We Saved $15,000 On Our Europe Christmas Market Trip Using Points

In today's episode, we're chatting about

• Finding business class flights to Europe over Thanksgiving break for 115K points ROUND TRIP 
• Piecing together flights, trains, and hotels - my best points saving tips
• The unexpected theme park day that was a major highlight
• Real talk: train strikes, airport chaos, and what to do when plans fall apart
• How we covered $15,000+ in travel with points
• The exact booking timeline (and why waiting will cost you)

📋 SHOW NOTES

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👋 Hi! I'm Michele!

A points and miles expert, using points for family vacations to Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Greece, Italy, Spain, theme parks and so much more. 

I don't believe in spending more to earn more points. The key is knowing how to earn the best points and getting massive value from them. 

With a teenager in competitive sports & public school, traveling during the busiest of times is our family's norm. I'll show you my best tips & strategies to use points for making incredible family travel happen. 

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Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.

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Information was correct to the best of my knowledge at time of recording. Always double check/verify information about cards and or bookings. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Is a European Christmas market trip on your one-day list? Today I'm chatting about how my family flew, business class, and stayed in great hotels using points. All the planning, the pivoting, the mistakes, and the detours that made this a really awesome trip. Welcome to the Points and Miles Travel Chats Podcast. I'm Michelle from Fancy Travel Pointers, and I believe your everyday spend is a secret to extraordinary travel. If you've ever worried that points are too complicated or wondered if a busy family with public school attendance and competitive sports could really travel with points, I'm here to show you it's absolutely possible. Here's what I know for sure: it's not about spending more. And keeping my credit score sky high, that is always front and center. I'll give you actionable steps, teach real repeatable strategies that transform the way you earn points and the value you get from them. Thanks for being here and let's get to it. Welcome back to Points and Miles Travel Chats Podcast. I'm Michelle from Fancy Travel Pointers, and today we are chatting all about our European Christmas market trip we just had last Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving 2025 as a family that we use points for. Thank you so much for tuning in again. I am so glad you're here. If you enjoy this episode, please consider leaving a review or sharing this with a friend. Your support is so appreciated. And as a reminder, I've got lots of things linked in the show notes for you. So anything we talk about today will be linked there. But of course, if you have questions, you can always reach out. So for this trip, we took it as a family of three. It was myself, my husband, and our 14-year-old son. And it was over Thanksgiving break 2025. We ended up flying business class JFK to Frankfurt and home also business class Frankfurt to JFK. We spent three nights in Ghent, Belgium, two nights in Cologne, Germany, and two nights in Mainz, Germany. And then since we are repositioning for the flights to New York City, we decided to spend a day in New York City before the flight out, and also a day in New York City once we got back. I'm going to give you the scoop all about how we book these things, but first I want to get to our question of the week. This is a really long episode, so I'm just going to do this one quick question. It's one I get all the time, and I get it over and over and over again. And it is how do you not run out of cards to sign up for? So here's the gist, right? We've been doing this for many years at this point. And between my husband and I, we almost always earn over a million points a year. And the way we do that is through credit card welcome offers. Because my links, whenever you use my links, and I'm thankful that you do, are affiliate links. And so those affiliate links help support my business. They pay for the podcast and my newsletter and all of that stuff, not earning me points. We earn points just like everyone else, opening up welcome offers. But when you're new, I can understand. Because it's easy to think there's only a finite number of cards. I mean, there are only a finite number of cards, but there's just so many of them. And there's a brand new one that just came out. It's the Capital One Venture Business Card that didn't exist last week. It didn't exist. It's like a brand new card. It's got an incredible offer, it's got some great benefits and earns two times miles on everything. So it's not like, oh, a new card just dropped. It's like a new card dropped with a massive