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Hotel Stays In Europe With 2 Kids – We’re Over The Maximum Occupancy!

a tall tower lit up at night with Eiffel Tower in the background

So, I’ve started to plan our summer vacation – for 2014. In the world of Points and Miles, advance planning ensures availability, which means free travel. Which is why we are all here 🙂

Since my brother and his family are moving back to Africa, we want to pay them a visit, and then we’ll continue on to Paris and a few other cities in Europe before we fly home. We probably want to stay six nights in Paris, and I’m not sure yet about the other cities, but we’ll likely need at least another 6-8 nights of lodging. I’ve been researching hotels so I can figure out how to accumulate enough points for free stays, and I learned something new today. I might be late to this party, but I thought I would share anyway in case there is anyone else out there who doesn’t know this basic fact. (Don’t feel bad – you’re in good company!)

I’ve tripped around Europe a few times over the years, staying in a mix of hotels, apartments, hostels, and homes. In fact, I lived in France for a year. So I’ve got some European knowledge. However, I clearly needed an education, because somehow I didn’t know that many European hotel rooms only allow three people per room. And they’re really strict about enforcing this rule. Something about fire codes.

When I tried to book a room for four, this is the message I got:

radisson paris

Since there are four people in our family, this limits our options. As soon as most people hear this, they yowl, “You should just rent an apartment anyway! You’ve got kids!” I agree that renting a Parisian apartment sounds lovely for many reasons, but “free” is not one of them. And I’m shooting for free. Or almost free.

Other, more intrepid friends insist that hosteling is the way to go. Out of curiosity, I did some research and learned that there are a growing number of family-friendly hostels in Europe. For example, the Cite des Sciences in Paris has twenty 4-bed rooms available. Perfect for a family of four. The cost is reasonable: 26 euros a night per person for a total of 104 euros a night. At the current exchange rate this pencils out to be $135/night. So six nights would set us back $810.

But again, I’m shooting for free. And also, I don’t really want to stay in a hostel.

This is where the world of Points and Miles becomes a little surreal, because with a little creativity and advance planning, we can book two rooms for six nights in a hotel for free. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this goal is through credit card sign-up bonuses. The card that leaps first into my mind is – of course – the Club Carlson Visa. I’ve written plenty about this card in the past few weeks. You can read about it here and here. The big play with this card is to get both a business and a personal card, for a total of 175,000 points (including meeting minimum spend).

Free award nights at the Club Carlson European hotels I’m eying cost 50,000 points/night, but with the Club Carlson Visa, the second night of an award stay is free. So all of a sudden those 175,000 points magically transform into 6 free nights. (We would have to move hotels every 2 nights, but that is fine with me)! If both Josh and I decide to get this dynamic card duo, then we’ve got Paris covered: two rooms for six nights for free.

There are several other hotel card sign ups that we could get – such as the Hyatt 2 Free Nights sign-up bonus from Chase, or the variety of Hilton cards available. However, the Club Carlson cards seems to work best for our plans, so we’ll be going for those.

Since I’m still in the early planning stages, I would love to hear about other ways that families have figured this out. Got any good ideas to share? Let us know in the comments section!

28 Comments

  1. We have used Hilton points for quad rooms (2 adults and 2 children) in Germany (Stuttgart) and England (Nottingham, London Metropole, Cobham). They are sometimes listed as Family Rooms and surprisingly for the same points as a double room. We have also stayed at Holiday Inns in France using points with 2 children, altho not in Paris. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Marne la Vallee and Versailles. So don’t give up – quad rooms do exist! I forgot about the Hilton Sorrento in Italy – another quad room for 40K points.

  2. Hi Points Pixie,

    This is your retired fashionista friend. I don’t really have a comment on your current situation, but I did want to thank you because you have reminded me to really dig into my points pile and think of every single option to maximize usage. It’s not JUST collecting points, but realizing how to move them around the old travel chessboard.

    I recently used my United card to get my irregular points number to an even 50,000 then locked it away. Now, we’re using U.S. Airways just a little bit to extend our miles expiration date before we cancel the card. I know some people think this is all too much work, but I think it’s a hoot to keep digging and planning to get the most bang for your buck. We just got back from Hawaii and all we paid for was food (and some new rags for my back, doncha know.)

    We’re such greedy little travel pigs that in retirement we now require four, yes I said four, great trips a year.

    Having a blast in So Cal.

  3. Hi Anne!

    You are seriously a soul sister! We are definitely on the same page. I love maximizing points and fitting all the pieces into the puzzle to get the most bang for my buck…it’s so gratifying.

    I’m planning a trip to Hawaii and it’s the same deal – we’ll only be paying for food…and outfits/accessories 😉

    Love that you take FOUR fab trips each year. You are living the Points and Miles dream!

    Talk to you soon.

  4. We booked 2 rooms for 5 nights at the Hyatt Vendome Paris in June. Four of the nights come courtesy of our two Hyatt Visas. The other 6 nights were booked at 22K UR points per night. Can’t wait!

    1. Dan – What a score! Fabulous! And a great idea. I’m going to look into that as well. Thanks for sharing 🙂

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