This is another in our Take Me Away series of articles. We first showed you how to get to Bali for free and then tackled Costa Rica. I took my own advice and ended up flying to Costa Rica last month for only $45! If you don’t have miles yet, take 30-45 minutes and complete our free Getting Started page so you will be ready next time
World Cup madness is upon us and I wanted to see what last minute trips were available with miles to get you to Brazil. Since the matches are scattered around Brazil over a large timeframe, this was a perfect opportunity to come up with some creative frequent flyer tickets! Here are some of the options I found using my article on How to Search OneWorld availability using Quantas.com. Once I found available flights I priced them out following the article on How to book OneWorld flights with British Airways Miles.
British Airways is a transfer partner of Ultimate Rewards. You can transfer miles earned from the 40,000 point bonus of the Chase Sapphire Preferred, or the 60,000 point bonus of the Chase Ink Bold, or the book directly with 50,000 Avios bonus of the Chase British Airways card.
Option 1: Sao Paulo
There is TONS of availability for this city. You could use this as a jumping off point for many of the other cities. To keep things simple (and the milage costs down), I am only going to focus on the non stop available awards. For just 50,000 Avios + $88 you could fly down from Miami and see three world cup matches!
For those of you not in Miami, British Airways may not be the cheapest option (but it probably still will be), so check out the American flights for 60,000 AA or US Airways Miles and $118 from anywhere in the continental US. The Citibank AA Mastercard currently has a 50K sign up bonus and the US Airways Card has a 40K bonus after spending $1. You would just need to find connecting flights from your city to Miami where there are award seats using the tools we linked to above.
Option 2: Recife
For the non stop there is only availability after the USA match but you could see the first match of the Round of 16. You could spend the rest of the time on the beautiful beaches of Recife! For only 40,000 Avios (the same amount as the sign on bonus for the Chase Sapphire Preferred) + $88 you could see this historic match!
You could do the same thing from anywhere in the US for the higher price of 60,000 AA miles + $118.
Option 3: Rio de Janeiro
How does this sound for the ultimate long weekend? Fly into Rio on Thursday night, July 3, arrive at 5 in the morning on July 4, attend the quarter finals that day at the famous Estádio Maracanã, then celebrate through the weekend in Rio then fly back out on Sunday July 6. For only 50,000 Avios (the exact amount of the sign up bonus on the Chase British Airways Visa) or 60,000 American Miles, you can do it! And there are two seats available so you can take a friend with you!
Option 4: Brasilia
You can’t make the Colombia match unfortunately for the cheapest miles price, but you can make it for 3 matches including the Quarter-finals in the amazing city of Brasilia for only 40,000 Avios (which you could get from the sign up bonus of the Chase Sapphire Preferred) and $91!
Like the other options you could travel from anywhere else in the US using 60,000 American miles once you find your connecting flights to Miami.
Option 5: Belo Horizonte
For just 40,000 Avios and $88 you can leave in two days and see Argentina, Costa Rica, and England play, and also catch the first round of 16 match in Belo Horizonte, one of the most beautiful cities in all of Brazil!
As with the others, 60K AA miles is also an option if you aren’t located in Miami.
Bonus Option 6 for my Colombian Friends
I have so many Colombian Friends I had to include an option to see your match vs Japan in Cuiabá, Brazil on June 24. Since Cuiabá is such a small airport, I couldn’t find frequent flyer seats there so you would need to buy a ticket from Sao Paulo to there for $78.
You could then buy another $65 ticket from Cuiabá to Brasilia to catch your frequent flyer ticket back from there.
This gives you a total cost of 45,000 Avios and $234. Which still isn’t too bad to see your country play in the world cup! A better option might be to predict where they will play in the Round of 16 and go there since I am sure they will be making it through!
Summary
You would still need hotels and tickets to the games but there are a ton of options available to you when you get the flights there for cheap. Using the tools I have provided above you can look for the flights and cities that match up with your favorite teams. That Rio option is looking awfully tempting to me. I think those two seats are going to go quickly once this article is published!
Feel free to comment on what other good options you found and tell me which matches you think would be the best to watch! As always, reply with any questions and follow me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss any great info!
