Travel Hacking For European Families: How To Travel For FREE

Travel hacking is one of my favorite of the 7 money-saving challenges we use to enjoy our family summer vacation nearly-free. But, if you too live in Europe you‘ll face limitations to travel on points compared to the US. And still, it works here too. Let me show you how.

In this post I‘ll share with you what travel hacking actually is and how you can become a travel hacker to travel for free or nearly-free with your family if living in Europe. We will talk about how to get free flights (& free hotel stays) using bonus points earned with travel credit cards. I will present you travel hacking as a money-saving challenge structured as follows:

• What to expect
• How much time you will need
• How much it will suck
• How often to do it
• My lessons learned

What to expect

What is travel hacking?

First, let‘s clear the term hacking. Most of us think of the computer world when we hear someone hacked something. In this context, it means someone gains unauthorized access to either data of a specific system or a computer. But, in the context of traveling, it has nothing to do with unauthorized or even illegal actions. On the contrary. A travel hacker uses a legal process to get a vacation cheaper or even for FREE. And there is the „hack“. You make use of official guidelines, existing rules, and policies and use them to your advantage – for traveling on a budget so to say.

In regard to all the 7 money-saving challenges we talked about in the last post, your savings could be 100 %. We experienced that 50-80 % is a more realistic savings goal if living in Europe.

How does travel hacking work?

In a nutshell: You sign up for new credit cards with high welcome bonuses like „You get 60.000 travel reward points if you spend 4.000 Euro in 3 months“. That‘s the so-called minimum spend requirement to get your points. The credit card companies get a new customer which is you. In exchange for using their services, you get credit card rewards like bonus points or reward miles. You then redeem your points into flights or hotel nights to enjoy nearly-free or free traveling. Therefore, you transfer your collected credit card points to hotel or airline credit cards.

In detail: Travel hackers like us first apply for a new card. If we get accepted we might get a high welcome bonus from the credit card issuer. Mostly, that‘s what we aim for. So, ideally, you compare bonuses before applying for a new card to get the best deal. You can do this using online platforms. We come to that in a second.

A credit card can be a bank-affiliated credit card like AmEx. But its usage is limited for Europeans. Or it can be an airline‘s credit card or a hotel credit card. Those are offered through airline loyalty programs or hotel loyalty programs. The Hilton Honors card is the only one that works for us where we live (Germany). By using the card, we can collect hotel points. An airline‘s credit card is always provided by an airline. For Europeans the most popular one is the Lufthansa Miles & More card. Here we collect airline miles. More on that specific card and process later on.

When you have points on a bank-affiliated credit card like AmEx you can redeem those to get free flights at many airlines. You can choose between many airlines to transfer your points into miles. That is different with an airline‘s credit card like Lufthansa Miles & More. This one is linked to a specific airline being Lufthansa in this example. But, you may be eligible to also transfer your miles to another airline.

The easiest way to collect a lot of points fast as a European is by paying for a big purchase or regular expenses (especially when online shopping) with your credit card. We will talk about that later on in detail. Once you‘ve collected enough points or miles those pay for free or discounted travel. That is also called mile hunting. Just another fancy word for a simple process.

Annual fee & history behind travel credit cards

A bit of history first. Airline loyalty programs have been around for decades. The first one was opened in the 1970s in the US. Travel credit cards are a bit younger. Those have become popular after the 2000s. That‘s because the credit card usage itself wasn‘t a thing before. It‘s very interesting how that actually happened. If you wanna know it, check out the post about Creating Consumers: How We All Got Into Debt & Its Real Cost. However, fees are the core of any credit card’s business model.

Credit card fees usually are < 10 Euro per month per credit card but can also be as high as 60 Euro per month. But there are also luxury credit cards with an enormous annual fee. The most prominent example is the Centurion Card from American Express – invite-only – with an annual fee of $5,000. The higher the fees, the bigger your sign-up bonus and bonuses in general. We will come to that in a second.

Foreign Transaction Fees are as important to look at. If you travel internationally you don‘t want to pay foreign transaction fees every time when using your card while traveling abroad. There are a handful of travel credit cards that have these fees – watch out especially for the AmEx credit cards. But most don‘t.

Minimum spending requirement & High-interest rates

Do not play the credit card game if you can‘t ensure the following two things before applying for a new travel credit card.

You must meet the minimum spend requirements being usually around 1.000 – 5.000 Euro in the first 3 months after signing up for a new card. Otherwise, you will not get the welcome bonus in the form of bonus points and reward miles. So, the decisive factor is the volume you can generate on your new card. Maybe you have a mortgage or living expenses that can be paid with your credit card so that you can meet that minimum spend requirement. If not, there is a work-around I will show you.

