Under points & under budget (Stephen’s 100K Vacay journal)

My 100K Vacay has come to an end and even I’m impressed by the numbers I put up (or, more like, didn’t put up!)

Update 10/8/25 – Under points & under budget

Yesterday was our final full day of the 100K Vacay challenge. Nick and I have to be back in time for the livestream tonight at 9pm ET where Greg and Carrie will announce the winner (don’t miss it!)

When we first started planning the challenge internally (so before we’d shared about it on the blog), I’d run two things past Greg. 1) Was he OK with Shae joining me on the trip if we paid for all her expenses (he was), and 2) Was he OK if I didn’t fly all the way back to JFK at the end of the trip?

The reason for that latter question is that Shae and I now live in the UK. Seeing as Greg is reimbursing me and Nick for the cost of our trips, it didn’t seem worth him having to pay for me to fly all the way back to the US and then for Shae and I to have to immediately turn around and fly back to the UK.

He was happy with this arrangement, provided I could show what flights were available for me to take from Prague to JFK today, that they still fit within my budget, and that the flight data would need to show that the flights would indeed have gotten me back in time for the 9pm livestream.

Back in May, I’d found flights on KLM flying from Prague to Amsterdam and on to New York JFK. Rather than booking those with Flying Blue miles though, I’d have booked them with Virgin Atlantic points. The price was only 16,000 points per person and $218.01.

When looking for screenshots of that pricing a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find it in the Dropbox folder I’d set up for the challenge. A few months later, I realized that I’d taken the screenshots on my phone rather than my laptop and simply hadn’t uploaded them to Dropbox yet.

When checking the pricing again last month, I came across an even better option that would have greatly reduced our layover at Amsterdam airport.

For ordinary travel, I probably would’ve picked that latter option. However, for the purposes of the challenge I’d definitely have chosen to fly the first option and deal with the long layover to greatly reduce the risk of missing the Amsterdam to New York leg due to a tight layover in the event of any delay and thus miss the livestream.

That would’ve been our only expense today, with the exception of getting from Prague Old Town to the airport. A bus and train would’ve cost about $6 but, in a surprise to end all surprises, I splashed out $34.33 for a Bolt ride. I still had plenty of space in my budget and with both Shae and I getting sick yesterday, neither of us fancied having to deal with both an earlier start to the morning and public transportation.

My budget

The end result is a very pleasing set of budgetary stats.

Early on in the trip, a reader had pointed out that the number of Capital One miles I’d needed to transfer to Virgin was a little less than I’d noted because points could be transferred in increments of 100 rather than 1,000. I fixed that for both that redemption and my redemption for today, but had forgotten I could also do that for my two Wyndham nights in Munich and our British Airways flights from London to Munich.

After taking those changes into account, our 100K Vacay – for two people – only required 89,900 points: more than 10,000 points below budget.

My cash budget also came in at $928.31: almost $75 under budget. Not only did I spend less than I was allowed, I also spent less than Greg’s benchmark trip.

Shae’s cash element was accounted for separately, but at $812.57 that was even less than my total.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33
Saturday
British Airways flight	18,500	$1
Ramada Munich Messe	6,800**	0
Local transportation	0	$21.50
Lunch at airport	0	$8.16
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$54.60
Sunday
Ramada Munich Messe	6,700**	0
Local transportation	0	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$74.97
Monday
Local transportation	0	$4.80
Flixbus	0	$24.35
Lunch	0	$13.00
Restroom at bus station	0	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	10,000	$2.41***
Dinner at Lokal	0	$20.33
Tuesday
Clarion Prague Old Town	10,000	$2.41***
Pilsner Urquell Experience	0	$26.29
Soda	0	$2.39
Bakery	0	$3.71
Spa Beerland	0	$98.55****
Dinner at Lokal	0	$24.68
Wednesday
KLM flights booked via Virgin	24,600*****	$218.01
Bolt ride to airport	0	$34.33
Totals	89,900	$928.31

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points
** This normally costs 7,500 Wyndham points, but was only 6,750 thanks to the 10% discount for being a cardholder. That meant needing to transfer a total of 13,500 Capital One miles for the purposes of the challenge (I actually had the points in my account already, so didn’t need to do the transfer)
*** There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays
****The total cost was $129; if I was to have done the activity without Shae it would’ve cost $98.55, so I’ve allocated that larger proportion to my $1,000 budget.
*****30% transfer bonus meant I could transfer 24,600 Capital One miles to get 31,980 Virgin points. I already had 90 Virgin points left over from the transfer for our flights from JFK to London

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81
Saturday
British Airways flight	$1
Local transportation	$21.50
Lunch at airport	$7.05
Oktoberfest food & drink	$57.42
Sunday
Local transportation	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	$74.97
Other snacks	$10.54
Monday
Local transportation	$4.80
Flixbus	$24.35
Lunch	$8.26
Restroom at bus station	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	$2.41*
Dinner at Lokal	$20.33
Tuesday
Clarion Prague Old Town	$2.41*
Pilsner Urquell Experience	$26.29
Soda	$2.39
Bakery	$3.71
Spa Beerland	$30.45
Dinner at Lokal	$28.26
Wednesday
KLM flights booked via Virgin	$218.01
Total	$812.57

* There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays

Update 10/7/25 – Hopping into a beer spa & more

Shae and I wanted to experience as much of Prague as we could today. We’d already determined though that we’ll definitely be returning, so we didn’t hustle quite as much as we would have if we knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Hotel breakfast

We kicked off with complimentary breakfast at the hotel. I hadn’t been sure if this would be included; Clarion properties do usually include complimentary breakfast, but I didn’t think that was always the case. The breakfast buffet wasn’t as plentiful as some buffets you’ll find internationally, but there was still a good selection of items from salad to fruit to yogurt to cereal and muesli to hot options to a wide variety of breads and more. My favorite item was the chickpea curry, but they also had surprisingly good scrambled eggs for a breakfast buffet.

 

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Prague exploring

It was then time to explore Prague. We’d walked past it on our way to check in at our hotel the previous day, but we stopped by the Powder Tower to truly appreciate its beauty. It dates back to the late 1400s and was one of the original gates to the city. Rather than being built as a city defense, it was constructed as a way to impress visitors and it’s not hard to see why.

Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience

From there we continued on to one of our main activities for the day. When planning out my 100K Vacay, I’d originally planned to visit Budapest due to an activity they have there. After learning that it was also available in Prague (more about that later) and that the Czech Republic is home to Pilsner, I rejigged my plans to visit Prague instead.

Dating back to the mid 1800s, Pilsner Urquell is responsible for being the first brewery to produce Pilsner. Pilsner – and derivatives of it – are now responsible for more than 70% of beer produced worldwide, so we had to visit Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience. Their main brewery is based in Pilsen, but this experience is located in Prague.

It’s a (mostly) self-guided tour, with a headset in your chosen language being provided when arriving. The headset tracks where you are at the attraction, so it doesn’t start playing the next information until you’re in the correct area. It’s a very well done interactive experience that provides history about beer in general, the Czech Republic and – most importantly – the Czech Republic’s influence on brewing worldwide.

