My Family got FREE Flights to 3 Countries in Europe

My family got FREE flights (we just paid taxes) to 3 countries in Europe.  We have been working on building our points for a special family trip and I got the three of us here on points.   How did we do it?

First, I compared how many points we had with each credit card company – Chase, Amex, etc.  Then I compared each airline loyalty program to see where we had the most points.  I found that I had at least 60,000 United Airlines points mostly from using United Shopping (one of my favorites).  I almost never buy anything in person and try to wait for the big bonuses like 10-15 points/dollar.

Then I asked my husband to see where he had the most points and it was Chase.  My husband has a couple of Chase cards and because I am an authorized user we basically have a joint account.  That means we can transfer any points to airline loyalty programs for either one of us.  Bingo!

I actually called Chase myself and they recognized me as a cardholder (even though it’s actually his account) and I requested to transfer 120,000 points to MY United Airlines Mileage Plus account.  Within a couple of days it was there – 180,000 miles, enough for 3 round trip tickets to Europe.  The best part is that United allows a FREE stopover so I called an agent and asked where we could stop for free on the way to Lisbon.  My stopover choice was London.  I like using an agent because I can ask for various scenarios to see which are allowed, much more easily than doing it myself.  It’s just a personal choice.

Next I informed the agent that I wanted an open jaw ticket which is also allowed on United award travel!  That means you can fly into one city and out of another.  So I booked Dulles (IAD) – Heathrow (LHR) – Lisbon (LIS) – Barcelona (BCN) – Dulles (IAD) on one award ticket for 180,000 United Points and $264.38 in taxes.  Not bad!

We are currently finishing up the last part of our trip and I just received 10,200 points with a purchase on United Mileage Plus Shopping.  I needed some shoes and I got 15x points plus 500 bonus points.  I am well on my way to another free trip somewhere – are you?