Just five short months from now my husband and I will be boarding a plane to Rome for 5-weeks in Europe… completely free. Kind of hard to believe, actually. Now that airfare has been booked, this month I switched gears to focus on finalizing a hotel plan. Leading up to November’s update, my husband and I had already been working on hotel reward card bonuses based on some projected needs for the trip. This month I started booking our accommodations with those points. And, with an itinerary in hand I’ve put (almost) everything into place for the rest of our credit card sign-ups required to round out Europe for Free. I promise I’ll give an overview of our hotel plan, but I want to start by explaining how 300,000 IHG rewards are paying for half of our nightly stays (17 in fact) during Europe for Free.
IHG Rewards
When I started planning Europe for Free one of the first things I did was look at the overall chain hotel footprint in the countries we considered visiting. Using the Award Mapper tool, it was pretty clear IHG was going to be a huge part of the Europe for Free plan. If you’re unfamiliar with the tool, Award Mapper allows you to see a chain hotel’s footprint around the globe. The point redemptions aren’t always completely accurate, but the tool does give you a great starting point.
And though I honestly can’t tell you the last time I stayed at a Holiday Inn, Intercontinental or other IHG-branded hotel, the IHG Premier card is a huge part of this travel hack because IHG is the largest hotel chain in Eastern Europe. My husband and I each signed up to receive 150,000 bonus points a piece (individual sign-ups through Chase were more than the referral link). And, the reward points offered on this card have far exceeded my expectations. IHG is known for having a low point valuation and a free night certificate that can be hard to use in the United States. But, maybe Eastern Europe is the sweet-spot for this brand? Because with the 300,000 points in sign-up bonuses, IHG Rewards will cover half of our hotel nights.
The secret to our 300,000 IHG point strategy
IHG Premier credit card holders are offered one of the best travel perks available for reward hotel stays. When utilizing points, IHG Rewards members receive their 4th night free. That’s 25% off the cost of the hotel room. This perk drastically increases your redemption value and ensures you can maximize your points. Knowing the value of the 4th night free, I structured our route around 4-night accommodations in most cities to maximize our sign-up bonuses. This means that our combined 300,000 point sign-up bonuses gives us 4 different cities with 4-night stays (16 total nights) and 1 night in another city for free.
It’s important to know that I could have stretched these points further but I thought staying at a couple luxury accommodations would be a nice change of pace for the trip. 300,000 points could have paid for probably another 4-6 nights and if you are looking to create your own Europe for Free, these two cards could do even more for you! I just chose a less economical approach to stay at the Intercontinental in Istanbul and Budapest… because who doesn’t want these views?
IHG Redemptions
Since I started Europe for Free I’ve been trying to stay really organized. Because it’s a super complicated trip with a lot of cards and redemptions to keep track. Knowing this trip can help a lot of people travel more, I wanted to keep detailed records of what the trip is costing me and the money I’m saving with my points and miles. Keeping these detailed records have been a great way to organize the trip. And? Those 300,000 IHG rewards have saved us more than $2,800 on hotel rooms!
| Hotel | Nights | IHG Points Needed | Amount Saved |
| Holiday Inn, Kyiv | 1 | 15,000 | +$120 |
| Holiday Inn, Krakow City Center | 4 | 40,000 | +$357 |
| Holiday Inn, Prague | 4 | 42,000 | +$465 |
| Intercontinental, Budapest | 4 | 104,000 | +$929 |
| Intercontinental, Istanbul | 5* | 122,000 | +$1,004 |
| IHG Total Saved: | +$2,875 |
The Rest of the Hotel Hack
Though we’ll be gone 37 days, we only need 35 hotel nights. One night we’re taking the night train from Kiev to Lviv and the other we’ll be sleeping in economy bliss on our overnight flight to Rome. This means after the IHG point redemptions (17 nights as a part of the 300,000 bonus + 1 night with IHG points earned in January Barcelona stay = 18 nights covered with IHG points) I only need to find free accommodations for 17 more hotel nights.
These 17 nights will be covered with an odd combination of points, credit card perks and a little bit of cash and discounted gift cards. Simply put, it’s much more complex than the IHG redemptions. The rest of the hotel hack isn’t as finalized as the IHG redemptions, but this is a good picture of my redemption ideas right now:
| Hotel | Nights | Redemption | Amount Saved |
| Waldorf Astoria, Rome | 1 | Use $250 resort statement credit on Hilton Aspire card | $-75 |
| Ibis Styles, Lviv | 3 | 10,000 Chase points and $50 Sapphire Preferred hotel credit | $-14 |
| Hilton and Arcadia Boutique Hotel, Bratislava | 2 | 20,000 Hilton points and 6,600 Chase points. (This is most likely changing.) | TBD |
| Airbnb, Dubrovnik | 3 | Combination of discounted Airbnb gift cards and $20 referral from the old referral program that someone just used, plus 1.25 pay yourself back for $90 of the stay saved almost 66% on the total cost. | $-120 |
| Attalos Hotel, Athens | 2 | Plain old cash! My husband stayed here on a study abroad in college and loved the location. | $-175 |
| Mykonos or TBD | 3 | WHERE ARE WE GOING FOR THESE THREE DAYS?! IDK! | TBD |
| The Tribune, Rome | 3 | 45,000 Chase points transferred to Hyatt | +$787 |
As you can tell from the table above, the combination of points, discounted gift cards and cash created a lot of negatives on the chart. However, many of these are at a loss that is much less than what the entire stay cost. Lviv, for example, is only -$14 because I used my husband’s Chase Sapphire $50 hotel credit and 10,000 Chase points. That’s a pretty good deal for a $190 hotel stay. The Hilton Aspire card comes with $250 resort credit that can be used for basically anything at the Waldorf Astoria, including the nightly rate, deeply discounting our stay here upon arrival to Rome.
What’s Next?
With only 5 months until our April 2022 departure, there are many details to finalize. I need some clarity on a couple hotels and need to purchase or redeem points and miles for airfare between portions of the trip we’ll be flying. And, there are a couple of bucket list items that need to be booked in advanced, like our Chernobyl tour. But, right now things are looking really, really good.
Explore on. -K
Jade