The tour includes 2.5 beers. The half a beer comes at a bar area; our server was Sylvain who was lovely and included more interactive elements.

After finishing that off, there were more interactive exhibits which included some fun wall-high touchscreen games.

At the end of the tour, you’re given a couple of coupons for two more complimentary beers and you can choose what type of pour you want.

The Czech Republic has three main types of pours: hladinka, šnyt and mlíko. Hladinko is more of a traditional pour, with two-thirds of the glass being beer and the top third being foam. Šnyt is two fingers of beer, three fingers of foam and one finger of nothing in the top of the glass.

The third option – mlíko is the most unusual. Mlíko is the Czech word for milk and is named that way because it’s a pour of nearly all foam. As a Brit, it slightly pained me at first because having too much head on your beer is a cardinal sin. However, mlíko is designed this way because the foam is much sweeter and still contains a good amount of beer. You’re supposed to drink it within 2-3 minutes because otherwise it converts into regular liquid.

Our half beer earlier on in the tour had been a šnyt, so with our two free beer coupons we each ordered a hladinka and a mlíko. We didn’t end up drinking the mlíko quite quickly enough, so by the time we finished it some more of it had converted to regular beer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly though, my favorite type of pour was the hladinko.

Shae and I both had a great time at the Pilsner Urquell experience and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in beer. At almost $27 per person, it’s not a cheap experience, but it does include 2.5 beers.

A little tip if you are interested in visiting – consider booking your tickets at least a day in advance. We booked directly on the day of our visit and that wasn’t a problem; it wasn’t at all packed. However, if you book the day before or earlier, you can book tickets via Viator. The price appears to be virtually the same, but it does mean you can take advantage of often-generous shopping portal payouts for Viator. Viator sadly doesn’t let you book tickets for the same day though, so we missed out on earning those additional rewards.

More Prague exploring

On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at several other places along the way. I’d considered booking us some kind of guided walking tour, but due to the activities I’d scheduled for late morning and later that afternoon, it seemed easier to do our own thing for this trip rather than try to fit some other fixed-timed activity in to our schedule.

There’s a Franz Kafka statue, one of several Kafka-themed attractions in the city (he was born in Prague).

Our next stop was the Prague Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall. We sadly didn’t time things well, so we arrived there just after 1:30pm and so we missed it in action. On the hour, the clock has moving figures representing vanity, death, greed, and lust, as well as statues of the twelve apostles above the clock.

Old Town in Prague is such a ridiculously charming place, with beautiful architecture everywhere. I can’t think of another city I’ve been to that’s retained so much of its historic grandeur.

We decided to make a short pitstop back at our hotel, stopping at a bakery just around the corner to pick up a few Czech treats. It was a lovely day out, so we took advantage of the enormous terrace that came with our suite to try them all out. Here’s a video with our thoughts on them:

 

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We weren’t going to have time to make the long walk up to Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral, so we decided to go over to the Municipal Library of Prague to check out Idiom – also known as the Infinity Book Tower – thanks to this tip from Scott in the comments.

JT subsequently shared some additional information about where to line up. That was helpful, but what was unhelpful was how long the line was when we arrived and how slowly it was moving. Shae and I quickly realized that we didn’t have enough time to wait to see the book tower if we were to make our 4pm activity. Rather than going straight back to the hotel, we took a lovely walk along the river, getting a better view of Prague Castle in the distance.

Spa Beerland

I mentioned earlier that I’d originally planned on finishing our 100K Vacay trip in Budapest. That’s because I’d heard about a beer spa there where you can soak in a beer bath and drink beer while you’re there.

That sounded like a fun, unique experience, but it turns out it’s not quite as unique as I thought. There are beer spas elsewhere, including Prague. With the Czech Republic also being home to Pilsner, that tipped things in Prague’s favor.

Prague has at least two beer spas. I picked Spa Beerland because it had great reviews online and was only a five minute walk from our hotel. We arrived about 15 minutes before our scheduled start time of 4pm; rather than making us wait until 4pm, they ushered us downstairs into our own private room.

The room had two large wooden tubs for soaking in; each one was large enough for two people, but no one else was in the room with us. Off to the right was a large area where you can relax in hay after soaking; apparently that can be good for your skin.

You won’t go hungry or thirsty during your session. We were provided with a selection of beer bread…

…and glasses to serve ourselves all the beer we wanted to drink during the hour-long soaking session. You have the choice of light colored beer and dark beer; I tried some of Shae’s light beer and it was good, but the dark beer was much better in my opinion (although darker beers are my favorite anyway).

The employee added brewer’s yeast and hops to the bath, stirring it up to make it more beer-like.

And with that, she left us to it.

What you wear into the beer bath is up to you. We’d brought along swimsuits as we figured we might be in a room with others, but that wasn’t the case at Spa Beerland. You can therefore strip off (if you want) without needing to worry about modesty.

In another throwback to the 3 Cards, 3 Continents challenge, we grabbed some cucumber slices from our hotel’s buffet breakfast to have the full relaxation experience.

Spa Beerland charges €85 (~$98.55) for one person for one hour, and €110 (~$129) for two people for one hour. It’s therefore a very expensive experience if you’re visiting solo, but is better value if there are two of you. We really enjoyed this (sort of) unique experience, so it’s worth checking out if this interests you.

Dinner at Lokál Dlouhááá

We went to dinner the previous night at Lokál Dlouhááá, a nearby local Czech restaurant. Following a reel we posted on Instagram, quite a few people subsequently shared how much they enjoyed eating there too.

We also received a few other dining establishment recommendations, but I had my heart set on the beef shin goulash again, so we headed there at 8pm, thinking there’d be no wait.

I was wrong as the wait was just as long. What made it feel even longer is that both Shae and I had started feeling sick that morning and continued feeling worse throughout the day. Waiting about 45 minutes to get a seat for dinner therefore wasn’t ideal and then disaster struck.

After finally getting seated, we took a look at the menu and realized that it had changed since the previous day. Alas, the beef shin goulash I wanted was no longer available.

Instead, we both started off with beef broth with noodles, hoping it would help soothe our increasingly scratchy throats.

For my entrée, I made do with chicken schnitzel and buttered potatoes which was nice and filling, but not what I’d been craving for the previous 24 hours. Thankfully the dish Shae wanted – fried edam cheese, buttered potatoes, and tartare sauce – was still available and she enjoyed that.

(Non) after dinner drinks

While at Oktoberfest, we got chatting to a couple of German people. After sharing that we’d be going to Prague next, one of them suggested visiting Vzorkovna Dog Bar as it was a bar she loved when studying there.

It doesn’t open until 9pm, so we planned to go tonight after finishing dinner. However, between the fact that it would be a 20-25 minute walk each way, we were feeling increasingly sick, and our livers probably weren’t appreciating the thought of another drink, we decided to head back to our hotel to try and rest up before flying out tomorrow.