offer, and it's a good card in general. So we never run out of cards to get because new cards keep coming up. And I actually was thinking, trying to put the math together, I think seven cards that I would even be interested in getting dropped in the last six months. Like brand new didn't exist before. So will you ever run out of cards to apply for? I really don't think so because some you can get more than once. And then there's situations like this where a brand new offer drops. And I will put a link to this card in the show notes for you too. That's the question of the week. Will you ever run out of cards to apply for? I don't think so. Now, again, I don't sign up for 20 cards a year. Between my husband and I, we probably sign up for five to 10. And so we've had no issues whatsoever. Anyways, let's get to the main topic today: European Christmas markets. Why are we talking about European Christmas markets in April? Well, truly, this is a bucket list for so many people. And the earlier you can plan it, the better. And when I was putting this episode together, I was getting all my information on when we booked everything. And funny enough, we booked our original flights for this trip in April 2025. So I booked it in April 2025 to take in November 2025. It was about seven months early, but I would imagine some people have already got their flights booked. They had them booked in December when the flights came out for November. Because here's the thing: anytime you see a good flight, that's the time to hop on it. We don't know if they're gonna come right at the 11-month mark, like you're 11 months out, or they're gonna come at the seven-month mark, like they did for us. But I will say for the hotels, they're gonna book up. And if you're using points, you will see no availability at some point because they'll book up. Or if you're using cash, you're gonna see the prices go so much higher. So the earlier you can book them, the better. And also trains. Trains were a big part of this trip. And the later you book, the more expensive they are. And I did kind of book ours late, and they were on the more expensive side. So I thought I would tell you about our trip in general, exactly what we booked, and then kind of go through each part of it, how we booked that exact part, what our review of it, what some tips were, a full general overview. Originally, we booked Boston to London Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic upper class for 30,000 points per person each way. Yeah, 30,000 points per person each way in business class is crazy. And that's actually how this trip came available. This was a Thrifty Traveler alert. I will um, of course, link that in the show notes for you, but you've heard me say Thrifty Traveler before. It's an alert newsletter. We do the paid subscription, and so you'll get alerts when there's like an incredible deal like this. I got this deal, and that is what got my wheels turning. Like, oh my gosh, I would love to do the Christmas markets. These dates line up, this is super cheap. I see that flight, and now I'm like, okay, that's our flight there. What would our flight home be? And I found Condor business class that I could book on Alaska. Remember the podcast last week, we were chatting about Alaska and how their partner deals can be incredible. It was 55,000 points in business class, home, Frankfurt to JFK on Condor. So I see that first flight come in. That's on Thrifty Traveler. Then I go and I do some research and I find a second trip. And so I book both of those. So that's in April of last year. I have those both booked. And as the year is going by, I'm not really sure exactly what Christmas markets I want to do and how we're gonna make it work. But we only have one week of trying to make this kind of as easy as possible with train travel and not too many hours between each place and definitely not too many flights. And so in my head, also hotel-wise, I'm focusing on Hyatt's number one, because I have globalist status and I love having free breakfast included, and a lot of times you'll get room upgrades. And so, because I'm globalist, that's usually gonna be my first choice. My other one was Marriott. We had some Marriott Free Night certificates we needed to use. My husband and I each get a 35K free night certificate every single year just by holding a specific hotel card. And on top of that, he had signed up for the welcome offer, which included 50k free night certificates. So we have, you know, a little stash of Marriott Free Night certificates. We've got points we can transfer over to Hyatt, so then we can book Hyatt's Direct, and we've got global status with Hyatt. So we're focusing on Marriott's and Hyatt's and trying to make this whole plan come together. And this is April when I first think about it, and I'm kind of getting some ideas, but I haven't nailed down everything. I know we're flying home from Frankfurt, so I book our two last hotels. And our two last hotels will be Hyatt Regency Cologne in Germany and