How we went to Vienna on points and miles

Accruing and using points and miles have allowed us to travel significantly more – both domestically and internationally. Earlier this fall, we took a six-day, five-night trip to Vienna on points and miles. Given the cost of traveling to Europe, we used points and miles to cover the costs of our flights to and from Vienna as well as for the hotel stays.

Flights

Austrian Airlines (obviously) offers a lot of flights from the United States to Vienna. And, as Chicagoans that fly out of O’Hare who are loyal to United Airlines, it was an added benefit that Austrian Airlines is part of the Star Alliance with United. MileagePlus members, which we are, can earn miles and Premier qualifying credits on eligible Austrian Airlines flights. Since we were using miles to cover the flight, this was not a driver for us, but that’s a nice feature of airline alliances.

Using a combination of existing United miles and Chase Ultimate Rewards points, we were able to cover two round-trip tickets to Vienna. Our flight there was a direct flight from O’Hare to Vienna on Austrian Airlines. On the way home, we had a brief layover in Frankfurt. The flight from Vienna to Frankfurt was on Austrian Airlines as well. The flight from Frankfurt to Chicago was on United, so thanks to P2’s Premier Gold status, we were upgraded to Premium Economy at no additional cost. That extra legroom was a nice feature on the 9+ hour flight home.

Had we paid cash for these flights, the total cost would have been $2,828.50.

Hotel

Marriott is our preferred hotel chain for a myriad of reasons, which we outlined in this blog post. So when we settled on Vienna as our destination, we immediately looked at the availability at Marriott locations in the city. Since we had decided to use points to cover our stay, we knew we could take advantage of the Marriott Stay for 5, Pay for 4 promotion. When you use points to stay five consecutive nights at the same hotel, you will only pay for four on points – the lowest-cost point night will be free.

We ultimately stayed at the Residence Inn Vienna City East. This location was right off a U-Bahn (subway) stop, which made it easy for us to get around the city.

If we had paid cash instead of using points for these five nights, the total cost would have been $913.44.

How we earned points

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is our number one recommendation for travel cards. For daily spending, it earns 3x on dining, 3x on streaming, and 2x on travel to earn points. This is also the card we use for spending abroad because there is no foreign transaction fee.

P2 holds a Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card, which is a great complement to the Sapphire if you’re loyal to Marriott. It has helped us earn status (and therefore points) more quickly this year – and then in turn allowed us to travel more.

We each have a United Explorer card because we’re based out of Chicago, a United hub. There are numerous ways to earn United miles, including the United MileagePlus X app and shopping portal, so we look to capitalize on those as much as possible.

Our daily spend card is the Freedom Unlimited, which earns 1.5x points on every dollar you spend. If we’re shopping in a category that does not earn elevated points, this is our go-to card because 1.5 is more than the 1x points on most cards. This card also earns 3x on dining and drugstore purchases.

In all, we saved $3,741.94 on our flights and hotel for Vienna.

This is an amount that we would not have been comfortable paying out of pocket. No trip is truly free – we had to pay for food, activities, and transit while we were in Vienna. Those costs, however, were significantly less than $3,700, and the savings we received from redeeming our points and miles meant we didn’t have to worry about our spending while in Vienna.