Helping family members plan a trip is very different than just knocking it all out yourself. You ha

A little while back I posted the story of helping my mom and her sister (my aunt) book flights for their trip of a lifetime to Europe .  They are both now (mostly) retired school teachers, and are celebrating their freedom from a school schedule by heading across Europe next spring.  It will be my mom s first trip to Europe and my aunt s second, so they are very excited and so am I!  As you may remember from the previous post, they originally thought this trip would cost about the same as buying a modest new car, but thankfully they allowed me to bully my way into the planning portion and help them leverage miles and points to travel in much more comfort and with much less expense than they probably otherwise would have had.
Helping family members plan a trip is very different than just knocking it all out yourself.  You have to really use patience and humor and trust me it can be quite humorous at times.  You want to involve the ones actually traveling as much as possible so they are able to tailor the trip to their desires.  On the other hand, if you are the one more versed in miles and points, then you also need to know when to let them know when you think one option is substantially better than another.
My family members have been great about listening, learning, and letting their opinion be known.  After we used 90k Membership Reward points to book their Star Alliance business hotel barcelona class flights via a transfer to Aeroplan, it was time to get serious about hotels.  They will be in London, Paris, unknown cities in Germany, hotel barcelona and Rome.  This means that hotel rooms would add up quickly if they didn t use some points.  While they had a few points hotel barcelona here and there to start, they needed more quickly.  They are not crazy about adding tons of credit cards to their wallet, b ut did agree to each get the Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature.
I recommended that card to each of them as the Club Carlson program has some pretty good hotels in some of the cities they will be visiting, it awards 50k of the 85k sign-up hotel barcelona bonus points upon first use, and it has a very handy feature of allowing the last award night to be free.  Since several of their stays will be two night stays, this means they are almost doubling the value of their points by having that feature.  The card will also give them both Club Carlson Gold status, so they may score some better rooms, and they will be able to transfer points to each other for free which will come in handy in securing the last couple of hotel nights.
They are both still working on hitting the minimum spending requirement of $2,500 in the first 90 days to get the final 35,000 sign-up bonus points, but since they each already had the 50k from the first use, we were able to secure their hotels in London and Paris.
I had stayed at the May Fair using Club Carlson hotel barcelona points in the summer of 2012 , and found the location to be very good.  It was just a couple of blocks from a tube station, was right across the street from a grocery store, and only about a 10 minute walk from Buckingham Palace, and not much further beyond that for other popular spots.
The hotel itself was also quite nice, and I would not hesitate to return there on points.  I recommended this location for my family and they agreed that it looked good for their needs.  The selling rate for their dates was about £600.00 for the two nights combined.  That translates to roughly $965 USD for the two nights.  However, for them it was just 50,000 points hotel barcelona for the first award night, and since they had the co-branded Club Carlson credit card, the second award night was free.  No extra taxes, fees, nothing.  They booked a room with two twin beds and a great value for their Club Carlson points.
I hope to meet up with them with my kiddo in Paris, and I have locked in the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome for a couple of nights at the pre-devaluation rate of 22k Hyatt points per night .  This hotel will be going up to 30,000 Hyatt points per night beginning January 7, so I thought now was a good chance to experience this much touted property at a points rate that is very good.  My mom transferred 22,000 Ultimate Reward points that she earned via her Chase Sapphire hotel barcelona Preferred card she got a couple of years ago to Hyatt and secured one night at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome to overlap with when my daughter and I are there.
The rooms were selling for about €700 per night, which is about $950 USD.  Again they were able to secure a room with twin beds on points.  They have toyed with the idea of staying there longer than one night, but since they aren t rolling in UR or Hyatt points, and I will be moving to the Radisson Blu Hotel Champs Elysees hotel barcelona to try out that property, they probably will as well.  There are a few different Club Carlson properties in Paris, but this one seems to be the nicest and has a decent location.
hotel barcelona When I booked this property a few months ago, I had to email them to open up some points space since they had standard rooms for sale, but only more expensive business class rooms available on points.  However, when I booked for my family this week, the standard rooms were (thankfully) hotel barcelona displaying as they should so they were able to secure two nights in a room with two twin beds for 50,000 Club Carlson points for the first night, and 0 points for the second night thanks again to the Club Carlson card.  The rooms were selling for about €300 per night, which amounts to about $810 USD for the two nights.