Hyatt Regency Mines in Germany, which is a very short um ride to the Frankfurt Airport. I have those, but they don't really know the first half of the trip. I don't know what we're gonna do. We're flying into London. How are we gonna make this all work? So that part I'm kind of stalled on. September rolls around, and I get another alert from Thrifty Traveler. I love that. Um, I mean, sometimes they're dangerous, and this is maybe kind of the case in point. I get this alert from Thrifty Traveler and it says Singapore Airlines, JFK to Frankfurt, 60,000 points booked via Air Canada. Oh my gosh, that's a better idea for this trip. But I've already got the Virgin Atlantic. I don't know what to do. I'm hemming and I'm hawing, but I've always, always, always wanted to fly Singapore Air. And it's such a good deal. I mean, 60,000 points per person each way. And also we'll fly into Frankfurt. So then I can kind of keep our schedule nice and tight. Fly into Frankfurt, fly out of Frankfurt. That's gonna be nice and simple. My wheels are returning in like, okay, we're just gonna do it. We have to cancel the Virgin Atlantic ones, even though that deal was like a killer deal. Decide to cancel it, those points get redeposited into Virgin Atlantic. One thing that really stinks is Virgin Atlantic cancellation is$100 per person. So I had to pay that. That was where I was really stumbling. I did not want to pay that, but I did. So we book the Singapore Air. So now I have got our flights there and back, and they're exactly ones I want to take, and they make perfect sense and they line up. So I've just got to get that first hotel. And that's when I decide Ghent and Bruges in Belgium have been on my list forever. Many, many years ago, we did Brussels and we didn't make it to those towns. And I always regretted that we didn't do day trips to them and I'd heard such amazing things. So I was like, well, this is it. We can take a train from Frankfurt over to Ghent. It was less than four hours. And I love European train travel. It's just, I don't know, it's easy. It's my favorite way to travel around Europe. I can go from Frankfurt straight to Ghent when we land. We'll spend three nights in Ghent with a day trip to Bruges, then we'll take the train over to Clone, then we'll take the train to Mines, and then we'll fly home. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of the trip of the hotels we booked and my opinions and all this stuff. But just so you know, all the hotels, like I said, we had free night certificates for or transferable points we could transfer over to Hyatt, Book Direct. Of course, like with Virgin, with Singapore, we don't have those specific airline miles. We earn transferable points and then we transfer those over. With Alaska at the time, I actually had a bunch of points I had transferred into there from a bank, but now we also are earning them via airline credit cards. Because to me, Alaska is like just a hidden gem of partner tickets. And this trip is very similar to many that we take. It's not all one thing. It's not all one type of points or all one type of hotel, etc. That is why having diversity in your points and your miles and your hotels is always going to be really nice. Of course, we did not have to fly business class. That is a beautiful benefit of having points. But because we flew business class there and back, and because we stayed at some beautiful hotels, points covered over$15,000 of this trip. Mind blowing. We started our first part of the trip in New York City. We spent an afternoon at the Museum of Natural History. That was so fun. We walked around Central Park. It was like really, really warm weather. We were there. It was a weekend before Thanksgiving. And we had great weather. We went and got like slices of pizza and stood on the, you know, sidewalk eating them. And it was just a really fun New York day. Something totally out of our normal wheelhouse. It's really fun to kind of step into that vibe for a hot minute and then step out of it. We, as I said, were flying Singapore Air from JFK to Frankfurt. With Singapore Air, we had access to the Capital One lounge in JFK, which we actually would have had access to anyway with our Capital One Venture X Rewards card. But that was a lounge also that we had access to for this flight. I'm so glad we did because this lounge was amazing. If you ever have a chance to go, please do. We have the Capital One Lounge in Denver, and I always say it's one of the best lounges ever. And in my opinion, this one blows that one out. Just real quick, let me tell you about it because it's so cool to have access to these types of lounges with just holding a card. So you walk into this Capital One lounge, there's little tables there, and then over to the left, there is a coffee and bagel station. Someone's working there and taking your orders. That's crazy. Then there's two hallways. You can go right or you can go left. If you go down right, it's almost like a little bar lounge area. The bar itself is