Questions and Answers

Next year is my 30 year Anniversary and we will be travelling to Europe for the FIRST time. This is my dream vacation and I want to travel in style. We have saved over 550,000 AMEX points (AMEX platinum) and will be using most of these points for travel and air flights. We will be staying in Paris for 4 days, then off to Venice for 3 then to Florence for 4 more. (with a night train ride from Paris to Venice overnight and a day train from Venice to Florence ).

We are going to book Delta firstclass with our AMEX points, but the hotel transfer rate is outrages. Hhonors is a 1000 to 1500 spread ratio but the per night stay in a hhonors hotel is 80,000 points! I need your help to make this a most memorable, first class event.

Brenda, just curious why you would be set on Delta for the flights? Have you thought of creating an Aeroplan account and transferring there? A good tip is booking a UA flight in First and then calling ($90 change fee) to get say LH first. If you book LH first there are heavy surcharges so this will get around that. DL don’t have first class, just business on those flights.

Sounds like a great trip. All great locations planned and can maximize stopovers with Aeroplan unlike DL miles as well. I would avoid DL for these flights. I have never transferred for hotels.

I agree with [USER=793]@brit44[/USER] – first off, Delta doesn’t offer first class on international flights – business is their top cabin. (What we typically call “first class” for domestic flights is really just business class, except on some internationally configured transcontinental flights that actually have 3 cabins.)

You could still transfer the miles to Delta but fly Air France (and Delta to get to an airport serviced by AF – if you can actually find a seat) though Delta does not allow their miles to be used to fly first class on partner airlines, so again, you’d be restricted to business class. [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] wrote this post in June about using Delta miles to get to Europe: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/06/17/which-delta-partner-has-the-best-business-class-to-europe/[/URL]

As for hotels, can you and your spouse each open a Hyatt credit card? Once you’ve met the minimum spend you get two free nights at any Hyatt in the world – including the Hyatt Vendome in Paris (though availability can be limited). But that would cover 4 nights in Paris. That would also give you each Platinum status.

If you’re set on Hiltons, you could each also open one of the Hilton credit cards. It’s a quick way to gain a lot of Hilton points for relatively little outlay.

At the top of every OMAAT blog page is a tab for Best Credit Card offers. Lucky has links there for the Hyatt card and four different Hilton cards so you can help decide what’s the right one for you.

Let us know if this helps or if we’ve just confused you more.

I agree with the above. AmEx MR are too valuable to be transferred to Hilton unless absolutely necessary. Citi and AmEx are both running increased sign up bonuses for their Hilton cards. The Hilton Reserve will give you two free weekend nights at any Hilton worldwide as well so between you and your husband that’s another four nights you might be able to manage. The other cards and a small balance transfer should give you the remaining points you need. Good luck!