Week Bye Week

We’re going to Spain! For those who don’t know, last year we hosted an exchange student from Madrid. She lived with us and attended high school here for her sophomore year. She is a truly lovely person, and we very much enjoyed the experience. Not long before she went home, her parents came to visit and spent 10 days with us. Even with a slight language barrier (and a lot of laughing over what Google Translate thought we were trying to say), we had a great time with them and promised to return the favor and visit them in Spain.

So last week, we finally booked our flights, and I am happy to report that, thanks to some patience and planning, we got three tickets to Madrid for $265 per person!

I will fully admit that there are travel bloggers out there with tons more experience than us and who have a lot more tricks in their toolbox, so we are by no means experts. But we are happy to share how we got this great deal.

Watching and waiting.

We identified July as the time to go, mostly because it worked well for everyone’s work and school schedules. So we started watching flights to Madrid, ready to jump when the price got into our comfort level. I used Going.com to set up a destination alert and Capital One Travel to set up a price alert.

Pick a good rewards card.

There are tons of rewards credit cards on the market, and tons of websites that do a great job of explaining the differences between them (we like this NerdWallet page). We aren’t in the business of telling anyone which card they should use as that will depend on a lot of factors that are unique to you. But if you plan to travel even once a year, we think a travel rewards card is a must.

We chose the Capital One Venture X card because it provides 2x miles on all purchases and 5x miles on travel purchases. It also includes 10,000 anniversary miles ($100 value) each year and a $300 travel credit each year. The perks include one free TSA Precheck account and access to several different airport lounges at airports around the world. Those lounges come in very handy on layovers, as they often include free food and drinks as well as access to power/charging outlets and nice restrooms where you can freshen up.

Use that rewards card for everything.

Once you choose a rewards card, use it for everything. We mean, everything. All of your monthly purchases: groceries, restaurants, shopping, utilities, cell phone bill, home repairs, etc. Miles are accrued based on your purchases, so the more you use your card, the more miles you will accrue.

Typically, one mile equals one cent. Purchases are rounded to the nearest dollar and converted to miles depending on the conversion rate of the card. If you make a purchase for $42.80, the purchase would be rounded to $43 and, at a conversion rate of 2x, you would earn 86 miles.

Pay it off every month – no exceptions.

This is the important part. Never put anything on this card that you can’t pay off the next month when the payment is due. Never. Not even one single month. As soon as you carry a balance on the card, you are charged interest, usually well over 20%, and that will negate any travel reward benefits you realize with your purchases.

So look at your budget (If you don’t have a budget, do that first. You really do need a monthly budget. We have created a budget every single month of our 33-year marriage). Figure out how much you spend. Do the math on what expenses you can put on the card and stick to those budgeted limits. Stick to them like glue. Glue, people!

Be flexible with your plans.

We originally set our plans on a trip in July. So I set about watching flights while steadily accruing travel miles on our Capital One Venture X card. But it probably comes as a surprise to no one that everyone wants to go to Madrid in July. That month is literally the most popular month to travel to Europe, and that popularity is reflected in the prices of airfare.

In spite of all of our alerts and constant checking, we could not find a flight that was less than $1500 per person. We refused to pay that much, so we started looking at alternate dates. Many flight booking sites allow you to browse different dates to see what the prices look like, and we saw that flights in mid-August were significantly cheaper. It stands to reason, as many kids go back to school in mid-August, so the summer vacation window is quickly starting to close.

We found some dates that worked with everyone’s schedule and even gets the kid back to KC the day before school starts. We liked the price, so we decided to book it!

Don’t be afraid of a long layover.

One of the reasons we got a flight at the price we did is because we have some pretty significant layovers in Toronto both ways. On the way to Madrid, we are in Toronto for 7 hours, which should be long enough to duck out and see one or two interesting sights. On the way back we stay in Toronto for 17 hours, including an overnight stay.

Most people shy away from long layovers, but they can be a great way to both get a great airfare and see more cities/countries. On our leg from Madrid to KC, we will spend the evening in Toronto and see what the city has to offer. We may be too tired to see anything but the inside of a hotel room, but even with hotel costs, the flight with the layover was cheaper than one without the long layover.

The Breakdown.

We found flights through Capital One Travel for $769.66 per person, for a total of $2308.98 for all three tickets.. We had been stockpiling travel miles for several months and had 111,223 to redeem, for a value of $1,112. We also had our annual $300 travel credit, and our $10,000 anniversary miles ($100). That brought the total cost down to $796.98 for all three tickets. We practically got two tickets for free!

One caveat.

Normally we don’t book flights through Capital One’s travel portal. We find that we can find better prices on Google Flights. When we book outside of Capital One Travel we just use our miles to reimburse the charge instead of using miles to pay for the flight at the outset.

This time I was lucky that I found the same flight and cost on Capital One Travel that I did on Google Flights. We can only use our $300 travel credit on travel booked through the Capital One Travel website, so finding a good flight there meant I could redeem that $300 for these tickets. The travel credit is a nice perk, but the limitation that you can only use it booking on their site does limit its usefulness somewhat.

The countdown is on!

So now we’re counting down until we see our friends in Madrid this summer! And we’ve started accruing travel miles for our next trip (we already have $50 in travel accrued since we cleaned out our miles account).

We’re eyeing a trip to the Pacific Northwest to see friends in June. If we see the right deal and have enough miles, I’m hoping we can make that trip happen for less than $200 out of pocket. We’ll keep you posted!