First Case Study!
Need to find best way to hack a round trip to Europe. This is for Oktoberfest next fall - once I have the plan in place I will help out a couple of friends to do this as well. It is important to cost as little as possible to get 'spousal buy-in' :-)
It is possible that flying to Amsterdam may be a good option and renting a car...taxes and fees seem to be more in/out German cities. TBD.
Starting with the flights, it seems that Aeroplan might be the best way to go. Here is my proposal so far:
Apply CIBC Aventura Gold Visa - 15,000 points
Apply CIBC Aventura Infinite - 15,000 points.
CIBC notes:
- I've read that although CIBC state somewhere that they only give once bonus for their cards, but in practice they do it for both?
- both cards have a fyf (first year free). Good! And also, lounge passes - important when heading on an Oktoberfest holiday :-)
Amex gold - 25,000MR points - tranfer to Aeroplan 1:1
Amex notes:
- 150 annual fee, but 50 cash back if applying through GCR (great canadian rebates) - you need an account. Note - if you need an account we should refer each other as per GCR website: "You will earn a 15% Referral Bonus on all Cash Back Rebates earned by any new Member you refer for five years from the time your referral becomes a member."
I was going to go with SPG Amex, however, if the above plan works I only need 5K more points. So, how about:
Best Western MC - 20,000 points can be transferred at 5:1 to aeroplan, giving 4,000 Aeroplan points.
Best Western notes:
- no annual fee.
This gives a total of 59,000 Aeroplan points - the rest can probably be achieved through collection?
Has anyone got any input...including crushing my whole plan and replacing it with Air Miles or something else...
Total cost would be $100 for Amex and the airport taxes/fees which I've seen as low as $145 - ($245). Not exactly free...