How we booked roundtrip tickets to Europe for our family of 5 for under $1,000

Mark and I decided to brave a trip to Europe with our three kiddos next summer! (Yes, we are a tiny bit crazy.) Planning family trips to Europe can be expensive, but by leveraging credit card points and miles, I booked direct flights from Pittsburgh to London - and back home from Paris to Pittsburgh - for our family of five, for a total out-of-pocket cost of just $916. That’s $183.20 per person!

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of exactly how I did it so that you can too!

Step 1: Deciding on our route

We knew we wanted a direct flight to Europe to keep things simple, so I started researching routes from Pittsburgh. British Airways offers a direct flight from Pittsburgh to London, which was ideal for us. We wanted the kids to experience London anyway, plus it’s easy to use London as a jumping off point to travel to other cities in Europe.

As an added bonus, British Airways is a transfer partner of all four major credit card banks (Chase, American Express, Citi, and Capital One), making it quite simple to accumulate British Airways Avios, their loyalty points currency.

Step 2: Getting the American Express Business Gold card welcome bonus

To build up our Avios quickly, I signed up for an American Express Business Gold card, which had an incredible 175,000-point welcome bonus at the time. With this bonus alone, I had enough points to book our five flights to London (and then some). And, the timing couldn’t have been better because there was a bonus transfer offer to British Airways through American Express, which meant I could get even more Avios!

Step 3: Transferring points to British Airways with a bonus

During the transfer bonus, I transferred about 120,000 American Express Membership Rewards points to British Airways. With the bonus, these points turned into 150,000 Avios, which was exactly what I needed to book our five one-way tickets to London. Transfer bonuses aren’t always offered, but it was key because it helped us stretch our points even further with this booking.

Step 4: Booking our flights to London

Each one-way ticket from Pittsburgh to London cost 30,000 Avios and $82.30 in taxes, which added up to 150,000 Avios and $411.50 for all five tickets. The only cash cost here was the taxes and fees, which made it extremely affordable.

Step 5: Planning our return flights with Capital One Venture miles

After spending a few days in London, we plan to take the Eurostar high-speed train to Paris for another few days. For our return flight, we wanted to fly from Paris back to Pittsburgh, so for these flights I decided to turn to Capital One Venture miles. After all, British Airways is a transfer partner of all four major banks, so there are various options to earn flexible points and transfer them over.

Mark opened a Capital One Venture card earlier this year, so we decided to use a combination of his miles earned from that welcome bonus, plus some of my existing Amex Membership Rewards to purchase our return flights home from Paris.

Step 6: Setting up a British Airways household account

Since I wanted to use some of the points from Mark’s account in order to book our family’s return flights home, I needed to first create a British Airways household account. This essentially lets you “pool” your Avios with other members of your family for redemptions.

Setting up the household account does require some extra steps - you’ll need a unique email address for each family member (including kids) and will need to verify each of those accounts. However, once it’s done, the household account remains active indefinitely, making future bookings on British Airways much simpler.

Step 7: Booking our flights home from Paris

Our flights home from Paris to Pittsburgh have a layover in London. Each of these tickets cost 39,750 Avios and $120 in taxes, which added up to 198,750 Avios and $500 for all five tickets. Like our flights from Pittsburgh to London, the only cash cost here was the taxes and fees, which made the trip extremely affordable. And, Capital One happened to be running a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways at the time we booked these flights, so I transferred about 90,000 of Mark’s Venture miles which translated to 108,000 Avios. I pieced together the rest of our Avios needed by leveraging my remaining Amex Membership Rewards.

Final Tally: The total cost for our family’s flights

• Outbound (Pittsburgh to London): 150,000 Avios + $411.50

• Return (Paris to Pittsburgh): 198,750 Avios + $505

• Total Cost: 348,750 Avios + $916.50

Cards we signed up for to earn the points

American Express Business Gold card - A word of caution, this card has a high minimum spend of $15,000 in three months. We timed our application of this card with a few big-ticket purchases we knew our family was going to make. However, we realize that signing up for this card isn’t for everyone.

Capital One Venture card - Earn 75,000 Venture miles after spending $4,000 in three months. Also, this is a great everyday card since you earn a flat 2x miles per dollar spent, regardless of spending category.

As a reminder, using our referral links costs you nothing but helps support us by giving us a small kickback when new cardholders apply!

Conclusion

By signing up for credit cards that earn flexible points, and by strategically timing our transfers to coincide with bonuses being offered, we managed to book five roundtrip tickets to Europe for $916.50 - less than the cash price of one roundtrip ticket! Suddenly, taking international trips with our kids became well within reach simply by signing up for credit cards strategically and racking up flexible points.

If you’re planning a family trip to Europe, consider learning how to use points and miles to make it happen for much, much less! We’re here to teach you how and answer any questions you have along the way!

❤️ Liz

Friendly reminder: We are not financial advisers, we are simply sharing our method and approach with you. Of course, it's important to use credit cards responsibly. Pay off your balance in full each month to avoid interest charges, and never spend more than you can afford just to earn rewards.