We’ll certainly be coming back to Prague, so this is another place that’s on our to-visit list for next time.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33
Saturday
British Airways flight	18,500	$1
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$21.50
Lunch at airport	0	$8.16
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$54.60
Sunday
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$74.97
Monday
Local transportation	0	$4.80
Flixbus	0	$24.35
Lunch	0	$13.00
Restroom at bus station	0	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	10,000	$2.41***
Dinner at Lokal	0	$20.33
Tuesday
Clarion Prague Old Town	10,000	$2.41***
Pilsner Urquell Experience	0	$26.29
Soda	0	$2.39
Bakery	0	$3.71
Spa Beerland	0	$98.55****
Dinner at Lokal	0	$24.68
Totals	65,800	$675.97

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points
** This normally costs 7,500 Wyndham points, but was only 6,750 thanks to the 10% discount for being a cardholder. That meant needing to transfer 7,000 Capital One miles for the purposes of the challenge (I actually had the points in my account already, so didn’t need to do the transfer)
*** There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays
****The total cost was $129; if I was to have done the activity without Shae it would’ve cost $98.55, so I’ve allocated that larger proportion to my $1,000 budget.

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81
Saturday
British Airways flight	$1
Local transportation	$21.50
Lunch at airport	$7.05
Oktoberfest food & drink	$57.42
Sunday
Local transportation	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	$74.97
Other snacks	$10.54
Monday
Local transportation	$4.80
Flixbus	$24.35
Lunch	$8.26
Restroom at bus station	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	$2.41*
Dinner at Lokal	$20.33
Tuesday
Clarion Prague Old Town	$2.41*
Pilsner Urquell Experience	$26.29
Soda	$2.39
Bakery	$3.71
Spa Beerland	$30.45
Dinner at Lokal	$28.26
Total	$594.56

* There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays

Update 10/6/25 – Czeching out a new country

After another big night at Oktoberfest, Shae and I enjoyed getting to laze around in bed until 10am before having to get up and going. We walked to the closest subway station to the hotel (Moosfeld), catching a train to Munich Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) and then switched trains to ride one further stop to Munich Central Bus Station.

To-go lunch

There are lots of restaurants at the Central Bus Station, along with a Lidl grocery store, so we had plenty of options to grab some snacks for our upcoming journey. We first stopped at a store to pick up a sandwich costing $3-$4, then went over to Lidl to get a selection of other snacks.

My sandwich was frikadellen brötchen – meatballs in a crusty roll with remoulade. This was ridiculously tasty; the bread was perfect, there was just the right amount of remoulade to ensure the sandwich wasn’t dry, and the meatballs were flavorful.

Shae meanwhile got schnittbrötchen which contained salami, lettuce, and pickles; she thought her sandwich was delicious too.

Here’s everything we snagged for our journey:

 

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How we got from Munich to Prague

As the location where we set off from would suggest – and the fact that you can see us on a bus in the above video – our journey to Prague happened via bus.

I’d looked into flight options from Munich to Prague, but they were incredibly limited. If we wanted to fly nonstop, it would’ve cost $312 with Lufthansa; they’re the only airline that flies nonstop between the two cities which I was a little surprised about. Booking with cash wasn’t an option though (not that my budget would’ve allowed it), as any flights and hotels booked as part of this 100K Vacay challenge have to be booked with points.

An award booking would’ve cost 7,500 Aeroplan points + $87 in taxes and fees. That would’ve given exactly 3 cents per point of value for the Aeroplan points which is very good value, but it’s still very expensive for a flight blocked at less than an hour.

It seems particularly expensive when you consider how cheaply we were able to get from Munich to Prague via Flixbus. Our tickets were only $24.35 per person, so less than a third of the taxes and fees on the Aeroplan award flight, not to mention the fact that we also didn’t have to redeem any Aeroplan points!

The journey took about five hours, so longer than the scheduled flight time. However, our overall travel time was probably very similar. For starters, it would’ve taken longer for us to get from our hotel to the airport than it did to get to the bus station. We also would have wanted to get to the airport several hours early. Yesterday was the last day of Oktoberfest, so many people were flying home today. That likely meant larger crowds at security, slower-moving lines due to hungover revelers, etc., so we would’ve have wanted to risk missing our flight due to long security lines. Then once we’d have arrived at Prague airport, we would’ve had to spend up to an hour getting to our hotel via public transport.

Flixbus on the other hand dropped us off in the center of Prague, making it only a 15-20 minute walk to our hotel. The five hour bus journey also gave both of us an opportunity to sleep for 2-3 hours along the way, so we were nice and refreshed by the time we arrived.

It wasn’t an issue for us this time as we’re traveling fairly light, but another benefit of Flixbus is that you get both a carry on item and one checked bag weighing up to 20 kgs (44 lbs). You can add additional checked bags of that size for only $7.50 per piece, or suitcases weighing up to 30 kg (66 lbs) for $11.50. Try paying that with Lufthansa!

Overall, I don’t regret a thing and it’s the journey routing I’d pick for a regular vacation even when we’re not constrained by 100K points and a $1,000 budget. That’s not to say that everyone should feel that way, but for us it was by far the superior option.

The bus route to Prague Main Railway Station gave us a fantastic view of the city’s stunning architecture on the drive in, then we got to see more on the walk to the hotel. We’ll be exploring the city more tomorrow, but I already know for sure that this won’t be our last time in Prague.

Here’s a quick view of our route to the hotel.

 

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Clarion Prague Old Town

I’d known ahead of time that our hotel stay in Prague would be our most impressive of our trip, but even I was pleasantly surprised by quite how amazing it is.

One thing I wanted to do during the challenge was book a stay at each of the three hotel transfer partners that Capital One has. Well, Capital One threw a spanner in the works the other week by adding Preferred Hotels as a fourth hotel transfer partner. I looked at my options for London, Munich, and Prague, but there wasn’t anything good on the Preferred Hotels front.

I’m glad I didn’t find any Preferred Hotels properties in Prague that could fit within our points budget for one of our two nights here, because I would’ve instantly regretted it upon checking in at the Clarion Prague Old Town.

Award nights at this property only cost 10,000 points per night and there’s a variety of rooms bookable. The one that particularly caught my eye was the 1 Double Bed, 1 Bedroom Suite, Castle View room.

A one bedroom suite with a view of Prague Castle for only 10,000 points per night? That sounded great, but it gets so much better than that.

For starters, the double bed is like two twins put together and is more like a queen or king size bed than a double.

The bathroom is a decent enough size, plus there’s a separate living room. We were greeted with a welcome amenity of a small bottle of sparkling wine, a good-sized fruit bowl, and a bottle of water. We don’t have any kind of meaningful status with Choice, so this is presumably what’s offered when booking this suite.

The absolute best part of the suite isn’t what’s inside though. What I hadn’t realized when booking is that our suite is on the top floor of the hotel and comes with our own private – ridiculously massive – terrace looking out over the Vltava river and Old Town.

Here’s a full walkthrough video of our suite to give a better sense of how amazing this place is for only 10,000 Choice points:

 

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The cash rate for our stay would’ve been $272 per night, so we got 2.72 cents per point of value from this booking.

