Taking My Kids To Germany Turned Into Three Transatlantic Round Trips And A Detour Through Greenland

Welcome to my next trip report, which will recount my comings and going to Europe over the summer…three round trips as it turned out.

I realize I will certainly not win an accolades for my environmental stewardship, but my wife and I are trying to create a comfort with Germany for our kids which includes both the culture and the language. They are German citizens too after all. And so what I did this summer, as I did last summer and as I will do next summer, was take them over to Germany in mid-July and pick them up in mid-August.

That was a lot of travel for me, but I’m not going to lie: I loved (just about) all of it.

I booked a round-trip economy class ticket in spring to get us home from our ski trip and then back in the summer, which included SWISS economy class ticket from Zurich, Chicago and Austrian economy class from Los Angeles, Zurich via Vienna and was even able to squeeze in an overnight in Vienna at the Park Hyatt, which I booked for 25,000 Hyatt points.

The week I booked (the last week in February) was the week the conflict in Iran broke out and I was very happy I booked when I did because I got the tickets for $764 r/t. I also booked before United cut off awarding mileage on basic economy tickets. Since I booked on United ticketing stock, I received PQPs (status points) and RDMs (redeemable miles) for these flights. I also figured the lack of advance seat assignments would not matter because I was traveling with two young children. That gamble paid off well and we were seated together at check-in on each flight.

That got us to Germany, but I had to find a way back to the USA and then back to Europe the following month to pick them up, plus a ticket home for all three of us.

FlyingBlue came through with a perfectly-timed last minute 60K redemption on Air France from Basel, Paris, New York, plus €453 in taxes. It was such a pleasure to fly on Air France and I look forward to sharing all the details from my A350-900 business class flight.

Recall I landed in JFK around 10:00 pm and drove overnight to Pittsburgh , which itself was a journey. Then from there I flew home via Lisbon, Frankfurt, and Washington, DC …as one does.

But then I had to get from Southern California back to Basel and decided to fly via San Francisco, Denver, Newark, Nuuk (Greenland), and Copenhagen. That was three tickets, including:

I found SAS Business Class saver award space to get the three of us back to the USA, which has to be one of the best deals out there at 60K EuroBonus miles for me and only 30K miles for the kids, which included business class from ZRH-CPH as well. Taxes were €214.59 total for the three of us.

The flight availability forced an overnight in Copenhagen, but a late arrival so we used 36,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to stay at the AC Hotel Bella Sky Copenhagen near the airport, a towering property that was perfect for the overnight layover.

I won’t review the JetBlue A220 flight to Burbank since we all fell asleep right away after too much Taco Bell in Times Square…

Join our mailing list for a daily summary of posts! We never sell your info.