Early planning was essential to save money, especially during Europe’s busy travel season in June and July. Gandhi, who carefully collected credit card points, took a strategic approach: spend more to accumulate points that could earn him free business class tickets and stays in luxury hotels.
Collect Avios
Gandhi and his family enjoy luxury travel, but they don’t spend just about everything. He has been collecting credit card points over the past two to three years to plan these beautiful cards. He pays for everything with his Axis Magnus credit card, from his son’s school fees to groceries.
“Income tax is the only thing I don’t pay by credit card,” said Gandhi, whose CA advised him against it.
He converted all the points he had earned over the years into Avios points. These are the loyalty points for British Airways and Qatar Airways customers. With enough points you can use them to book airline tickets.
He converted all his Edge rewards points (for Axis Magnus) and other points from his HSBC Platinum and IndusInd credit card to Avios. “I emptied all my credit card points and transferred them to Avios,” said Gandhi, whose family owns a company that provides corporate credit information to banks.
A few months ago, Axis Bank devalued many of the lucrative rewards systems in the Magnus card. Fortunately, Gandhi had collected the most points when plastic was still hip. Gandhi currently uses an Axis Atlas map.
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Free business class tickets
Gandhi booked three economy class tickets on Qatar Airways to Croatian capital Zagreb from Mumbai in the first week of June for 1.10 lakh Avios points. There are not many flights from India to Zagreb, and business class tickets on this route are very expensive.
He used his HSBC Platinum Card to obtain Pranamm services, which offer priority check-in in addition to other VIP facilities.
He booked Qatar Airways business class tickets from Vienna to Mumbai for the return journey. Vienna had more scheduled flights to India than Zagreb and was slightly more economical.
Gandhi might have saved something ₹5.50 lakh on the air tickets. The same 13-hour Economy route from Qatar to Zagreb on November 1 cost Rs.1.74 lakh, and the return business class ticket from Vienna for November 3 cost €4,032 ( ₹3.67 lakh) on Qatar Airways website.
The family had to pay ₹35,818 and €622 ( ₹56,752) as taxes on the tickets.
Sumanta Mandal, who runs a credit card recommendation portal called TechnoFino, eestimated that Gandhi must have spent at least ₹15 lakh with Magnus to get the required Avios points. This assumes he spent at least Rs1 lakh every month for 12 months when Axis offered a crazy deal. It gave 25,000 edge points as a bonus to anyone who spent more than a lakh in a month using that plastic.
“If he didn’t use this bonus, he would have to spend approx ₹50 to ₹60 lakh,” said the credit card expert.
Mandal, who has 51 credit cards to his name, said there are several credit card options for earning and accumulating airline miles such as Amex Platinum Travel, Axis Olympus, HDFC Infinia, Axis Atlas, etc.
“While there are other cards available, you should always choose a card based on their spending habits and requirements. A single card may not be the best option for everyone as individual spending patterns vary, so it is important to select a card that suits your specific needs,” said Mandal, who also said customers are eyeing the accelerated points system have to keep. companies offer.
No Airbnb
Most couples or backpackers prefer to stay in Airbnbs or hostels when in Europe, but the Gandhis preferred luxury stays.
For their first stop in Zagreb, they booked a room at Marriot for two nights. Because Marriot rewards users with points for booking rooms through their website, the room was booked using points. Gandhi and his family were regular guests at Marriot hotels for the past three to four years.
During Covid, Marriot paid more rewards for each stay. Gandhi and his family often went to the Marriot estate in Mahabaleshwar during this time. Additionally, Gandhi’s Amex card offered a 30-40% higher value when the credit card points were converted into Marriot rewards points.
For the commute, he booked a BMW X-3 to rent for 10 days, as hiring a driver for the entire trip would require many more euros. In addition, there were no trains available to travel to Slovenia, a neighboring country. He booked the car through SIXT, a car rental website, and paid approx ₹1.5 lakh ( ₹70,000 for the car and ₹65,000 for insurance). In 10 days they eventually covered about 1,200 km.
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On the way: Game of Thrones
From Zagreb they drove 300 km to the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. After two days they went to Lake Bled in the Julian Alps of the Upper Carniolan region in northwestern Slovenia.
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During a visit to a church in the middle of the lake, Gandhi fell down the stairs and suffered minor swelling. A nearby hospital handed him a bill for €110. He filed an insurance claim, but was only refunded €10 as the insurance only paid out claims over €100. Fortunately, it was nothing serious and the family headed to the Plitvice Lakes, a national park in Croatia and part of the UNESCO World Heritage List.
They drove to Split, Croatia’s second largest city, best known for the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace (built between 295 and 305 AD). They stayed there for four days at the Radisson hotel. (Hotel prices listed in infographics.)
They then drove 430km to Dubrovnik, where the iconic series Game of Thrones was filmed, and spent four nights there. They returned the car to the car rental company station in Dubrovnik. In Dubrovnik, they spent around Rs.1.6 lakh (€1,800) for their stay at a luxury hotel called Rixos.
From there they took an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna. They paid €326 for the ticket. Besides the luxury shopping experience, the other attraction was the world’s oldest salt mine Hallstatt.
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Can you plan your own trip like this?
Although Axis had devalued the Axis Magnus card, there are few options available, although they may not be that attractive. If you need to plan a trip now, using Axis Atlas is an option. Gandhi used 2.93 lakh Avios points for those air tickets, and to get that many Avios points, he would need 1.46 lakh Edge miles.
“And to earn those edge miles, you have to spend ₹65.75 lakh (without accelerated reward),” said Mandal, the credit card expert. ‘We have Magnus burgundy, but you should spend more than ₹1.5 lakh in a month to earn good reward… this is not beneficial for general users,” he said.
“We have HDFC Infinia for 2.93 lakh Avios, we need 5.86 lakh Infinia points, and for that we have to spend money ₹1.75 crore without any accelerated pay. If someone spends everything on 5x categories with Infinia like booking flights and hotels, he also has to spend money ₹35.16 lakh.”
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