It’s worth noting that ordinarily, transferring Capital One miles to Choice would be a very poor choice. That’s because Choice frequently sells its points for ~0.6 cents per point, so you could buy 10,000 points for only $60. Citi and Wells Fargo also transfer to Choice on a 1:2 basis rather than Capital One’s 1:1 ratio. For the purposes of the challenge, I’ve had to account for the booking as me transferring 10,000 Capital One miles per night, but that’s not what I actually did.

Dinner at Lokál Dlouhááá

While on the bus from Munich to Prague, I started researching our dinner options. As would be expected from a cosmopolitan European city, you can get pretty much any cuisine you like here. We wanted to try something local though and a restaurant less than a five minute walk from our hotel seemed to fit the bill.

If you want to eat at Lokál Dlouhááá at dinner time, I’d recommend making a reservation as we had to wait about 45 minutes to get a seat. The place was packed with who seemed to be local Czechs, so we knew it should be good rather than just a tourist trap. Lines cleared by about 7:45pm, so a later dinner should mean you can more easily get a table.

While waiting, we checked out the food and drink menu (100 CZK = ~$5):

We wanted both local food and drink, so I ordered half a liter of their Kozel black unfiltered beer (very good and malty), while Shae had a glass of Czech red wine (also very good).

For dinner, we decided to share a couple of dishes. The photo below is boiled beef neck with horseradish sauce and bread dumplings. This was very tasty and wasn’t spicy; there was a lot of horseradish flavor, but no horseradish kick.

The dish in this next photo was both my and Shae’s favorite though. That was beef shin goulash with a variety of dumplings. I’m not normally a fan of dumplings, but both types were excellent. The beef was tender and the goulash was incredible.

The main dishes on the menu include unlimited sauce and side dish. A second serving of the dumplings and goulash at no additional cost was too good to pass up, so we ordered another serving to share. The additional serving doesn’t come with any large chunks of beef shin, but it was excellent nonetheless.

Our meal was so good that we’re seriously considering going there for dinner again tomorrow night. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel room for Shae to relax and me to work on this journal entry.

Tomorrow, we have a much more activity-filled day planned. As you’ll have noticed so far, my 100K Vacay has had a significant beer theme, with me brewing beer in London and then us visiting Oktoberfest in Munich. Prague will continue that theme, with two fun beer-related activities on the books. Any idea what we’ll be up to? Share your guesses in the comments.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33
Saturday
British Airways flight	18,500	$1
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$21.50
Lunch at airport	0	$8.16
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$54.60
Sunday
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$74.97
Monday
Local transportation	0	$4.80
Flixbus	0	$24.35
Lunch	0	$13.00
Restroom at bus station	0	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	10,000	$2.41***
Dinner at Lokal	0	$20.33
Totals	55,800	$517.94

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points
** This normally costs 7,500 Wyndham points, but was only 6,750 thanks to the 10% discount for being a cardholder. That meant needing to transfer 7,000 Capital One miles for the purposes of the challenge (I actually had the points in my account already, so didn’t need to do the transfer)
*** There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays

Shae’s cash budget

<tr”>ItemCash Spent

Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81
Saturday
British Airways flight	$1
Local transportation	$21.50
Lunch at airport	$7.05
Oktoberfest food & drink	$57.42
Sunday
Local transportation	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	$74.97
Other snacks	$10.54
Monday
Local transportation	$4.80
Flixbus	$24.35
Lunch	$8.26
Restroom at bus station	$1.17
Clarion Prague Old Town	$2.41*
Dinner at Lokal	$20.33
Total	$501.05

* There’s a 50 CZK city tax per person that payable even on award stays

Update 10/5/25 – Oktoberfest day 2

After getting back from Oktoberfest last night, we had the mid-challenge livestream check-in at midnight local time, so it was just after 1am by the time we’d finished. I then had to get my last journal entry posted, so I didn’t get to bed until closer to 2:30am-3am. Laying in bed, I did Wordle, Strands, Connections, etc. before having my phone land on my face while trying to complete the New York Times crossword – clearly a sign that it was time to go to sleep!

Thankfully Greg and Carrie had built into the challenge the ability to earn points for relaxing during our 100K Vacay, so Shae and I took full advantage of that by staying in bed until about 2pm. We’d both woken up a couple of times in the meantime, but we both got a good 10-12 hours sleep which was apparently much needed, especially after spending a week traipsing around New York City the week before the challenge.

The plan had been to go to a café across from our hotel for brunch/lunch, or to go to a grocery store to pick up some food. However, when scrolling through nearby options on Google Maps, we noticed that pretty much every place nearby was closed; I guess most German grocery stores and restaurants close on a Sunday? Thankfully I’d brought along a pack of granola bars in an emergency, so one of those tided me over until we got to Oktoberfest.

We needed to get dressed in our lederhosen, but there was a wardrobe malfunction along the way. Thank you to Carrie for finding the perfect music to go with this!

 

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The weather was perfectly fine at our hotel, but as soon as we arrived at Theresienwiese the weather decided to have ideas of its own and started pouring down. We therefore once again ran to find somewhere dry, sheltering underneath the awning of some kind of snack place. As soon as it clear up a little, we looked for a beer hall.

After standing in line to get inside at Paulaner Festzekt, we cut our losses and grabbed a seat at a spare table outside there. We sat at a table with a lovely German and French couple who thankfully spoke better English than we spoke German and French.

Side note: growing up in the UK, I had the choice to take one or two languages for my GCSEs (sort of the UK version of a high school diploma). I took both German and French, getting an A for German and B for French. I’m afraid it’s been almost 30 years (ugh!) since I left secondary (AKA high) school though, so I’ve sadly forgotten nearly everything I learned. For some reason I can still remember that “Wie komme ich am besten zum bahnhof bitte?” means “What’s the best way to the train station please” in German, but Google Maps has rendered that redundant. Well, that and the fact that my wife Shae has an incredible sense of direction, so one visit somewhere means she knows where we need to go.

Something we had to have at Oktoberfest was a proper pretzel, so we were grateful that someone came around with a basket of those for €8 each (~$9.50). It was large enough to share and was delicious despite not being warm, nor having mustard with it.

It was tempting to stay at our table with the lovely couple we were with, but we wanted to experience more of Oktoberfest, so we decided to move on.

As (bad) luck would have it, it started to pour again while we were wandering around, so we decided to try to get inside somewhere. Löwenbräu is a brewery I’d heard of before and I think I’d tried their beers in the past, but I couldn’t remember if they’re the German version of Bud Light, Coors Light, etc. (i.e. not good.) We decided to give them a go though and I’m glad we did.

We ended up at a table with four young Irish guys, two Brazilian young women and a couple of others and there were a great bunch to sit with.

The atmosphere was lacking when we first arrived, but it soon picked up when a band started to play. That got a lot of the beer hall up on the benches and dancing around, making for a much more fun atmosphere.

We’d originally only planned to stay for one drink as we wanted to check out some kind of different beer hall. However, we were having such a great time that we stuck around for another drink which pretty much took us to the end of Oktoberfest (tonight was the final night).

We needed some proper food at that point. The previous night we’d done a drinking challenge, which I won both times. Tonight we both tried to eat a sausage in a bun as quickly as possible; I was once again the winner!

