London is one of the most popular destinations for Americans new to international travel, and it’s easy to see why! It’s a city filled with history and sights to see, everyone speaks English, and it’s a relatively short flight from the East Coast. However, like most major cities, it’s also very expensive! Here’s how I used points and miles to slash costs on a trip to London for me, my son, and my mother-in-law.

	Cash Price	Points Paid	Out of Pocket Cost
Outbound flight	$10,630.50	165,000	$54.30
Hotels	$2,526	93,000	$531.40
Return flight	$5,439.21	87,000	$1,953.15
Grand totals	$18,595.71	345,000	$2,548.85

Flights

American Airlines Business Class

My home airport, Raleigh-Durham, has only a handful of direct flights to Europe, but London is one of them. This flight is operated by American Airlines, but my favorite way to book AA-operated flights is through Alaska Airlines’ frequent flyer program, Atmos. American uses dynamic pricing for their award flights, which means that it’s kind of like the price of gas: the price of any given flight can vary from day to day based on supply, demand, and other factors.

Alaska, on the other hand, has a distance-based award chart for flights booked on partner airlines, which means that pricing is much more predictable. I transferred points from American Express to Hawaiian Airlines, and then from Hawaiian to Alaska, during the window of time when that was still possible. (Now, you can transfer points from Bilt, or earn directly through co-branded credit cards.

Of course, there are lots of ways to get to London from the East Coast, and I’m not above repositioning to take advantage of a great deal. However, it’s always nice when you can travel from your home airport all on one itinerary. Initially, I booked from RDU to London Heathrow with a stop at New York’s JFK airport, all in business class, for the bargain basement price of 45,000 points per person plus $18.10 in taxes and fees. A screaming deal! If I’d booked this flight through American directly, it would have cost me anywhere from 65,000 to 89,000 points per person The takeaway: it’s often better to book with a partner than to book directly with the airline you’re flying.

Although I was thrilled with this redemption, I had my eye on something even better: the direct flight from RDU to LHR. There was no award space available through Alaska when I initially booked the trip, but I used seats.aero to set an alert for the direct flight, so I would be notified if space opened up on the direct flight.

And about three months later, that’s exactly what happened! The direct flight became available, albeit at 55,000 points per person rather than 45,000 (make it make sense. Still a good price, so I’m not complaining!). I was willing to pay the extra 10,000 points per person because:

• I value simplicity when traveling with others (especially children)
• A direct flight reduces the risk of disruption due to weather or other issues with our connecting flight
• The flight to LHR from RDU is a bit longer than from JFK, which makes it possible to get a longer stretch of sleep on the overnight flight

Another reason to love Alaska is that they do not charge any change or cancellation fees (although you do lose the $12.50 partner award booking fee if you cancel), so it was very easy to make the change once the flight I wanted was available. 

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class

London is kind of a trap for points and miles folks, because there are so many amazing deals on ways to get there…and so few low-cost ways to get home. The United Kingdom imposes steep departure taxes on flights leaving the UK, especially from Heathrow. Look at British Airways award flights in business class, and you will see taxes and fees of $1,000 or more. Since most of us leverage points and miles because we don’t want to spend cash for flights, this can be really discouraging.

Common workarounds include:

• Flying economy or premium economy for the return trip. It’s a daytime flight and the taxes and fees are much lower on economy tickets than business.
• Positioning to another European hub on a cheap cash ticket and flying home from there. Taking the Eurostar train to Paris or Amsterdam can be a good option.
• Flying back on a US-based carrier, which typically impose lower fees than European-based airlines.

I chose…none of these. 

Instead, I splurged on Virgin Atlantic business class flights from Heathrow to Washington Dulles. I have no plans to return to London anytime soon, and I really wanted to experience this product. (If I’m being honest, what I really wanted to experience was the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, their business class lounge at Heathrow. But also the flight.) I paid 29,000 points and an eye-watering $651.05 per person for this flight. I already had some points stranded in my Virgin Atlantic account from a canceled flight, so this took some of the sting out of the transaction. YOLO.

For a while, I felt a little guilty about this splurge. But then, Virgin Atlantic hiked their taxes and fees on business class award flights without warning. While I had reservations about paying $650 out of pocket for this flight, I would not even have entertained the idea at $1,000. In retrospect, I’m glad I booked this flight while I had the opportunity, because it’s an experience I wouldn’t get to have otherwise. The takeaway: carpe diem! Book the flight, take the trip, because the deal you see today might not be around tomorrow.

While I was able to avoid positioning on the front end of this trip, I couldn’t escape it on the back end. I paid another 4,500 points and $18.20 per person to get us from Dulles home to RDU, using good old Alaska miles to fly AA again.

Hotels 

Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars

Loyal readers will be unsurprised to hear that we stayed at a Hyatt property during our visit. Hotels can be one of the most challenging parts of a family trip to London; not only are they painfully expensive, but many rooms have a maximum occupancy of two. Fire codes in Europe are serious business, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to sneak in additional people.

We used points to circumvent the expense, paying 21,000-25,000 points per night for four nights at the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars. These represent standard and off-peak rates for this category 6 property, which is one reason I enjoy traveling in the off season. (These rooms are about to cost more as Hyatt transitions to a new award chart.)

Although these rooms only sleep two, the hotel will provide a third rollaway bed for an upcharge of £100. The takeaway here is that you can sometimes circumvent occupancy limits by paying cash to upgrade to a larger room (or, in this case, add a bed). While this does increase your out-of-pocket costs, it can be worth it to avoid booking two rooms.

It’s worth noting that Hyatt recently added The Standard hotels to its portfolio, and The Standard London actually has standard award rooms that sleep four, so that’s another option for families.

Although Hyatt has several appealing properties in London, I chose the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars because of its central location and its club lounge. I love to stretch my points even further with free lounge food! The cash price of this stay would have been $2,332.

Hyatt Regency Crystal City

We arrived into Dulles too late to catch a flight all the way back to RDU, so we stayed one night at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City using a category 1-4 free night award, a stay worth $271. This was a hike from Dulles, but very convenient to Washington National Airport, which we departed out of the following morning. 

Points and miles allowed us to take this trip for 13% of the retail price. This is a slightly lesser discount than I usually achieve; due to taxes and fees, London is more expensive for award travel than other destinations. Since these costs have risen even more, I’m glad we took this trip when we did. 

Stay tuned for detailed reviews of the flights and hotel!