stunning, gorgeous. And then all the tables have little QR codes. You can order the hot foods, really good. But then had you gone down the left hallway, they have a fancy buffet. They're just like little snacks, little bites, and things like that that you can also grab and take to your table as well as ordering. And back in the left corner, I am not kidding you, there is a cheese monger. Okay, so this is what they say. This is a first come, first serve, curated 45-minute tastings of artisanal cheeses, charcuterie, and pairings. What? Included? That's crazy. It was sadly full when I was there, and I did not get to try it. But as a cheese and wine lover, if I ever get to go there again, I will like make a beeline and try to get a seat there. So we're in the lounge for just a little bit and then it's time to board to get a little bit sappy here. Singapore Airlines is like a dream come true for me to be able to fly it in business class. Back in 2017, we found these incredible deals to fly economy round trip from Houston to Manchester on Singapore Air. And we were blowaway. We were like, this is the best economy we've ever flown. The service, the seats, the food, it was all phenomenal. And I remember looking at my husband being like, gosh, can you imagine what the business class was like? Never ever thinking we would be up there. It was like honestly a pitch-me. Like I'll probably had tears in my eyes, I'm not gonna lie. And it lived up to it for me. The service was so good. The food was good. It wasn't phenomenal, but the service was amazing. The seats are massive, they're so wide. I love them. Not everybody loves these seats because they are a little bit different than some of the norms. You have to have them like make it into a bed for you. It's not one of the ones you can automatically just hit a button. None of this stuff bothered me. I was in heaven on this flight. One quick tip: if you fly Singapore Air on one of these shorter routes, they don't hand out amenity kits, but I saw the guy next to me ask for one. So I did too. And she was so nice. She gave one to me and my husband. They were just these little like pouches. So I didn't love the pouch, but inside the pouch was Leilabo products. Who doesn't want some beautiful Leilabo products? So if you fly the short haul and they're not handing them out, you can always ask. And they were really kind to give them to us. So we slept phenomenal. Landed in Frankfurt. I'm ready to go. We took the train from Frankfurt over to Ghent. Like I said, it was less than four hours. Frankfurt Airport was really easy to navigate. It was no problems. They've got the signs for the train. You just keep following those, and then you go all the way down and you'll find their whole train area, lots of places to grab snacks, use the restroom, stuff like that until your train gets there. Very clean. We thought it was a great experience. And so it was super easy. One thing I will say about trains, real quick, remember, we're landing in Germany, but we're going over to Belgium and then we're coming back to Germany. I booked everything direct on the Deutsche Bonn website. So I booked it on the German site. I believe you could also book it on the Belgium site. I just wanted to keep everything booked in the same place. And so that's what I did. The earlier you book these tickets, the cheaper they're gonna be. And the other thing is you want to pay for your seats. Okay, I want to pay for my seats. Usually it's not that expensive. And we have many, many times running with European trains where families are separated because if you don't reserve a seat, you just have to find whatever is open. And sometimes they're scattered, what is open. So we do always go down the route of selecting our seats and paying a little bit more for them. And when I say a little bit more, I mean sometimes they're like one to three dollars to pick your seats. For me, always worth it. We arrive in Ghent and we take a taxi from the Ghent train station over to our Marriott. Our Marriott is more in like the old downtown area, super cute cobblestone streets, um, restaurants, churches, all that good stuff. I cannot tell you enough how much I love this Marriott. It is now probably one of my favorites that you could use these 35K or 50K free night certificates at. The location is incredible. You walk out the back door of this Marriott and you're on the canal. And it's the most charming. I mean, I'm gonna say that we're charming 72 times. Ghent is so charming. This Marriott, the room we were in, had two double beds. We didn't have to like pay for a bigger room. That is so rare in Europe. I was amazed by how big this room was and very updated, very modern, very beautiful. These rooms were going for well over 300, 350 a night when we were there. Again, it's Christmas market season. Something really, really important I have to say right now when I talk about Christmas market season is that the Christmas markets vary their opening dates. And so when you're doing all of this planning, make