That still meant that all we’d eaten that day was a granola bar, half a pretzel each and a sausage in a bun each. On the walk back to our hotel from our train station, there are three vending machines. One of them had cheese and meat, so we bought one of each. Shae somehow hit the jackpot and ended up with three packs of cheese after only paying for one.

We would’ve loved to stay in Munich for longer to explore more of the city, but it’s time to move on to a new location tomorrow.

Yep – we’re off to a third country on our 100K Vacay tomorrow! We’re keeping that location a secret right now, but here’s a hint: the country has been mentioned already in this journal. There are two key reasons we’re going there which will be revealed shortly. Any guesses as to where we’re off to? Let us know in the comments below.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33
Saturday
British Airways flight	18,500	$1
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$21.50
Lunch at airport	0	$8.16
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$54.60
Sunday
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation		$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink		$74.97

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points
** This normally costs 7,500 Wyndham points, but was only 6,750 thanks to the 10% discount for being a cardholder. That meant needing to transfer 7,000 Capital One miles for the purposes of the challenge (I actually had the points in my account already, so didn’t need to do the transfer)

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81
Saturday
British Airways flight	$1
Local transportation	$21.50
Lunch at airport	$7.05
Oktoberfest food & drink	$57.42
Sunday
Local transportation	$9.60
Oktoberfest food & drink	$74.97
Other snacks	$10.54

Update 10/4/25 – Oktoberfest day 1

After a day of brewing beer for me and traipsing around London for Shae, we were both toast at the end of the day. We therefore had to do a throwback to something I did during the 3 Cards, 3 Continents challenge. I had cucumber slices left over from my doner kebab; Shae had to make do with what was available.

This morning we went back to Heathrow airport, this time to Terminal 5. We had access to several lounges, so the original plan had been to visit at least two before our flight. Our first stop was the Club Aspire lounge, accessible with a Priority Pass membership that many credit cards offer. Unfortunately, they were busy and so were only accepting prebooked customers.

Our other Priority Pass option was the Plaza Premium lounge. We started heading that way, but it was at the other end of the terminal. Rather than getting all the way down there, only to discover we couldn’t gain entry due to overcrowding, we went with a guaranteed lounge option that would also definitely be nicer.

That lounge was the British Airways First lounge. Our flight was on British Airways, but only in economy, so we weren’t eligible for entry through that method. Instead, we were able to enter courtesy of my Hyatt Globalist status in an indirect way.

Hyatt recently had a status match/challenge via its partnership with American Airlines. I registered for that a few weeks ago which got me Platinum Pro status with American Airlines. That translates over to Oneworld Emerald status which is what makes you eligible for the BA First lounge.

The lounge is fantastic. It’s very spacious, so there was no problem finding a table to sit at and work, with lots of other comfortable seating available. We were there for breakfast and there was an extensive selection of hot options, along with fruit, cold cuts, cereal, muesli, pastries, etc. There’s also a great selection of self-serve drink, from sodas to tea and coffee to proper champagne (not just sparkling wine) to spirits and more.

 

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Our flight was booked with British Airways from London to Munich using 9,250 Avios per person + $1 in taxes. Capital One sadly didn’t have a transfer bonus to British Airways during the challenge planning parameters, but many other transferable currencies did. That means you could get this flight for only ~7,000 transferable points + $1 when there’s a 30% transfer bonus.

It’s often possible to get cheap flights around Europe courtesy of airlines like Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air, etc. However, those all exclude any baggage larger than a personal item unless you pay a fee, whereas we were each able to bring a carry on item and a personal item. My personal item was a laptop bag that wouldn’t have fit in the sizer, but BA isn’t fussy about that like low cost carriers are which is another benefit to booking our trip to Munich this way.

The flight was less than 90 minutes, so I’d hoped we’d get to our hotel by about 4pm. Unfortunately we had to get a bus to the terminal, then immigration took forever, then our train to our hotel was cancelled and so we had to wait for the next one. As a result, we didn’t get to our hotel until closer to 5:30pm. Ultimately, that wasn’t a huge issue because we weren’t on a time crunch; it just delayed our arrival at Oktoberfest.

Seeing as our train was delayed, we went upstairs quickly to a restaurant where Shae and I shared a pretzel and three Bavarian sausages. Despite looking anemic, the sausages tasted good!

The hotel we booked was the Ramada by Wyndham Munich Messe. It’s on the eastern side of the city, so it’s not as close to downtown as would’ve been ideal. However, it was our best available option considering we weren’t planning our trip ahead of time and it was ridiculously good value.

We were able to book a deluxe room with three single beds (well, effectively a double bed and a single) for only 7,500 Wyndham Rewards points. I have a Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card which gives a 10% discount on reward stays, so that reduced our cost to 6,750 points per night.

Ramada doesn’t have a great reputation in the US (which is quite justifiable), but outside of the US their properties tend to be much nicer. We stayed at one in Prince George, Canada last year which was very nice, with this property in Munich also being very good.

The bedroom’s a good size with the three beds, the closet is much larger than I’d have expected, there’s a mini fridge (something that’s sadly not at all common in Europe), a proper-sized desk, a separate bathroom and toilet, and more. The cash price would’ve been $452.74 per night due to it being Oktoberfest time, so being able to book it for a net cost of 6,750 points per night was ridiculous value. Here’s a quick walkthrough video:

 

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Something else that I wanted to highlight is that we had a welcome amenity of three surprisingly large cookies. I was impressed enough at that, but I was overjoyed when I bit into one to discover that it was a lebkuchen cookie. In case you’re not familiar with lebkuchen, they’re like a honey/gingerbread cookie. My mum used to buy them in the UK at Christmas time, so it was a treat we’d have at the end of each year and I loved them. It turns out that Shae isn’t as big of a fan of them as I am which suits me fine – three cookies all for me!

Once we’d gotten settled in and freshened up, it was time to catch a train downtown to experience Oktoberfest for the first time. We had to get into the spirit of things though, so we’d gotten lederhosen ahead of time:

 

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Although our hotel was on the outskirts of the city, it was only a 10 minute walk to the underground station. From there, it was only a few stops to Innsbrucker Ring, where we were able to hop off that train and catch a train on the adjacent platform.

We were a little unfortunate with the weather as it was rainy and breezy, so we got a little damp. Unless you’re part of a big group, you don’t make a reservation for a table at Oktoberfest; you just rock up and try to find a tent or beer hall with space. It took a little bit of waiting, but we finally got space at a table upstairs at Hacker Pschorr. At our table were a couple of young women from Germany and a couple of young guys from Maryland and they were all great to chat to. Servers came round with beers, with steins (about two pints) costing ~$17.50.

Shae isn’t the biggest fan of beer, but she gave a pretty good account for herself. You can apparently get wine and other drinks at some beer tents, but it seemed like Hacker Pschorr only had beer.

They did also have food which we appreciated, so I ordered a currywurst (my favorite German food), while Shae ordered cheese spaetzle (her favorite German food). Both of us loved what we ordered, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up back there tomorrow night.

For what it’s worth, my meal was ~$20.55, while Shae’s was ~$23.37. If you want to eat more cheaply, there are many different food stalls outside of beer tents and halls that have cheaper food; we were just on a time crunch to get back in time for the YouTube livestream check-in tonight.

