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| Seville |
Leave Chicago at 1:45 PM on Mon. Oct. 21 Connect in Frankfort, arrive in Madrid at 8:25 AM on Tues. Oct. 22.
Overnight train Madrid to Lisbon on Sat. Oct. 26, arrive Lisbon Sun. Oct. 27.
Fly to Seville on Monday, Oct. 28 at 8:20 PM. Arrive 10:30 PM. I don't generally like getting into a new city that late, but on the bright side, Monday is apparently the cheap day to fly Lisbon to Seville.
Train to Valencia on Wed. Oct. 30.
Train to Barcelona on Thurs. Oct. 31. Happy Halloween!
Train to Madrid on Sun. Nov. 3.
Fly home Mon. Nov. 4. Leave at 6:25 AM, connect in Frankfort, home at 12:55 PM.
47 hours of travel, average price of $1,334.
So, this is the cheapest option, although only because we caught the cheap flight from Lisbon to Seville. I probably gave us one too many days in Madrid, but that's all flexible. We could conceivably leave Tues. Oct. 22, keep everything else the same, but snag an extra day in Barcelona on the backside.
Overall, I thought we'd save more money using your miles since we are saving like $500 on airfare. I guess having to "hub" in Madrid gives us an extra couple train trips, so that offsets some of the cost.
Trying to get to Lisbon certainly complicates things. It might be worth our while to spend a couple extra hundred dollars and fly into Lisbon, out of Barcelona simply so we have more time at these destinations. Then again, maybe the overnight train isn't so bad. We are sleeping during our travel time, and it saves the cost of the hotel.
Sucks we can't use your miles on Friday. I was really hoping we could do something like fly out late Friday, then home on a Sunday. Still take 10 days off work, but then have 16 days, rather than 14 days. I feel like that extra two days would really open things up. Use the savings we get by using miles to offset the extra couple days of hotels/food/booze, etc.
I have not looked at flying on a Friday on Iberia or US Air. I assume it's more expensive than a week day.
We can book through United with my miles roundtrip through Madrid with connection in Philly both ways that costs $1000 for one ticket. Leaving the 19th back on the 2nd of November.
ReplyDeleteOk. So that's the same itinerary as this, but going Saturday to Saturday instead of Monday to Monday?
DeleteThe flight is $100 cheaper?
I could try Saturday to Sunday to get some extra time in there. I'm doing random searches here and there when I have a minute or two based on what I think you've done to determine what options we have with miles so I'd be a liar if I said I did thorough analysis on where we save money.
ReplyDeleteI think to summarize, if we are doing 2 weeks, it's slightly cheaper to use your miles on United and fly round trip to Madrid. However, it's not a lot cheaper than flying into Lisbon and out of Barcelona, and the latter makes our schedule a little less tight.
DeleteI figured out a way to do a Friday to Sunday thing, so 16 days, using United miles. Round trip through Madrid. I think connection in Germany.
So, if you could find a better connection for that, that would be good.
Or find a way to use miles to go into Lisbon and out of Barcelona (or out of Madrid would not be terrible), for 14, 15, or 16 days, that would really be idea. I have not be able to unlock that combination.
It looks like we can leave Saturday, October 19. Leave Chicago at 4 PM, arrive London at 5:55 am. Leave London 8:15 AM, arrive Lisbon 10:55 AM. 13 hours of travel.
ReplyDeleteLeave Barcelona 7:20 AM, arrive Frankfort 9:45 AM. Leave Frankfort at 12:45 PM, arrive Chicago at 3:15 PM. 15 hours of travel.
Looks like this will work with your miles. My flight is $1,051.
So, that gives us 15 days of vacation (10 days off work), into Lisbon, out of Barcelona, and uses your miles.
Be some long, shitty travel days. Instead of traveling via train among cities, we are doing more airplane travel.
Barcelona flight is on Sunday, 11/3. Forgot to mention that.
DeleteA 3 hour layover is like the worst possible. Too long to sit around the airport, not quite long enough to leave the airport and go have a meal/drink in the city.
DeleteI like the into Lisbon out of Barcelona trip. I like this one.
ReplyDelete