sure you're looking at what is the opening date for the year you're traveling. That can make these trips hard to put together for Thanksgiving week because a lot of them are not open Thanksgiving week, which Ghent was not, and we knew that going in, and we were totally okay with it because Ghent had been on my bucket list. So Ghent Christmas markets were not open that week. We saw them setting up for it. We saw them putting the Ferris wheel together. That was actually kind of cool. We saw them putting all the booths together, but they were not open. However, the Christmas markets in the neighboring town Bruges were open. So we were like, that's perfect. We will spend our first day fully in Ghent. They have a really, really cool castle. My tip for you is we were some of the last people to visit that day. Felt like we had the place to ourselves, which is the coolest feeling in a castle with armory everywhere, and had a really great time exploring that castle. We walked all around the town, going into different churches. So beautiful. Tried some hot chocolates. The best hot chocolate in the world, I think, is in Belgium. It was so good. Um, they have so many adorable outdoor cafes, which I know sounds crazy because we were there for Thanksgiving and it was pretty cold when we were in Belgium. And all of these little outdoor cafes had heat lamps and they had the blankets slung on the back of the chairs. They were so adorable. And so it was fine to be out there for like an hour with a blanket and have either a coffee or a cocktail or whatever. Totally exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were high. The most charming town. And then the next full day we were there, we just took the short train ride over to Bruges. Here's a recommendation. We did this, and I'm so, so, so glad we did. We did a photo shoot, and I'm gonna link who we did it with in the show notes. This is not sponsored. We paid full price just like everybody else, but I want to tell you about it because our pictures were amazing. Bruges is an amazing place to have photo shoots because they have all those like raised cobblestone semicircle bridges and the cobblestone streets and the churches. I was blown away when I got our pictures back, and this guy was so fast. I want to say it was like 30 minutes, maybe a little bit more, because he kept wanting to take us to like a few more spots. He was so good. It was such a cool place to have a little family photo shoot. But Bruges in general, incredible. They have a couple smaller Christmas markets. It's very charming. When you get to the train station, they had this like makeshift walkover so you didn't have to walk over the busy roads, you go up the stairs and down the stairs. I thought that was very smart, very clever. And then if you're arriving at night, which we didn't, we spent the whole day there, but if you are arriving at night, you'll see this path that has blue lights on it. And the blue lights are to show you how to get to the different Christmas markets. Again, I thought that was so cool. We spent a full day there going to different Christmas markets. We did like a sit-down lunch there. We had the photo shoot. And then at night we're walking back to the train station and we see this thing called Dank Bar. And it's like a converted barn, really, really neat. Everyone's hanging out, tons of families. You can order drinks there, you can order food there. It's nice and warm. They have some of the different game tables, clean bathrooms. So we went there and had a little snack and drink before we went and found the train station. But just walking around Bruges at night, honestly, charming. Sorry, have I said it 72 times? I feel like I have. You cannot overstate how adorable Ghent and Bruges are. And I would love to go back. And I really, I really feel like winter was the best time to go. The sparkle lights everywhere, and yes, it's cold, but you're bundled up and lots of different places have fires. Love, love, love starting our Christmas parkings there. This part's not so great though. We wake up on our train day and we knew we had heard there's gonna be Belgium train strikes. There's no Germany train strikes, it's just Belgium, but we can't get out of Belgium to get to Germany. So what do we do? Our train gets canceled. We get to the train station and get a new train schedule and we have to sit around for a while. And it's delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. And I just want to tell you the story because I want it to be a warning to anybody. We are sitting inside the McDonald's and we keep, you know, we'll go out and we'll check the board and it keeps saying delayed. And then um I go out and I go to the bathroom and I check the board and it says arriving, like now. And so I run back in and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's arriving. We have to go. Luckily, we just travel with a carry-on each, a backpack each, and we're running through the station. And I'm like, just get on the train, we'll find our carriage. Once we get on, we can go through from carriage to carriage to carriage once we're on, but we're going to miss it. Sprinting, get on the train, get to our carriage. I turn around, my son is behind me. He turns around, my husband's gone. I'm like, where is Dad? He's like, I don't know. I thought he was behind me. Not kidding. 