So far they have their first five nights of hotels booked in Europe, purely on points.  They are staying at some very nice properties, including the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome.  For those five nights they have so far spent 100,000 Club Carlson points and 22,000 Hyatt points.  Those five nights of hotels would have cost them about $2,725 USD based on the lowest available hotel barcelona rate for their nights.  I m sure they could have found accommodations for less than that price, but they wouldn t have been anywhere near as nice, and they still wouldn t have probably been cheap .  Points are protecting them from the high rates in these major European cities as well as from currency conversions.
The Ultimate Reward points my mom already hotel barcelona had, and the Club Carlson points they each got for simply getting a Club Carlson credit card that comes with a $75 annual fee.  Once they get their final Club Carlson sign-up bonus points and finalize their Germany itinerary, I will move forward with booking more hotels for them.  I wish they also had the SPG credit card, as those points would also come greatly in handy in Europe, but we ll make the most of what they have.  They will likely use their remaining Club Carlson points at the Radisson Blu in Rome.  Since they both just added one hotel card to their respective collections, it is likely they will have a few nights out of pocket, but only having to pay for 2-3 hotel nights on a 10-night journey after just adding one card each is pretty great.
In case you are working on a similar trip yourself, I ll keep you posted on their plans as they develop.  I will also add that since booking hotel barcelona their Paris hotels within the last week or so, both are showing sold out of standard rooms for their dates.  This just goes to show that once you have the points and know the dates you need to act.  Hotel availability generally only gets worse!
I am just finishing up planning my next Europe trip. We will be staying at the Radisson Blu Berlin hotel barcelona for 5 nights (4 nights at 44,000 points and fifth night free with CC). Each night would be approx $150-200+. In Prague I will be using Marriott gift cards I have earned through various hotel barcelona ways ($90 per night)to pay for the majority of the costs at the Mariott Executive Apartments. In Munich we will be staying two nights at the Holiday Inn Center City. One will be a 35,000 points night and one free night since I have the Chase CC (the hotel is running around $175 per night). The last two nights will be at the Le Meridien in Munich on a stay one get one stay free award I earned last year and a cash and points night of $110 plus 6,000 points (each night would be around $225). So our total out of pocket hotel costs will be around $200 for 14 nights in nice accommodations. I know where we are staying many would pay the cash and stay the points, but this is the only way we could afford two entire weeks in Europe and not stay at cheap hostels.
@Summer, hotel barcelona I m assuming your mother doesn t have the Hyatt Diamond status that you do/will have. I would point out that your mother could have used her 22,000 Chase UR points to send directly to YOUR Hyatt account (note: that s different from her sending her UR points to your UR account then transferring to your Hyatt).
I know you research your choices carefully but make sure your mom and aunt are comfortable with the minimalist rooms no walls between the bedroom and the shower/toilet in many rooms. It can be an uncomfortable lack of privacy for some. Even my 15 year old daughter and her friend found it very odd. Also, some rooms have no closets. I found it a very awkward hotel. But there is a great rooftop pool! I say go for the SPG credit card soon.
I would second the motion that the Rome Radisson Blu might not be the best choice. In addition to the open bathroom, the location is not ideal (very close to train station good for in/out of town, but not close to much else). I know the values for Choice properties might go up, but if they don t, I found the program great value for Europe (highly recommend the Comfort Inn in Venice great location 8,000 points for a 200€ room!). Looks like some great locations in Rome for 10,000 points at current values.
I am planning my London trip over Christmas. We are staying at Doubletree by Hilton in Victoria. We booked an airfare+hotel package thru AA Vacations and applied a $200 discount code total cost for 2 airplane tickets and 6 nights at the Doubletree is just under $2700. That is much less than it would have cost to book the same hotel plus ai