At the time of this post, there are some great fares from the US to Europe. Some of these dates are even over the high summer months of travel. The best part (for me) is that some of the fares are valid departing Seattle. Seattle (and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest) rarely has deals to Europe. Asia is quite common however. This means no added cost and time of a positioning flight to LAX for example.
Using Google Flights, my go-to for starting airfare searches, I was able to find $420 round trip through British Airways to Amsterdam for a long weekend in September. Currently I am in school and my travel availability is limited to breaks and long weekends. The downsides of being a student.
The nice thing about British is that if you are an AARP member you can save $65 on an Economy ticket with British. Anyone can join AARP for $16 a year. I’ve used my membership to book British flights in the past.
Oddly when the ticket priced out through AARP’s member portal, the price dropped down to $333 — a savings of $87. I wasn’t going to complain. I was also able to book a ticket for my friend with the AARP discount.
Furthermore I had some orphaned Avios points that I was able to use to drop the price a further $36. 4,000 Avios for a $36 discount is NOT a good valuation. However I don’t collect Avios so I figured it better to use them or lose them. I’m sure other travel hobbiests are judging me.
My total came to $297.17 all in. I used my new Chase Sapphire Reserve to earn 3 Chase UR points per dollar on flights.
Outbound I am flying SEA-LHR-AMS on British Airways. They charge for a seat assignment so I will gamble and hope to not get stuck in a middle seat.
Inbound I am flying AMS-DFW-SEA on American Airlines planes. This is the first time I’ve purchased a ticket for an AA flight since I swore to never fly them again. At least I get to chose a “premium” seat for free as an Alaska Gold 75K.
Flights are in O class which means I will only earn 25% of miles when crediting to Alaska. This is not a mileage run; I will end up earning 7,500 redeemable miles on Alaska Mileage Plan which, alone, is not worth the trip.
But I love Amsterdam. I’m planing on staying at the beautiful Andaz and spending time in one of my favorite cities. Hard to turn down a $300 flight for that!