I love Ibiza. This beautiful island off the coast of Spain is a magical place where you can lounge on the beach during the day and dance until dawn each night. And I am going back again this year for a month! You can read about my trip in 2013 here or my trip in 2012 here. 
When United announced the increased cost in their award tickets back in December, I too that opportunity to book this trip to Ibiza. By booking it before the increases came, I was able to book at the old partner rate of 100,000 miles for business class instead of the new price of 160,000 miles. Following the process I showed you in this article on checking Star Alliance Availability, I found my transatlantic award seats first then found the connecting seats after that. Due to frequently flyer availability, I actually ended up booking travel over in Business Class on Lufthansa and coming back in First Class on United for a cost of 117,500 miles. This was me in Lufthansa First Class last year living it up! 
The taxes and fees came up to $181. You could do a similar trip in coach for just 60,000 miles and a little less taxes. I transferred some of the 40,000 miles I earned for the Chase Sapphire Preferred sign on bonus to United to book the flights.
As you can see, I had to sort of backtrack from Miami to Charlotte to catch my connecting flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt. There was availability on the direct flight on Lufthansa from Miami to Frankfurt, but the business class on that flight doesn’t have the completely lie flat seating which makes a big difference in being able to sleep and arrive rested.
I also had to include a stopover in Frankfurt for two nights to be able to catch the flight from Frankfurt to Ibiza. This isn’t a bad thing because I know some people in Germany that I can visit during those two nights. I also have a stopover in Frankfurt on the way home. I was able to book two nights in Frankfurt at one of the Pointbreaks hotels for only 5,000 points a night which is a steal! Since Ibiza doesn’t really have any chain hotels where I could use points, I am staying in an apartment that a friend found on airbnb.com. By splitting the apartment with friends we were able to make the cost quite reasonable.
Travel doesn’t have to be expensive and if you follow the steps I lay out in the Easy Quarter Million then you can use miles for most of it! What are you waiting for? Check out our Getting Started page now!
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