High-interest rates come with every credit card. That‘s how credit card issuers make their money. You pay with a credit card and forget to pay your credit card debt in full each month. Or you just can‘t. Then you need to not only pay off your initial credit bill but also high-interest rates on that. Those vary a lot but usually range somewhere between 18 to 30 % credit card interest rate in the US. For Germany it‘s 16 to 20 %. But, if you carry credit card debt with you to collect rewards like bonus miles you miss the point. Some credit card issuers offer 0 % interest rate on purchases for 2-6+ months. Use that if necessary strategically.

How to travel hack as a European

In Europe, we have limitations to travel hacking. The problem is that we are still a cash-based and credit card hostile society. Many places simply do not accept credit card payments. You can only pay in cash or using a regular bank account. That includes grocery stores, restaurants, all kinds of shops, hotels or holiday homes, kids‘ daycare or school costs and the list goes on. Even the creditors behind a mortgage often do not accept payments from a credit card. And if they do, often they don‘t accept the American Express credit card because of its high fees. Often they look at your job contract rather than at your credit score.

But, here‘s the travel „hack“. We assume a travel rewards credit card offers 60.000 reward points if you spend 5.000 Euro in the first 3 months. Now, you don‘t need to really spend that money. You could also charge that money. Charging is not spending! We also assume those 5.000 Euro would be your mortgage payments. Now, in Germany where we live we often cannot pay a mortgage using a credit card.

Here is the work around. We use our credit card to transfer those 5.000 Euro to the bank institute we use to pay our mortgage. Now, we have 5.000 Euro debt on our credit card. We then use another bank institute to pay off our credit card debt so to say. That process works just fine and plays 100 % within the provided guidelines and rules. But, it‘s a work around and you need to manage 3 bank accounts.

How to get 100.000 extra points

Because you are limited to travel hack as a European you want to find ways to max out your bonus points. You can get around 100.000 extra points by using the following 5 strategies:

1. Limited-time increased welcome offers: Every so often credit card companies increase their welcome bonus A LOT. Sometimes they almost double your sign-up bonus so that you get around 30.000 extra points. If you want to catch such a deal you can either regularly check the respective websites. Or you can find a blog that focuses on travel hacking in your home country and informs readers about the newest special offers.
2. Referral programs: When you refer someone to a credit card company and this person signs up after your referral, you get something like 5.000 extra points.
3. Get bonus points gifted: If you know a friend or someone in your family that regularly uses credit cards but simply doesn’t want to do travel hacking, talk to this person. Eventually he or she signs up for a new card after your referral and transfers his or her bonus points to you. If the sign-up bonus is 60.000 extra points then those are yours now.
4. Choose overnight stays where you can earn extra points: Do you have to stay overnight in a hotel in the near future and you have the choice where to stay? Then you can use hotel credit cards like the Hilton card to collect hotel points. The Hilton card is the only one that works for Germany in Europe.
5. Don‘t forget to collect miles whenever you fly: When you book a flight by redeeming your collected points you can earn extra points. For example, you get around 1.100 miles for a flight that costs 300 Euro. If you‘re from Germany you can calculate the exact number of miles and points you get for your flight using this Travel Calculator from Miles & More. Here‘s also the general Miles & More Travel Calculator.

How to get free flights & free hotel stays for 100.000 points

What do I get for 100.000 points?

First, you want to transfer your 100.000 extra points from your credit card into miles. You can do this by using your Lufthansa Miles & More card for example. You get around 85.000 reward miles for 100.000 bonus points. Let‘s assume you want to use your 85.000 miles to get award flights.

One option you have is to get regular free flights. Here you can choose the airport for start and destination and the exact date you want to fly. You can redeem 85.000 miles into free flights with an average value of 900-1.000 Euro. That would have been exactly the cost of a round trip to Ireland (economy class) we recently looked at for our family of 4. Our 85.000 points would have been consumed.

The other option you have is last-minute and discounted business class flights. But you can neither choose the airport for start and destination nor the exact date to fly. In our example, the cost of the same round trip to Ireland would have been 15.000 miles per person for our family of 4. But as our youngest one is under 2 she could have flown for free. We would have used 45.000 points for last-minute free flights within Europe (business class) which would have left us with 40.000 points.