It was a very fun night, despite only getting to enjoy it for a couple of hours. We also managed to fit in a double drinking game:

 

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This weekend is the last weekend of Oktoberfest, so we’ll be spending much more time there tomorrow to make the most of it.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33
Saturday
British Airways flight	18,500	$1
Ramada Munich Messe	7,000**	0
Local transportation	0	$21.50
Lunch at airport	0	$8.16
Oktoberfest food & drink	0	$54.60

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points
** This normally costs 7,500 Wyndham points, but was only 6,750 thanks to the 10% discount for being a cardholder. That meant needing to transfer 7,000 Capital One miles for the purposes of the challenge (I actually had the points in my account already, so didn’t need to do the transfer)

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81
Saturday
British Airways flight	$1
Local transportation	$21.50
Lunch at airport	$7.05
Oktoberfest food & drink	$57.42

Update 10/3/25 – Brewing & drinking beer for me; exploring the UK Monopoly board for Shae

Although it cost us a total of £3.50 each to quickly catch a bus from the airport to our hotel to drop off our bags and back again, it feels like that was the right decision. Well, sort of; we ended up getting a one day Travelcard for Shae later on and her bus rides this morning would’ve been covered by that, but that’s only a small extra expense.

My beer day

In addition to wanting to fly to London so that we could get to Europe for only 6,000 points on Virgin Atlantic, there was another reason I wanted a flying visit to the nation’s capital. To kick off my trip, I wanted to visit Brewhouse & Kitchen in Highbury. They’re a small microbrewery chain in the UK with about 20 locations around the country which offers a Brewing Experience for £95 (~$128).

For that, you get to help them make a batch of beer from start to (almost) finish. It includes a hot drink on arrival, both breakfast and lunch, many different beers throughout the day, as well as a 5 liter mini keg of your favorite beer to take home with you.

Alessandro at Brewhouse & Kitchen Highbury was the brewer and he was lovely. I was the only one who’d booked the experience today (it’s usually a little busier than that), but it did mean that I got to do more than I would have if other people had booked in for today.

Today’s brew was a Czech Pilsner which required ~1,000 liters of water, eight larger sacks of malted barley, ~8.5 kgs of melanoidin malt, hop pellets, and more.

The description of the day mentioned a couple of beers being included, but I ended up getting to try nine different beers. I hadn’t realized early on that it would include so many beers, so I drank the first three half pints, then had to pace myself as the day went on and it became clear that there’d be more beer coming, not to mention jetlag hitting me hard at about 2pm!

I’m afraid I had to admit defeat with six of my nine beers uncompleted; as I mentioned in one of my Instagram videos, young me is very disappointed in older me! I did enjoy all the beers I tried though, so it’s a shame I didn’t manage to finish them all. I was surprised because I even thought the Helles was OK and I’m not normally a fan of those.

The batch of Czech Pilsner that I helped produce is due to be ready on December 4, so if you happen to find yourself in London in a couple of months and would like to taste my (partial) handiwork, early December is the time to do that.

At the end of the day you get to pick a 5 liter (~9 pint) mini keg of your favorite beer. Although I enjoyed them all, my favorite was easily the stout; that’s not much of a surprise as stouts and porters tend to be my go-to.

Now, you might remember that I’d said that we were only staying in London for one night, so what am I going to do with 5 liters of stout?

Well, drinking it all tonight definitely isn’t on the cards. Something that’s incredibly convenient for us – but not at all replicable for any of you reading this – is that our car is parked at a nearby hotel as a long term parking option while we’re away (we live in the UK now). Once I’ve scheduled this journal update, I’m going to drop it off there.

While that’s not replicable for you, I imagine most of you aren’t going to only visit London – or the UK at least – for only one day. If this brewery experience interests you, you could try to line it up so that it takes place at the start of your trip, then you have the rest of your trip to enjoy the beer. Alternatively, if it was wrapped up very securely, you could put it in your checked baggage and bring it home with you.

As for dinner, I went for something that every good Brit loves to get after having a few beers – a lamb doner kebab. It’s a little like a gyro in the US, but more unhealthy and thus much more tasty.

I was tempted to also get another beer drinker’s favorite after a night out – chips in pita. Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds – a big pita bread filled with chips (fries). It’s carbs on carbs on carbs, but it’s wonderful after a few beers. That would’ve been far too much food though, so I just stuck with the doner.

Shae’s Monopoly day

If you’ve been following Frequent Miler on Instagram, you’ll have seen the insane amount of video content Shae was able to record yesterday while exploring London. I only had a chance to watch a couple of videos during downtime while I was at the brewery, but watched the rest of the videos afterwards, and wow! I already knew how funny, interesting, and knowledgeable she is, so it was great having all of you get to see that too.

Rather than visit all of the traditional sites like the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, etc., she took a different tack. Monopoly in the UK has completely different street names, railway stations, etc. to the US Monopoly board and all those locations are based in London, so she visited as many UK Monopoly sites as she could, taking in all the sights and sharing with you all the interesting history at each site.

From an innovative magazine that helps homeless people have a job to Jack the Ripper to Van Gogh to Jimi Hendrix to Paddington to the oldest restaurant in London to the oldest church in London to the oldest book store in London and so much more, she saw A LOT.

If you want to learn more about London while also being entertained, be sure to watch all these videos she recorded:

• Reel 1
• Reel 2
• Reel 3
• Reel 4
• Reel 5
• Reel 6
• Reel 7

Ibis London Heathrow Hotel

For our hotel tonight, I booked the Ibis London Heathrow which is an Accor brand. There are two Ibis hotels fairly close to each other at Heathrow; there’s the Ibis we’re staying in and there’s an Ibis Styles. The Ibis Styles was a little cheaper, but it doesn’t allow you to redeem points towards your stay. One of the challenge rules is that flights and hotels have to be paid for out of your 100K budget, so that was a non-starter.

The hotel is only a short walk from the Harlington Corner bus stop. Our two twin bed room isn’t very big, but it’s fine for a one night stay before or after a flight. There’s a small desk that I’m working at right now and there’s a restaurant downstairs if you don’t want to walk half a mile like I did to get a kebab.

The worst part of our stay is that the TV situation is abysmal. The selection of channels is simply bizarre; one (awful) news channel, a couple of religious channels, several PPV adult movie channels, a few foreign channels, and about 50 radio stations. In the UK, there’s something called Freeview which gives you free access to more than 100 TV channels without needing to pay any kind of subscription fee. I’ve no idea why the hotel doesn’t provide guests with access to that, so I was disappointed to not be able to get my fix of Richard Osman’s House of Games tonight.

The Ibis London Heathrow was £65.70 ($88.57) when I booked it. Accor points work a little differently to other hotel points when it comes to redemptions though. Each points is worth a fixed 2 Euro cents and you can redeem them in increments of 2,000 points. That means 2,000 points were worth ~$47 at the time of writing this. With the ability to only redeem in 2,000 point increments and the stay costing less than $94 (i.e. double what 2,000 points are worth), that meant that this was, in effect, a Points & Cash stay. Unless you get lucky with how much your Accor stay costs, you’ll pretty much always have some kind of residual amount to pay in cash when redeeming points.