10 minutes later, my husband shows up and he's like, Oh, I couldn't get past some people. I'm like, I swear I thought we left you in Belgium. I was terrified. Um, so it's quite a story, but here's the thing: trains are gonna get canceled. There's a lot of strikes in Europe. You're gonna get caught in one eventually if you travel a lot. Try to stay patient, get a new train, and keep checking that dang board. I cannot believe it said arriving. We get to Cologne and we are spending two nights there at the Hyatt Regency. This is a category four. So currently, and while we were there, category fours were anywhere from 12,000 to 18,000 points a night. And also it's a category four, so you can use your category one through four Hyatt Free Night certificate if you have one. We loved this hotel. We thought it was just phenomenal. We did use a suite upgrade award to stay here because I believe the standard rooms only fit two, or at least when we were looking, that was all the options. But we could do a standard suite with our award, we could apply that, and then we were able to fit three in the room. And our room was massive. It was a huge living room, plus a bedroom. I think it had one and a half bathrooms. Crazy. And plus, that was a club room. And so for the club rooms, they had these mini refrigerators, and everything in the refrigerator was included, and they would restock it every single day. And so drinks were in there, full-size chocolates when we arrived. Now remember, we're Hyatt Globalist. So a lot of this is due to status, getting some really amazing treats when we arrived. There was a bottle of wine and treats and a sweet note. And then the next day we came back. And again, there was like a tray of treats. On top of that, I just want to point out the breakfast real quick. This was one of the best breakfasts at a Hyatt ever. There were several rooms of food options. There was the omelet station. They even had a mimosa station. Phenomenal breakfast. If you are going to Cologne, I highly, highly recommend this hotel also because of the location. You are just the pedestrian bridge away from the main Cologne Christmas market, which is at the main church there, the Culner Dome. And so it's maybe a 10-minute walk over that bridge, and then you're at the main Christmas market. When you're thinking about Christmas markets, a lot of people will recommend Cologne because there's over seven markets there. There's a lot of markets, and you can do a few each day, and it's really, really nice. Our first full day there, that's what we did. We did Christmas markets and we walked around the town and just had a really nice day. The next day we're at this incredible breakfast, and my son says, I'm bored. I do not want to do another day of Christmas markets. Remember, he's 14. And, you know, I kind of was thinking that when I booked this trip. We have done Christmas markets with him when he was younger. His first one was five when we flew to Vienna, Austria. And I will tell you my opinion, just my opinion, Christmas markets when they're young, so good, so much to do. There are usually carousels and rides, and they have so many playgrounds everywhere. There was one we went to that had a hay maze. And I was wondering, as a teen, is he gonna get bored? And I discovered the answer was yes. Here's how we got so incredibly lucky. We're sitting at breakfast and we're like, I don't want you to do another day where you're bored. We've done this, the Christmas markets, we need to shake it up. We're trying to figure out what's in the area, and we stumble upon a literal, amazing theme park, like a true theme park. It's called Fantasialand. It's open, it's 30 minutes by Uber each way. It's only$60 entry, and it will rival Disney and Universal, in my opinion. I would go back in a heartbeat. It was all of our favorite days of the trip. I know it's a Christmas market trip, but but even being at their theme park, there were areas that felt like Christmas Market. So they had different stalls with different drinks and different foods. They had this amazing ice skating show, they had a water show, real, real true rides that will blow your mind. Lights everywhere. If you go to Cologne and if you like Disney or Universal, even a little bit, you should go there. Bantasial Land. So that was how we spent that full day. It was one of our favorite days, and it was not something we had planned for, but I think sometimes you just have to make a change, spur of the moment, and everyone was happy. I was just glad we were able to pivot and make it a really fun day for everyone. So then the next day, it was time to head over to Mines. Mines is a short drive from Frankfurt. So