It’s hard to believe this is my third month writing about my Europe for Free travel hacking journey. A couple months ago it was just an elaborate idea that I thought sounded pretty crazy, but I keep getting closer to this dream becoming reality. This past month has been dedicated to finalizing some travel plans and extensively researching hotels and airfare for the perfect travel hacking plan to spend one month in Europe… completely free.

So far we’ve decided on a trip route through Eastern Europe and began a year-long card hacking journey starting with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the IHG Premier cards. Here are my August Europe for Free updates:

Will it really be free?

Something I’ve been grappling with recently is the purity of Europe for Free and the best use of my points and miles. Though I could make 100% of this trip free, ideally larger expenses that save thousands of dollars is my priority. I want to be sure I’m getting the best redemption for my points and miles more than I’m interested in making a case for a completely free month in Europe (even if that is my “brand”). And most of the time that will be the case. But in some instances, paying cash may be the better and more strategic option.

For example, my preliminary route has us spending two nights in Kiev, Ukraine. Kiev has all the larger hotel options, but I don’t think our two nights are worth 40,000 IHG, or 120,000 Hilton, or even 30,000 Hyatt points when instead I can spend $168 for two nights at a nice hotel and earn 5 points per dollar spent through Chase Ultimate Rewards. I’d rather earn 840 points on this stay than spend 30,000 points.

In addition to paying for some hotels out of pocket, I’ll also be paying for cheap regional airfare, train and ferry tickets, and dining and entertainment expenses. All together, I’m estimating $100-ish a day for the two of us and plan to save $3,500 for trip expenses. I think this is a little high, especially traveling through Eastern Europe, but I want to be prepared.

The 5/24 Rule

After three months with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, I recently applied for the Chase Freedom Unlimited card. The card includes $200 cash back (or 20,000 points) after spending $500 in 3 months. But wait! Why am I opening up a card with such a small bonus? It seems pretty counterintuitive to my Europe for Free trip and the large amount of points I’ll need, but I have to apply for all Chase cards I want moving forward and go above the 5/24 rule. This rule basically states that you cannot take out a new Chase card if you have opened 5 accounts in the last 24 months. With that in mind, I wanted to ensure that I could get the Freedom Unlimited card to use for everyday purchases after Europe for Free is over.

Non-card point gains

This past month I’ve been increasing my non-card travel hacking by utilizing the Hilton Guest Opinion Reward surveys and Hilton Honors Dining. Though Hilton doesn’t have the best point redemption, I have a much larger (and unrelated) goal to go to the Maldives utilizing points in a couple of years. (Learn more about how to get a 5-night stay at the Hilton Conrad Maldives completely free.) So far I’ve earned around 25,000 points through the reward and dining programs. Basically, I’m crushing it thanks to the large bonuses, many of them from resulting from ordering from restaurants listed on the dining program and having a small enough social life to answer 1-2 surveys in the evenings.

Though card bonuses is a huge component to this trip, I also plan to utilize the Chase Ultimate Rewards and other shopping portals related to the miles and points I need for the trip. We live a pretty minimalist lifestyle and try to shop locally as much as possible, but as I need items I’m planning to utilize portals to earn bonus points. These points will largely be used for hotels. As I briefly mentioned, shopping portals are a great tool to stack points. Many airlines, hotels and credit cards have their own.

Other Updates

The next couple of months is going to be a lot of the same travel hacking cycle – apply for cards, meet spend, stack points….

Our larger game plan for hotels is framed around us both having the IHG Premier card. My husband, Aspen, received this card last month and as long as the sign-up bonus is still close to what it is now, I’ll be applying for this card in three months. I’ve found that though some of our destinations are relatively cheap, often only luxury IHG properties are available in the towns we plan to stay in. Though this isn’t ideal, IHG offered enough benefits and we’ll still get a great redemption. And even with some of the drawbacks of IHG, with the 4th night free using our card, our two cards’ bonuses should pay for around 20 nights in my preliminary plan including 4 nights at the InterContinental in Budapest, Hungary and 4 at the Mr. and Mrs. Smith hotel in Mykonos, Greece, a combined savings of $1,600 from these two hotels alone.

I have a rough outline completed for our travel route but nothing solid enough to share with you yet. After developing a route based on places we’d like to visit, I’m now focusing attention on optimizing the travel route to ensure we’re spending more time enjoying the trip and less time getting to each destination (or paying for it). Sadly, this might mean eliminating cities to improve our route. For now, I can tell you we plan to start in Krakow, Poland and end in Istanbul, Turkey. We do plan to utilize the United Excursionist Perk on the route, too.

That is the end of my August updates for Europe for Free. Apologies for the next nine months of clickbait titles, but Europe for Free is still largely free. I just want to ensure I’m optimizing my points and miles to best fit my travel needs for this trip.

Explore on. -K