Capital One miles transfer to Accor on a 1,000:500 basis. That means I had to transfer 4,000 Capital One miles to get the 2,000 Accor points I needed, with the balance being $42.33. That’s not amazing value, but none of the Capital One hotel partners offer particularly great value compared to other transferable currencies’ hotel partners.

What’s next?

The rest of my trip is still a secret, but the savvy amongst you might have picked up on a couple of hints that’ll suggest where we’re flying off to in the morning. Share your guesses in the comments and we’ll see if you’re right!

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300*	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	0	$22.69
Brewery experience	0	$127.95
Dinner	0	$13.48
Ibis London Heathrow hotel	4,000	$42.33

* 30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Thursday
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60
Friday
Local transportation	$43.24
Food & drink	$138.81

Update 10/2/25 – Introducing my better half: Shae

Greg completed his 100K Vacay benchmark trip a couple of days ago, having a wonderful time in Malta. He brought along Carrie for the trip, plus he flew in Maisie and Bjarne from past challenges, but all three of them were paid for outside of his 100K miles and $1,000.

However, what if I told you that you could take a 100K Vacay where the 100K points could cover the cost of travel for both you and someone else? Well, I’m doing just that.

My wife and I spent seven years from 2018-2024 on a nonstop 50 state road trip. That’s a lot of time to spend so close to someone else, so thankfully we genuinely enjoy each other’s company!

Other than the Party of 5 challenge, I’ve always traveled solo during our Frequent Miler challenges. That’s been fun, but it’s more fun getting to travel with Shae, so for this challenge I thought I’d bring her along for the ride.

When I started my initial planning, I figured it would be a situation akin to what Greg ended up doing with Carrie: bringing her along, but paying for her travel outside of the confines of the 100K/$1K budget. However, as my trip started coming together, I realized that it was going to be possible to pay for Shae’s flights out of my 100K points budget too.

Something to be upfront about right now: the cash element of her trip is something we’ll be paying for out of our own pockets. It’s sadly not possible to book the flights I did and plan the activities I have for two people with that only costing $1,000, even before accounting for things like local transportation, meals, etc. However, all of our flights and hotels will be completely covered within the 100K points budget which is still no mean feat. I’ll still share how much we spent in cash for her though to give a sense as to what your overall cash outlay would be if you’re a couple replicating our trip. I’m extremely excited about what I have planned, so hopefully it’ll give you some inspiration in case you wish to replicate it for yourself next year. (Is that some kind of hint?!).

Our first flight on the trip

By the time this post gets published, we should be on our first flight, flying from JFK to London on Virgin Atlantic. This was booked for only 6,000 points + ~$75.60 in taxes and fees per person. Thankfully I booked our flights several months ago when that’s how much the taxes/fees were. Virgin has since increased those to ~$110 per person which still isn’t too bad, but I’m grateful I didn’t have to account for an additional $35 in my personal budget on the trip.

That means we had to redeem 12,000 Virgin points, but a 30% transfer bonus from Capital One meant I only needed to transfer 9,300 Capital One miles, while also leaving me with 90 Virgin points left over.

In addition to being great value points-wise, one of the reasons I wanted to pick a Virgin Atlantic flight to the UK is because it’s so applicable and easily replicable for all of you to book. 6K awards aren’t available all the time; partly because of peak/off-peak dates and partly because of dynamic pricing. However, there is an abundance of 6K awards which you can find easily courtesy of Virgin Atlantic’s Reward Seat Checker. When award flights are priced at 6K, there are usually at least two seats available at that price any time you look, if not far more.

Don’t worry, our entire trip isn’t going to be spent in my home country of England. We’re just there for one night because I have a fun activity planned for tomorrow that’s integral to the overall theme of our trip.

What will that activity be? I don’t want to give too much away just yet, but it’ll be from 10am-5pm and includes two meals and drinks throughout the day, along with a fun reward to take with me at the end of it. Be sure to follow Frequent Miler on Instagram so that you can get updates throughout the day in near real time, then this post will get updated at the end of the day to share all about it. Shae will be going off and having her own unique adventures around London, so you’ll be able to follow those too.

My budget (includes points redemptions for both me and Shae, and cash for me only)

Item	Capital One Miles Redeemed	Cash Spent
Virgin Atlantic flight	9,300 (30% transfer bonus meant I was able to redeem 12,000 Virgin points)	$75.60

Shae’s cash budget

Item	Cash Spent
Virgin Atlantic flight	$75.60

Update 9/24/25

I managed to put together the main concept of my trip somewhat early on in the planning stage, although I didn’t get everything booked straight away.

At the beginning of August, I still needed to book a hotel for the night of October 3 which – without wanting to give too much away about my trip – is an Accor property. When booking it, I was a little disappointed as it was a little more expensive than when I’d looked at it in the past, but the increase wasn’t too dramatic and so I went ahead and booked it.

As soon as the non-refundable booking was confirmed, I realized I’d made a major mistake. The stay was meant to be for October 3, but I’d booked the stay for August 3 – the day that I’d made the booking. I must’ve forgotten to change the stay dates after entering the location, so it defaulted to that night. I’d already done another search or two, so after glancing at the dates and seeing it as the 3rd, I must’ve assumed the previous search date had carried over rather than being reset.

Argh! It was particularly galling because on our 50 state road trip, we spent seven years living in hotels and Airbnbs and I don’t think I ever made such a basic mistake across hundreds of stays. Yet here I was, booking something for the challenge where every point and penny counts and I mess up.

Initially it seemed like I was out of luck. The stay was for that night and it was non-refundable, so for the challenge I’d have to book a second night for the correct date and account for both the correct and incorrect night in my 100K point + $1K cash budget.

I decided to try my luck though. Sometimes when you have a non-refundable booking, you can call the hotel or airline and see if you can change the travel dates. I had nothing to lose, so I gave the hotel a call.

After explaining that I’d accidentally booked August 3 instead of October 3, the front desk agent looked into my reservation. Fearing the worst, I expected them to state that the booking was non-refundable, so I’d need to pound sand. Thankfully that wasn’t the case though and they confirmed that they’d moved the reservation to October 3 – whew!

The reservation for October 3 would’ve been a little cheaper, but I didn’t get a refund of the (relatively minor) difference, but that was fine; overall, I was just overjoyed that I wouldn’t have to pay for a second night.

That wasn’t the end of my concerns though. When checking my account that evening, it still showed the reservation as being for that night (August 3). Worried that the front desk agent hadn’t actually made the change correctly, I called the hotel again to verify that the reservation had indeed been moved to October 3. I spoke to a different person and they confirmed that my reservation was showing as October 3 which was a relief. It still made me a little nervous that it hadn’t changed online, but I figured that perhaps changes like that made on the hotel’s system don’t get passed over to Accor’s system.

It turns out that changes of this kind do get passed to Accor….eventually. I’m not entirely sure when it changed, but when logging in to my Accor Live Limitless (ALL) account a few weeks later, it showed the correct October 3 stay date.