if you're flying in or out of Frankfurt, Mines is a small, cuter town to stay in. They have the Hyatt Regency Mines, and it's a category three. And at the time we booked, 9,000 to 15,000 points a night, which that's a really, really good deal. It's a very good location. Here's what I want to say. We had really bad luck at this hotel, but I absolutely believe it was just our luck. I don't think we'd have the same experience of winning again. Here's where we had bad luck. We were checking in, the person checking in just didn't tell us any of the benefits. He didn't even tell us it was a club lounge until I said, Don't you have a club lounge? He goes, Oh yeah, let me add that to your card. Like he didn't even have the access added to my card, which I thought was so weird. It's frustrating. Sometimes you have to do your own research on the hotel and then make sure that you get the benefits of the hotel. We get to our room and we're like, something smells weird. Is that smoke? Is that cleaning products? We're like, I don't know. Because it was really faint. Middle of the night, the cigarette smoke is so strong. I'm up all night. I can't sleep. So my husband's like, I don't know. Should we ask switch rooms? I'm like, yes, we have to ask. We have to ask what's going on. But go down to the front desk and I'm like, do you guys have smoking rooms at this hotel? I think we're near one. And he goes, No, but we have balconies you can smoke on, and your room is near one. I mean, my guess is that people had their balcony door open and we're smoking in the room. I don't know. So he goes, I'm so sorry. I can move you down the hall, which is not near any balconies. Night and day. So then when we got the new room, he forgot to add clubs access again. So we go up to the club to like grab some sodas before we walk out and we can't get in. It was just like these little things where I'm like, okay, people at the front desk need to know about the club access and put it on your card. The whole smoking thing is a big fat no for me. So if you're ever staying there, say what side are the balconies on, I don't want to be on that side and make sure you're on the other side. We had bad luck. Would we stay at the hotel again? Yes, probably would. It was a great location. It was incredibly low points. And again, they had club lounge, which is really, really nice. It was a small club lounge, but it was never crowded. You could totally make dinner out of it if you wanted to. There was an attendant in the club lounge. She was the sweetest thing. And so this hotel definitely had stuff going for it. Had a nice breakfast that was included with Globalist. And again, the location's really good. When we were there, the first night was when their Christmas market opened. And so we did that that night. And then the next day, we again were like, okay, we're not doing Christmas markets all day. I know it's a Christmas market trip, but gotta be family-oriented and shake this up. The hotel was right on the water, and along the water was this long walking path. So we walked for quite a ways and then we walked up into the town and we found this massive playground. And we also did the Gutenberg Museum there. So that was nice. And then at nights we would just do the Christmas markets. It was a nice mix to make everyone happy, but I would definitely say if you're bringing a younger teen, my son is just like when we're on vacation, he needs something active or sporty or theme park-ish. And I don't say that sound bad because he'll go to museums and stuff like that, but he doesn't want to just walk around and eat and drink. That's not his thing. And that is a big part of your days at the Christmas markets. So it's really nice because in both of the last towns, we were able to do other things. And in Ghent, obviously, we didn't even do the Christmas markets there. And so that worked out really well too. I do want to give you a few quick tips about Christmas markets in general. When we were in Cologne, we were there on Monday and Tuesday. And when we were in Mines, we were there Wednesday and Thursday. They are already on the weekdays very busy. I imagine on the weekends, it might be hard to even move. If you can go on the weekdays, I think you're gonna have a much better experience. Also, make sure you bring coins for the toilets. The toilets are not free at these markets, and so you'll want to have coins on you. Lots of places now are taking credit cards, so that was really nice. Um, but not everywhere still. And even at the booths, not every single booth takes credit card. But honestly, one booth we went to, they were like, we don't take card, we went to the next booth, and they did. So lots of them do, but just be aware, some of them don't. So maybe ask before you order because you don't want to have this like plate of food and no cash. Um mugs and glasses for the Christmas market. When you get something in a mug or a glass, if you bring it back to them, they are supposed to give you your deposit back, which