bag for the whole two-week trip.

I hope we were good houseguests to them. We love having friends stay with us, so hopefully we can return the favor to these folks someday.

If you have any questions about the process of opening credit cards or it's effects on your credit score, booking hotels with points or anything else please leave a comment!

I have to say that when the Dr. first came to me with the idea to do a trip to Europe and not really pay for it I was very skeptical. After staying at some of the most posh hotels I have ever seen I am a huge believer! It does take time and research to make it happen but this trip was a dream come true thanks to the Dr.'s willingness to put in that hard work.

Ward Christmas Party

Somehow I got roped into throwing our ward's Christmas party this year. I love throwing a good party but I'm not going to lie, this one stressed me out a little. It took me a few weeks to actually sit down and start making lists and plans, it just seemed like such a giant monster to tackle.

Once I had a few (hundred) lists made I began taking bites out of the monster one at a time and things started happening. I spent a whole week cutting one hundred paper trees, another couple weeks arranging the musical program a whole Saturday measuring the gym, digging through the decorations under the stage and pricing food at Costco. It was a lot of work but what can I say, I like throwing a good party.

Friday night Thomas assembled a great crew to help set up. I was so impressed at how quickly it came together! The gals who hung all the paper trees and snowflakes made it look absolutely perfect! I hardly had anything left to do on Saturday. 

We had a carol service with a combination of congregational hymns and performances by some of our amazingly talented members. The event was Christmas Morning themed so we had breakfast for dinner and a hot chocolate bar. We asked the ward members to find some way of serving the community in preparation for the event and submit pictures for a little slideshow. It was so great to see the things people did to serve as the Savior did.

^^ The calm before the storm^^

There is something so satisfying about watching something you've planned come together. For a few moments I stood in the middle of the chaos with empty casserole dishes in my hands and felt so glad that things were going just as they should. Everyone loved the food (thanks to all those who brought things), they were laughing and smiling, the kids had a blast playing with the curtains on the stage. It was truly a success.

This sweet lady worked the hot chocolate bar all night. Bless her heart it was no easy feat, there was a constant stream of people piling on the toppings there.

^^ This is how I usually find Thomas at parties, he really is the life of it ^^

^^ And this is just the cutest baby I have ever seen ^^

Santa made an appearance at the very end of the party with a whole crew of his elves. They even performed a little dance before they left. It was priceless!

I have to give a huge shout out to all those who helped put this together. Thanks to those who made yummy breakfast casseroles, the set-up crew, those that sang and played instruments for the carol service and especially Thomas for putting up with piles of Christmas decor sitting around our house for the last two months and for following me around endless stores while I pick out juuuuust the right style of wrapping paper, chocolate chips etc.

Oh, Christmas Tree

Pretty much the instant we returned from New York after Thanksgiving Thomas and his dad went out to get a Christmas tree. While they were out I dug through the closet and pulled out our boxes of Christmas decorations. We have a lot of Christmas decor. Like, a lot a lot.

Most of our tree ornaments are from places we've visited. I love pulling them out and remembering our adventures. We seem to add a few new ones every year and in 2014 we added Paris, Maine and Hawaii.

From our trip to Paris this year

From Sea World on our first anniversary

Acadia National Park in Maine

Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco

Empire State Building from our first trip to NYC together in 2013

One of a set of nutcracker ornaments Thomas gave me our first Christmas together just before we got married

My Baby's First Christmas Ornament from 1986

I love the way the tree turned out this year. We left the silver tinsel off in favor of some burlap this year and maybe next year we'll put colored lights on. Living on the edge.

I have a huge collection of nutcrackers that I started when I was about 5 or 6. I get one every year for christmas so when I pull them out in December they cover every inch of the house. Each one is different, I even have a Spongebob Squarepants nutcracker.

I love the Christmas season, I love the decorations, the food and most of all the reason- our Savior Jesus Christ. It really is the most wonderful time of the year!