So ultimately no harm, very little foul – just a slightly more expensive reservation than originally anticipated. It doesn’t bode well that I made a simple error such as this before the trip has even begun, but hopefully that’s my only mistake.

Why I chose Capital One Miles, planning, & more

I’m starting in the US

My wife and I moved to the UK a few months ago. When we (the Frequent Miler team) were initially planning the challenge and deciding on the rules, one of the things we discussed was where I should start from. The rest of the team thought it would be OK for me to start in the UK. In some ways, that could make the challenge more interesting as I’d be able to showcase what could be done with 100,000 miles and $1,000 when starting from the UK rather than the US, potentially finding some different sweet spots.

However, I wasn’t overly keen on this. I figured it could be seen as having an advantage of sorts seeing as the UK is closer to far more countries than the US is. The applicability of my trip for readers – another important factor in how the challenge will be scored – would also be questionable. The vast majority of Frequent Miler readers are based in the US, so a vacation that sets off from the UK likely wouldn’t be quite as helpful.

I’ll therefore be flying back to the US for the start of 100K Vacay so that we’re all on a level playing field.

I want need to win

Other than the Party of 5 challenge where the team of Carrie and I came joint first versus the team of Nick and Tim, I’m the only member of the Frequent Miler team who hasn’t won one of our annual challenges. I came second in both 40K to Faraway and Million Mile Madness, but I want to win. I need to win!

That’s why I chose what’s arguably the worst points currency for the purposes of this year’s challenge – Capital One miles.

Why Capital One is the worst transferable currency (for this challenge)

As a reminder, we have 100,000 points and $1,000 to book an amazing vacation. We have to return to our initial departure point and include at least three nights of accommodation at our destination.

As a result, one of the main focuses of this challenge will be on accommodation and that’s where Capital One falls behind compared to the other transferable currencies being used in this challenge.

Chase Ultimate Rewards has Hyatt.

Citi ThankYou has Choice Privileges as a 1:2 transfer partner and Preferred Hotels at a 1:4 rate. In the last 12 months, Citi has offered transfer bonuses to Accor, Wyndham (twice) and Leading Hotels of the World (twice).

Amex Membership Rewards meanwhile has Hilton at 1:2 and Marriott at 1:1. In the past 12 months, Hilton has also offered three transfer bonuses to Hilton and three to Marriott.

n.b. those are all the more notable hotel transfer partners; it’s not a comprehensive list.

By comparison, Capital One is mediocre. You can transfer to Wyndham on a 1:1 basis. You can transfer to Choice on a 1:1 basis (which is only half as good as Citi). And you can transfer to Accor on a 1,000:500 basis. If you’re not familiar with the Accor Live Limitless program, each point is worth a fixed 2 Euro cents, so 1,000 Capital One miles are worth ~$11.63 when converted to US dollars.

Considering Wyndham and Choice points frequently go on sale for far less than a penny apiece, it’s therefore much better to either pay cash for your stay or buy points than it is to transfer Capital One miles to either of those programs. The thing is, we can’t buy points for this challenge – we can only use our transferable currency. That leaves Accor as the only hotel program where it might ordinarily make sense to transfer points; even then it’s simply impossible to get outsized value due to the fixed value nature of the points.

Capital One also rarely offers transfer bonuses to any partner. Over the course of the past year, Capital One has offered a grand total of 6 transfer bonuses, none of which have been to hotel partners. Compare that to Citi (17) and Amex (23) and you can see that I’m at a severe disadvantage for being able to maximize the value of my 100K miles.

That means that having Accor, Choice and Wyndham to play with (at non-favorable transfer rates) and few chances to get better-than-normal transfer ratios to airline partners due to a dearth of transfer bonuses should give me a greater chance to impress as I’ll be working within much stricter confines.

What I won’t be doing

We’re all playing our cards close to our chest at the moment, so at the moment I can’t share where I’ll be visiting. I can share where I won’t be visiting though. Sort of.

During our challenge dates there’s a fun event happening in the US. I can’t share which one just yet because then you’ll know our challenge dates and we’re not disclosing those right now. As you might expect, the cost of accommodation in this city jumps up during the event dates (it lasts for more than one day). I initially thought it could be fun to show how to spend at least three days in that city to showcase the event and other things you could do in that location.

However, I ultimately decided against that for a couple of reasons. One is that I’ve been there before and so it didn’t feel like it’d be as much of a challenge. It’s also in the US and, while many people might be interested in what could be done as a 100K Vacay in the US, staying domestically would almost guarantee that I wouldn’t win the challenge. So overseas it is.

I have a theme

For the 3 Cards, 3 Continents challenge, I decided to go with a theme as I wanted to fly both the world’s shortest and the world’s longest scheduled flights. For 100K Vacay, I’m going with a completely different type of theme, but it’s one that’ll also be a lot of fun.

My theme this time isn’t aviation or accommodation based, but will instead relate to the activities I’ll be doing. For a lot of people, how you fly and the hotel you stay in isn’t as important as what you’ll actually be doing at your destination. I’ve still put a lot of thought into my flight and accommodation choices, but having fun on this trip is what I’ll be trying to showcase even more.

My theme isn’t something that every single reader would pick for themselves, but despite that I think there are quite a lot of elements to it that you’d enjoy nonetheless just for the sheer experience of it.

I’ll have energy!

I’m also confident that my trip during this year’s challenge will be more interesting activities-wise compared to past challenges simply because I’ll have enough energy to do stuff!

I’m not trying to make excuses, but for the last few challenges I’ve been exhausted. My wife and I finished our 50 state road trip at the end of 2024, having moved to a different city pretty much every single week for 7 years. For Million Mile Madness, we were finishing up state #49 and getting ready for our final state – Hawaii. Between that and all the economy flights on that challenge, I was too tired to do as many activities between flights as Nick managed to cram in.

For Party of 5, I got sick during the last few days which meant getting drenched at Iguazu Falls wasn’t as fun as it should’ve been. As for 3 Cards, 3 Continents, we’d just gotten back from a trip to Europe with friends where we’d spent two weeks moving pretty much every other day.

By the time we set off on our 100K Vacay trips though, I should be fully refreshed. After moving to the UK in April, we finally found a place to live and moved in at the beginning of June. This is the first time we’ve had a home in almost 8 years, so it’s nice to be settled somewhere for a little while and not have to expend the mental energy of constantly finding new hotels to stay in, research things to do in each new place, pack and unpack everything we own, etc.

Also, just a few days ago I was diagnosed with a medical condition. It’s not a serious condition when treated and I’ve now got medication for it, but one of its symptoms is lethargy. Based on my family history (which I just discovered), I’ve likely had it for quite a few years, so that would also go some way to explaining why I’ve not always had as much energy on these challenges as I would’ve liked.

The good thing is that I’m confident that I’ll now be raring to go this fall when Tim, Nick and I all set off.

There’s something else…

I also have a little trick up my sleeve for this challenge which will make it even more interesting. Once again, it’s not something I can disclose now, but it’ll definitely enhance my trip and I can’t wait until I set off so that I can reveal it.