You can also use your miles to get free hotel stays at prominent hotel chains like Hilton or Hyatt. Or you could use them to get rental cars on vacation. But from our experience that’s a waste of reward miles. Because you need a lot of miles for that. For example, for a standard so-called award night you need 5.000-100.000 points when choosing the most prominent (and in Germany only possible) hotel loyalty program Hilton Honors.

How many points do I need for an international free flight?

As you have seen, you‘re far better off when using your bonus points for last-minute, discounted business class flights. Especially, if your goal is to fly overseas you want to take advantage of those. Our family of 4 would need around 400.000 points (for all 4 of us!) to get such a discounted round-trip flight in business class between Germany and the US.

But, if we wanted to do the same trip using regular business class flights we would need around 800.000 points. Or we could get a regular economy class flight round-trip for around 100.000 points per person. So, our family of 4 would need around 400.000 points in total for that. That is the same amount of points for the same trip but in economy class instead of business class. What would you choose?

Best travel credit cards for Europeans

In Europe, we have different travel credit cards than in the US. One of the best travel credit cards for Europeans is the Lufthansa Miles & More card. Its annual fee is only around 60 Euro. Every so often the welcome bonus is around 60.000 points – that‘s what we got when we signed up a couple of years ago. The minimum spend requirement ranges around 3.000-4.000 Euro for the first 3-4 months.

Another quite new card we found for collecting bonus points or miles in Europe is the Eurowings credit card. Sign-up bonuses are low with around 3.000 gifted miles. But, you have no fees to pay in your first year and pay 0 % fees when taking out cash from anywhere. That is different with the Miles & More card where you pay 2 % for that. You get the Eurowings card if you have a Miles & More service number.

Let‘s compare that to the AmEx Business Platinum Card for self-employed people or companies. Here‘s the link for Germany. Every so often AmEx offers 75.000-100.000 points when signing up for the Business Platinum Card. But, annual fees are as high as 700 Euro. The minimum spend requirement was 15.000 Euro for the first 3 months within the latest offer. What makes that card attractive to families are the credit card bonuses it offers like priority check-in and lounge access at the airport. That can be especially valuable if you fly overseas with little kids. But, you get some of these bonuses like airport lounge access with the normal Platinum Card. Annual fees are under 200 Euro per year starting in the second year.

If you are from the US you can take advantage of those Best Travel Rewards Credit Cards that get updated regularly. Also, check out this mom‘s blog for travel hacking in the US. A great resource to start is the blog a purple life that recommends the Mad FIentist credit card search tool to Americans. For Europeans, we found that there are so many country-specific rules. You‘re best off when researching that topic for your home country to find the best travel rewards credit cards.

How much time you will need

Travel hacking requires a significant time investment and effort, involving research on the best credit card offers, tracking spending requirements, and managing multiple cards effectively. It includes strategic spending, taking advantage of promotions, and maximizing referral bonuses. Flexibility is key. Being adaptable with travel dates and destinations can help you secure the best deals. Practical tips include setting up alerts for new offers, automating payments, and leveraging online shopping portals for extra points.

How much it will suck

Sometimes I was quite a bit annoyed, frustrated and disappointed. Especially when I just couldn‘t find the free flights I imagined. But I know that we save a lot of money with travel hacking for the long term. Our goal is to save up enough miles for an international round trip for our family of 4. That‘s why it doesn‘t annoy me too much. If you use travel hacking strategically like we do, the reward is totally worth the effort.

How often to do it

Well, it depends on how often you want to go on vacation 😉 But, you also have an ongoing effort with collecting bonus points. But after a while, you establish a routine.

My lessons learned

My personal experience as a European mom is that it‘s totally possible to reduce expenses for traveling by 50+ % if travel hacked. For flights you can reduce your costs by 50-80 % and for overnight stays by 100 %. Typically, you only have to pay for some remaining fees.

My husband has almost earned enough reward miles (400.000) to get a round-trip flight between Europe and the US nearly-free for our family of 4 in business class! He required around 3 years for that. But we did not have to spend so much. We simply collected a lot of sign-up bonus miles for becoming a new customer to credit card issuers. Also, we took advantage of a work-around to pay our mortgage with a credit card as mentioned before. That took time.

The downside then is that we have to be flexible when redeeming our reward miles into flights. We cannot choose the airport to fly from neither the exact airport to land if we want to use our miles for last-minute discounted business class flights. To us, we then would get the most out of our collected bonus points and miles. If you have no fixed destination but a specific airport to start your flight from it will be easier to get a great deal. Also, you need to be flexible regarding the time span to travel and not focused on one specific date. If that is possible for you then definitely give this type of travel hacking a try. It‘s for free and you will SAVE A LOT!

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