Leave Chicago on Friday October 19 at 3:45 PM. Connect in Frankfort, arrive Madrid at 11:45 AM. This uses your United miles and I'm on the same United flight for $1,200. For some reason it's about $100 cheaper if I book on Lufthansa (who operates the flights) on the exact same flights. Odd.
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Part of me says we should just hop the train to Lisbon that night. We'll be so jet-lagged we'll probably actually sleep on the train. However, without a hotel room, we'll have no wear to drop our luggage.
Anyway, I didn't schedule it like that, but of course, it's flexible.
On Monday, Oct. 21 we take the overnight train to Lisbon.
Thursday, Oct. 24, fly to Seville.
Saturday, Oct. 26, train to Valencia (bear in mind I think this train basically goes through Madrid, just doesn't stop, so we could tuck some Madrid time in here).
Monday, Oct. 28, train Valencia to Barcelona.
Friday, Nov. 1, train to Madrid.
Sunday, Nov. 3, fly home. Unfortunately we have to leave at 6:25 AM, connect in Frankfort, arrive home at 12:55 PM.
So, this gets us 2 extra nights on vacation for $1,325 per person. 47 hours of travel time.
It's only $200 cheaper (total) than into Lisbon, out of Barcelona, but we get 2 extra days. I'm sure we will spend more than $200 on hotel/food/booze in those 2 extra days, so the total cost of the trip would increase, but personally, I'd rather spend money on hotel/booze/food than on airfare.
It doesn't get us a VRBO in the middle of the trip to do laundry.
I wanted to do these flights, Friday Oct. 19 to Sun Nov. 3 round trip to Madrid, then take the quick flight to/from Lisbon, if we want to see Lisbon AND have more time in Spain. 16 day trip = 2 days in Lisbon; 14 days in Spain, which is the same as a 14 day trip to only Spain. Can't argue with math!
ReplyDeleteBut, last I checked,I could no longer find these flights with your miles.
Part of me just wants to take the $1,000 round trip direct flights on Iberia. It's not smart financially, but I hate long travel days. I'm not good at sitting cooped up in airplanes. :)
I found round trips to Madrid on those dates using miles, but the flight for you would cost $5500. It's the outbound one through Philly and the return through Frankfurt.
ReplyDeleteI'll try a different combination, but it looks like there are options with miles on those dates.
Ok, well vice versa then, flights available with miles, not available just to book.
DeleteI don't always remember why it didn't work, just that it didn't work.
The direct flights roundtrip through Madrid are starting to make more sense for multiple reasons.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you say that?
DeleteWe could still do Sat. 10/20 to Sun. 11/3 into Lisbon and out of Barcelona for cheaper than 2 round trip to Madrid, right?
Those flights are available with miles but coming up at a cost for $4500.
ReplyDeleteSo, basically the stuff I researched is no longer available?
DeleteI did find that we can fly to Lisbon through London on the 19th and back from Barcelona through Frankfurt on the 3rd with my miles (60,000) and for a fare for you at $1052.
ReplyDeleteSo the same flights I reference here?
Deletehttp://hritsukeuro2013.blogspot.com/2013/08/specific-spain-travel-options.html
But we fly out on Friday, not Saturday?
It's the exact same info you have there. Fly out Saturday, fly back Sunday. The 19th and the 3rd.
ReplyDeleteSo, what I surmise is that there's no real difference in cost or flight duration whether we fly round trip to Madrid or into Lisbon and out of Barcelona. If we use your miles, it's about $1,200 for the two of us and in both cases we have to connect in Frankfort.
DeleteIt doesn't make sense to fly round trip to Madrid and then hop a flight to Lisbon if we have to connect in Frankfort either way.
It would be faster to fly direct to Madrid, but also $800 more expensive.
We could fly round trip to Madrid and only to Spain, but that doesn't really save us any money or flight time.
If we could find a way to use your miles on a USAir flight that connects in Philly, we could save time, but otherwise, all of the options are about the same cost/time.
I don't actually have any useful information in this comment. Just wanted to document what I looked at so:
ReplyDelete1) Neither one of us looks at it again.
2) Maybe it will spur another idea
But feel free to ignore the rest of what I'm going to say. :)
We can fly Iberia direct to Madrid from Chicago for about $1,050 if we do Friday-Sunday. We can shave $75 off that if we fly weekdays, but that doesn't gain much. The point of this exercise was to see if we could fly round trip to Madrid Friday-Sunday so we get 16 vacation days but only 10 days off work. Then maybe we could see more stuff.
Anyway, we can fly Friday-Sunday out of NYC for about $920 and use your miles to get us to/from NYC. It may be more hassle than it's worth for $100/each. Have to find flights that coordinate, check luggage at both airports, make sure it's the same airport in NYC etc.
I figured if we flew out Friday afternoon, you wouldn't have to take a day off work. If we suddenly have to leave Chicago at 11 AM to catch a connecting flight at 5 PM, the whole "no day off work" thing is kind of out the window.