Award Trip to Paris - Breakdown

So I have mentioned to my friends/family about our upcoming trip to Paris before, but I wanted to do a detailed breakdown of our trip to give my readers an idea of what is possible via the PointsPursuit. I did this recently for our trip to Hawaii as well, feel free to give that a read of a tropical vacation is more up your alley. Also, I try to do these not in boasting, but rather to demonstrate that great vacations are realistically in reach for many people that never realized it!
















Breakdown
Thanks to Citi Bank's generosity with Aadvantage Miles and American Airlines great award chart I was able to score some pretty sweet seats. Unfortunately American is devaluing their program, so I booked these seats as soon as I had the miles to stretch them as far as I could. It breaks down to this:

Europe	On Peak (May 16 – October 14)	Off Peak (October 15 - May 15)
Economy	30,000	20,000
Business	50,000	50,000
First	62,500	62,500

With over 300,000 miles thanks to the Citi Aadvantage/CitiBusiness Aadvantage cards for my wife and I we had many options available. We wanted to go during the summer to enjoy the nicer weather and I'm not too keen on paying the 50% increase for on-peak economy redemptions. Additionally I wanted to find out for myself the difference between a business class seat and a first class seat, so I booked one of each.

Getting There

	Class	Cost (Miles, 2 people)	Cost (Cash - Taxes)
PHX > JFK > LHR	Business	100,000 (Aadvantage Miles)	$11.20
LHR > CDG	Economy	9,000 (British Airways Avios)	? (Haven’t booked yet, should be close to $0)

One of the hardest things to do while booking an award flight with American Airlines across the pond is avoiding fuel surcharges. This is because American partners with British Airways for most of their trans-atlantic flights and BA charges an arm and a leg in fuel surcharges/taxes. After a while scouring American's website I came across this flight with 2 seats available. It happens to be the red-eye out of Phoenix and has a 14 hour layover in JFK, but nothing we can't handle. besides, it will be awesome to get out and explore NYC a bit.

After NYC we head to London. Finding a flight directly to Paris was impossible (without flying British Airways) so we will make another stop in London. We arrive early in the morning, so instead of getting on another plane to Paris right away we wanted to get out and explore London a bit. We will stay for 36 hours here before heading to Paris. British Airways does have great deals flying from London > Paris, and since it is a short hop we will only spend 4,500 miles per person. British Airways Avios are easily obtainable via the Chase BA card or with any of Chase's Ultimate Rewards points (Chase Sapphire, Ink +). I obtained these miles at a cost of around $50 via manufactured spend on my Ink + card.

Staying There

	Hotel	Nightly Cost	Hotel Chain	Hotel Points	Actual Cost to Obtain Points	Savings
Monday	Hyatt Regency London	$950.00	Hyatt	25,000	$66.27	$883.73
Tuesday	Ramada Paris Tour Eiffel	$400.00	Wyndham	15,000	$3.48	$396.52
Wednesday	Ramada Paris Tour Eiffel	$400.00	Wyndham	15,000	$3.48	$396.52
Thursday	Ramada Paris Tour Eiffel	$400.00	Wyndham	15,000	$3.48	$396.52
Friday	Paris - Le Grand Intercontinental	$826.00	IHG	(Annual Free Night)	$12.39	$813.61
Saturday	Hotel du Louvre	$600.00	Hyatt	20,000	$52.84	$547.16
Sunday	Hotel du Louvre	$600.00	Hyatt	20,000	$52.84	$547.16
Monday	Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome	$1,129.38	Hyatt	(Free Night)	$0.00	$1,129.38
Tuesday	Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome	$1,129.38	Hyatt	(Free Night)	$0.00	$1,129.38
		$6,434.76			$194.79	$6,239.97

Since it's Paris and there are an endless number of fancy hotels I figured we could try out a few of them to see which we liked best. Most of our Hyatt points come from Chase Ultimate Rewards (Just like British Airways Avios) plus a few free nights thanks to the Chase Hyatt card. Also we have around 60,000 Wyndham points left over after our Wyndham credit card applications and Hawaii trip. The crowning jewel will be the Park Hyatt Vendome. Nightly cost can be higher than $1,000 a night for a standard room, but we will be using our free nights for our stay before heading home.
Coming Home

	Class	Cost (Miles, 2 people)	Cost (Cash)
ORY > LHR > ORD > PHX	First	125,000 (Aadvantage Miles)	$435.00

The one bummer about leaving Europe (other than the end of the vacation, great food, and historic sights) are the taxes you pay on most reward flights home. Even on economy award tickets it is hard to find anything completely free (impossible in my case, but I'm not the best at booking award travel yet). I did find a flight leaving Paris through London and Chicago for $435 in taxes flying American first class. I was also very tempted to fly a direct flight from London to Phx via British Airways, but that cost over $800 in fuel surcharges. I'm trying to make this trip cost as little as possible, so it's worth it to me to save ~$400 to make a quick stop in Chicago on our way home.

Totals

	Miles	Method of Obtaining
Aadvantage Miles	225,000	Citi Aadvantage Card
British Avios	9,000	Chase UR (Ink + manufactured spending
Hyatt Points	65,000 (+ Two Free nights)
Wyndham	45,000	Wyndham Card
IHG	Annual free Night	IHG Card Annual Bonus
Cash	$450

So in the end it took about 7 credit card applications (4 Citi Aadvantage, 1 Chase UR, 1 Chase Hyatt, 1 Wyndham) for our trip. The total trip would have cost ~$30,000! ($24,000 for flights, $6,000 for hotels). Would I ever actually pay that much? Heck no. If I was paying cash, economy flights/AirBnB here I come! However it will be nice to treat ourselves to a fun vacation for less than $500 (before souvenirs, food, ground transport, etc).  I can't wait!