I have been playing the points game very casually for many years, but I hadn’t learned how to maximize the value of my points until the last few years. When I learned that I could potentially get my family to Europe in business class, I was all in on earning points and spending them to fly in style. Previously, the only time I had sat in the front of a plane was when American Airlines was forced to upgrade me upon boarding because there were no other seats on the flight from Tulsa to Nashville. I felt extremely fancy when they hung up my winter coat for me as I was trying to stuff it in the overhead bin. That was followed by a very tasty Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup as my mid-flight snack. What could be better?!
Fast forward nearly a decade, and my sights were set on business class tickets across the Atlantic for my family.
Living in Nashville, we don’t have many great direct flights to Europe. Our only direct flight to Europe is on British Airways, and they are notorious for charging high fees (approximately $800 per person in business class), which I wasn’t willing to pay. I knew we would have to position to another airport to get the best deal on transatlantic business class tickets. Our dates were not very flexible, as we had to deal with lots of conflicting schedules – school, work, family, etc. I have a Southwest Companion pass, and my mom has plenty of Southwest points to cover her on a positioning flight.
My backup option was going to be Emirates JFK to MXP, but I was hoping to find something for fewer points per person in business class.
Often the best deals for business class are found when booking calendars open or with very short notice. Neither of those were going to work for us on this trip. I had to get creative and search for flights out of multiple different airports where we could position.
I was able to find four business class tickets on Air France from Newark (EWR) to Milan Malpensa (MXP) with a stop in Paris at Charles de Gaulle. Air France business class tickets typically start at 50k points per person for a one-way flight from the US to Europe. An awesome benefit of Air France is that they give a 25% discount for children’s award tickets, no matter what cabin you are booking the ticket.
While searching, I found 2 adult and 2 kids business class tickets flying out of JFK for 175k total points. Unfortunately, I lollygagged a little too long, and that option disappeared. A few days later, I found 4 business class tickets (2 adults, 2 children) in business class from EWR to MXP on a date that would work for us in late March for 278k points total and $872. I took advantage of a Chase 25% transfer bonus and transferred 223k points from Chase to Air France. The cash cost of those 4 tickets would have been $12,795!
To calculate the value of the points in cents per point (CPP), you take the cost of the flight minus any fees you are paying for the points flight and divide by the total number of points.
(Flight Cost – Fees Cost )/ Total Points = Cents Per Point
($12,795 – $872) / 223,000 = .0569 = 5.69 cents per point!
Despite not getting Air France’s “cheapest” redemption, I still came out with a stellar redemption that I was very pleased with! Not only did I get all four of us to Italy for very little out-of-pocket cost, we all got to fly on our first business class flight!
When booking through the AMEX portal, your points are worth 1 cent each. This means that I would have to pay 1.2 million MR to buy these flights on the AMEX portal.
When booking through the Chase portal, my points are worth 1.5 cents each because I hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. They are worth 1.25 cents per point if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. This means the flights would have been 853,000 UR on the Chase portal.
Knowing how to transfer points to airline partners will save you hundreds of thousands of points!