is usually a few dollars. Usually they're like, oh, here's your deposit. Sometimes you literally have to say, Can I have my deposit? My son has like a glass of juice or something. And so we brought the glass back. They just took the glass back and like left, and we were like, um, like, what about our deposit? We had pretty nice weather when we were in Germany. We've been times where it is bone-chilling cold, and so we were prepared with lots of layers, but I feel like this trip, they weren't as necessary as they have been. But being prepared is really good because when you're just standing around or walking short distances, I feel like it's so easy to get cold. Those are just a quick tips about Christmas markets in general. We flew home Frankfurt to JFK, Frankfurt Airport. It is probably my least favorite airport ever now. It was a nightmare. We got there two and a half hours early, and I thought we were gonna miss our flight. It took over an hour to get through security. And then after security is passport, and passport was a disaster. You just walk in this hallway and there's people everywhere. There's really no lines, and you're asking, like, which line are you in? Which line are you in, right? Because some lines are for other countries and you're trying to figure it out. It was it was tough because you're going to miss this flight and there's nothing you can do about it, but you're panicking and you're trying to find some alternative and it's just not there. There was this line, and this guy was only doing like certain passports, but it wasn't USA. I was walking over to ask him, like, is there any way you can take our USA passports? We're gonna miss our flight. And as I was walking to him, he announced USA passports, but I was already at the front because it was a mob scene after, and that's the only way we made our flight. I don't know if it was the day we were flying. We were flying out on a Friday. They don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I really don't know. I will avoid Frankfurt as much as I can, but it's kind of impossible because so many good flights go there. Anyway, so then we flew to JFK on Condor. Again, remember we booked this via Alaska with 55,000 points per person, business class. I was expecting more, to be honest. And I hate to say anything bad about business class because girl, you're in business class, and that's pretty darn amazing, and I'm really thankful for it. But the service was like non-existent. When we entered the cabin for business class, no one was in there. They weren't there to, you know, help you with your bags, and it just kind of continued like that. If you wanted something, you would have to go seek it out. No one was gonna come and try to offer you anything extra. I'm hoping because I've heard good things about Condor. Again, you have bad luck. Like bad luck happens, or maybe they had bad days and they were like, I'm just tired and I'm not gonna go around this cabin. This is probably not what it is on a normal basis. That's the experience we had. Would I fly them again? Yes, I would. 55,000 points to your open business class. I just think you go in with certain expectations. So then we have our last day in New York City. We do park high in New York. We have stayed there before on points. It is a luxury. It's a lot of points. Great location, beautiful hotel. Spent one last day in New York City. It's after Thanksgiving now when we land, and so all the lights are up and all the department store windows are all Christmassy, and it's just so fun to be in New York City during that time. Christmas markets in general are such a bucket list trip. But now, with flights being more expensive than ever, it's so nice to be able to use points whether you're doing business, economy, or whatever. Start looking sooner than later. Use an alert newsletter or use a search tool to find the best deals. When you can, book your hotels as soon as possible so that they have award availability, and also get your train booked as soon as possible so you have the lowest price. Overall, we had a fantastic trip, definitely some unexpected hiccups, and some pivots that turned out being some of the best parts of our trip. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I've so enjoyed it, and I will see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Points and Miles Travel Chats podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review, give it a like, and share it with a friend that loves to travel. In the show notes, you'll find all the links and resources we talked about today. And if you're ready to take those next steps, don't miss my free PDF guide. It's been downloaded over 17,000 times. I also launched an online, self paced, free course. A few months ago, you can join the over 1,800 students who are loving this resource. Of course, be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter, and you'll never miss the latest strategies, stories, and offers. Until next time, here's to seeing the world on point.