A reader recently emailed me a question asking about taking a trip to Paris.  He writes:

I was thinking about a trip to Paris, but I’m still trying to figure how feasible that might be. I assume that if anyone would know of a good way to make it happen, it’d be the Guru. Any deals/recommendations for flights/hotels in late July or August for Paris?

Every year, I do get several requests for advice on trips to Europe over the summer.  As many of you probably already know, the peak time for travel to Europe is over the summer.  So that does make things a bit trickier, as airfare is usually a lot more expensive, and availability using frequent flyer miles can be harder to come by.

Although there isn’t necessarily one magic solution, I was able to offer him some pointers, and figured I’d share them publicly so everyone could gain from it.  I’ll break down the advice into a few sections:

• Flights with Points
• Flights with Cash
• Hotels with Points
• Hotels with Cash

Flights with Points

Although using miles to find flight deals to Paris can be harder over the summer, it’s certainly not impossible (well, unless you only have Delta miles, which you’ll see in a moment).  In general, flights from the US to Europe require:

• 60,000 points roundtrip in Coach
• 100,000-120,000 points roundtrip in Business Class

The above mileage amounts are often advertised as “Saver Awards” – airlines do have “Standard Awards,” which are named to make you think that it’s the “Standard” or normal price to pay, when the price is typically double the Saver amount.

For now, we’ll just look at Coach availability.  Keeping an eye on the bright green dates (30k miles one way –> 60k miles roundtrip), here is what availability to Paris looks like using miles on American Airlines, separated into the Outbound and Return portions of the trip:

And here’s what the Return availability looks like:

So overall, the outbound flights are relatively easy to come by; the return dates are definitely more scattered, but it’s still possible to put together a trip.

Next, we’ll take a look at United’s availability.  With United, you’ll be looking for dates in Yellow or in Green (yellow dates have only Coach availability, and Green dates have both Coach and Business/First Class available):

Overall, it really looks pretty decent.  There are a good number of dates in Yellow or Green (both of which have Coach availability), and Business/First Class isn’t too bad either (Green and Blue Dates).

Delta, sadly, has a pretty pathetic showing.  You’re looking for dates in Green for the Saver rate, with the Outbound leg on the left and the Return leg on the right (dates in Yellow are about 1.5x the Saver rate, and dates in Blue are more than double the Saver rate):

With only 2 dates in the entire month of July available at the Saver rate for the outbound, and every single return date in July being at the highest “Peak” rate, you’re looking at needing 100,000-130,000 miles just for a roundtrip ticket in Coach.

So as you can see, both American and United do have some availability still left, although it requires a bit of flexibility when it comes to dates.

Flights with Cash

If you’re wanting to simply look at booking regular (paid) flights, I’d recommend using ITA Matrix for flexible airfare searches.  You can search from multiple cities, to multiple cities, over a range of dates.  So you could search from IAD, DCA, and BWI to CDG and ORY (the 2 airports in Paris) for any 6-8 day trip in the month of July:

It’s important to note that you can’t actually book on ITA Matrix – but as soon as you find the right city/date options, you can go to Kayak or directly to the airline to book it.

There’s also the possibility of splitting up the trip into 2 pieces:  often times, flights to Ireland and London are significantly cheaper than flights to France.  You may be able to piece together DC to London, spend 24 hours in London and then fly on a European airline to get from London to Paris.  In an ideal world, you could book the flights back-to-back (Ticket 1 lands in London at 7:30 am, Ticket 2 leaves London at 9:30 am), but if your first flight is delayed, you’ll miss your 2nd flight, and since it’s on 2 separate tickets, it’s not very likely that they’ll rebook you.  So it can add travel time to the trip, but if it ends up saving money, it could be worth it (and another advantage could be to double up on the trip and get to see 2 places instead of 1).  You can even do a search on ITA including all the city possibilities…from IAD, DCA, BWI to LHR, LGW, DUB, SNN, CDG, ORY.  Most of the cheapest flights to Europe are to the Western-most cities like Dublin, Shannon, and London…but you can throw on Madrid (MAD), Lisbon (LIS), and Barcelona (BCN) to the search as well.  For searching intra-Europe flights, Kayak and SkyScanner are probably your best bet.

Hotels With Points:

As for hotels…one of the best deals with free hotel nights is the Hyatt sign up bonus of 2 free nights at any Hyatt in the world, and speaking of Paris, the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris is widely viewed as one of the best hotels in the world, and one of the best uses of the free nights, since the retail price is typically $750-$1000+ per night.

Another option to keep in mind is that several hotel chains (including Starwood, Hyatt, and Marriott) all offer an option for a combined Cash+Points redemption.  In other words, you pay for part of your trip with Points, and partly with Cash.  This can be very useful when the retail rates are expensive, and you wouldn’t want to pay the full amount, but you also don’t have a huge stash of points.  For example, in November the Mrs. Guru and I will be spending 4 nights at the Westin Grand Cayman.  Retail rates are close to $400 per night, but the hotel requires 12,000 points per night for a free award night.  The Cash+Points option is a happy medium between the two: 6,000 points + $110 per night.

Hotels with Cash:

When it comes to hotels, I can’t say that there are a ton of magic tricks to score major deals.  I definitely recommend checking out HotelsCombined and Kayak, which both search dozens of smaller third-party websites.

In addition to finding a discounted rate, you also may be able to take advantage of hotel Best Rate Guarantees.  Not too long ago, I wrote about the Best Rate Guarantee for Choice Hotels, which offers the first night of your stay completely free.  While most Choice Hotels are in the US, it does look like they have a few decent properties in Paris like this Clarion.  Hyatt will match the lower rate plus take an additional 20% your entire stay, while Marriott will match the lower rate plus take 25% off.

Bottom Line:

Putting together a great deal on a big trip can take a bit of work, and piecing together the best options.  You may be able to combine points for flights to London, with a Free Night at a Choice Hotel there, then a cheap $75 EasyJet connection down to Paris, with a couple more nights from the Chase Hyatt Card.  I know the above advice is a bit scattered, but hopefully it can help get your wheels turning about how you can put together your dream trip at a fraction of the cost!