Flying a family of four to Europe (in style)

Gooooood morning, friends. And happy (day after) Christmas, to you all.

Hopefully, after a long day of family chaos and couch naps, you’re reading this from the comfort of your PJs.

And speaking of PJs, let’s daydream a little about where your points and miles could take you next year… starting with an in-house Daily Drop example.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Flying a family of four to Europe (in style)

There’s a very specific flavor of stress that comes with booking a big trip.

When you have a family, you can multiply that by four.

… and add international travel.

………. now sprinkle in award availability.

And despite all of those things, one Daily Drop reader flew her entire family to Europe (with points, obvi!).👇

Here’s how she did it

Andrea needed to get her family from Chicago to Norway.

Instead of trying to jam the entire trip into one airline or one program, she broke it into pieces.

On the way over, she booked premium economy on Air France/KLM using Flying Blue miles (topping up her account with UR points).

That meant more space, a better overnight experience, and a much nicer start to the trip… without paying business-class prices in points.

For the way home, she went big.

She booked Virgin Atlantic Upper Class from London to Boston for all four travelers, using points for the seats and paying taxes and fees out of pocket.

Expensive flight? Covered. 😎

She didn’t stress about the perfect route or positioning flights upfront. Once the hardest pieces were locked in, the rest was just filling in the gaps.

If you’re looking at a family or group trip and thought, “yeaaaah, this feels impossible,” here’s what she did right:

• She tackled the flights that would’ve been brutal in cash first

• She treated each direction as its own puzzle, not a forced round trip

• And she used transferable points, so she wasn’t boxed into one airline’s rules

When you stop asking “what’s the cheapest possible award?” and start asking “where does award space actually exist for multiple people?” things get waaaay easier.

How to re-create this redemption

1. Start with the expensive leg: Identify the most expensive part of your trip in cash, which is usually the long-haul flight across the ocean.

2. Be flexible across the board: Search award space for that leg first, even if it means departing from or returning to a different city and using positioning flights to make it easier.

3. Search across multiple programs (I recommend trying at least one program for each major alliance to get a solid spread of options – using Daily Drop Pro is a solid starting point).

4. Transferable points are your new BFF: Use transferable points (like UR points) so you can pivot between programs if one airline doesn’t have enough seats. Once the long-haul flights are booked, fill in the positioning flights.

The big takeaway

Yes, group award travel can be hard, but it’s not impossible.

It’s all about a little perspective, people! Family and group trips aren’t about finding the “perfect” award.

They’re about finding available space, locking in the toughest flights first, and being flexible enough to let everything else fall into place.

You can always come join us in the Daily Drop Lounge to see more redemption wins like this (or share your own).

That’s it for today, my friends. We’ll be back on Monday to share another redemption from a fellow Daily Drop reader and teach you how to recreate it.

Have a good weekend (and lay off the eggnog already, would ya?)

Byeeeee,

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