London – Planning and Cost
If one looked at my list of cities that I want to visit, London probably wouldn’t be in the top five. Maybe that’s why my visit there kept falling into the “next year” category. However, everything changes when a good deal comes out of nowhere. Last year, around September/October, British Airways and American Airlines began offering very decent business class fares from the USA to Europe. La Compagnie, an airline that offers “business class only” configuration on their entire plane, was offering $1,600+ airfares for round trip flights between New York and London/Paris; both, American and British, joined the game and matched the prices.
At the same time, British Airways was running a promo that offered a $400 discount off the regular round trip business class fare for AARP members. Now most people think that this program is for senior citizens only, but that’s not true – anyone who is willing to pay $16/year can sign up (I did). With the AARP discount the airfare became even more attractive – around $1,200+, which is an insanely good price for a round-trip transatlantic business class flight. Although the thought of gazing at the Tower Bridge while eating fish & chips was very tempting, the total price was more than I was willing to pay and I decided to wait for something better to come along.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long – about two weeks or so later British and American offered even lower business class fares, this time from quite a few US cities (Chicago being one of them) to London, Paris, as well as some other cities in Europe. On top of the already cheap airfare and the AARP discount, it was possible to use British avios + cash as the payment option. This time the deal was way too good to pass up and presented the perfect opportunity to visit London for a few days. In the end the non-stop flight in business class from Chicago to London and back to Chicago ended up costing me 30,000 avios + $452.20. That is insane!!! Just to give you an idea – the same exact flight goes for over $10,000!!
For comparison, the cheapest non-stop business class flight for the same dates would have cost me close to $7,000 and the cheapest non-stop economy flight would have been around $1,200.
Once I had my flights booked, I needed to figure out the other part of the trip – sleep on a bench in Hyde Park, spend my nights at one of the 775 rooms at Buckingham Palace or book a hotel. The last option seemed to be the most logical, so I started checking what hotels were available to book with points (my budget for hotels was pretty much zero dollars considering that I already spent $450 for my flight). I had a Club Carlson certificate that was good for one free night at any of their international properties, so it made sense to redeem it in London, since hotels are so expensive there. After checking available Club Carlson properties I set my mind on The May Fair hotel – there was award availability for three nights and the location seemed to be fairly decent. Three nights were going for over $1,100 ($322 per night + tax); I ended up using the free night certificate for the first night and 140,000 Club Carlson points for the other two nights.
Bottom Line
The grand total for flights and hotel of this long weekend getaway ended up being $468.20 ($452.20 for the flight + $16 for the AARP membership), 30,000 avios and 140,000 Club Carlson points. Had I paid cash for the same exact trip, it would have cost me close to $12,000 (flight+hotel)! As I’ve mentioned before, points & miles can provide significant value if used properly.
