Rachel sent in her reader success story about her trip to Poland using points and miles. We hadn’t covered Poland yet, so this was great hear about and Rachel has me scheming to go there now! Here is her story:

 

Getting to Poland on Points and Miles

I started getting into the points and miles hobby in Fall 2023. In August of 2024, my family of three (two adults and one two-year-old) took a trip to Poland to visit my grandparents. We found a deal on flights and made the trip happen. I hadn’t seen my grandparents since 2019, and it was going to be the first time to meet my son, their fourth great-grandchild.

We flew from Los Angeles (LAX) to Paris (CDG) to Amsterdam (AMS) to Warsaw (WAW) on Air France and KLM, all in business class. We took flights with two connections because that itinerary got us into Warsaw earlier than if we had gone LAX > CDG > WAW, which was our other option. Since we were traveling with a toddler, we preferred getting to our hotel earlier. I think I found the flights on Roame Travel.

We flew business class since this was our first international trip with a toddler, and we wanted the freedom of space. Looking back, I don’t know if we would do that again. My son did not want to sleep on the flight. Air France had a 1-2-1 configuration on our flight, and Air France requires children to be in a window seat in business class. So I sat across the aisle from him, and my husband was in front. I was the only one with a visual on him, so I was up a lot out of my seat to help him. The flights to AMS and WAW were a bit easier since we were sitting beside him in intra-European business class (not lie-flat seats) and could help him.

 

 

 

Transferring Ultimate Rewards to Air France/KLM

We used points we had earned from Chase on the card_name and card_name and then transferred 121,000 Chase Ultimate® Rewards to Air France/KLM Flying Blue for three tickets during a 25% transfer bonus period. We also got a 25% discount on our son’s ticket because he falls in the age range (2 to 11 years old) that allows for that discount. The tickets were listed at about 57,000 points each. The taxes and fees for three business-class flights were $683.72.

My husband had card_name card at the time (I got caught up in getting shiny new cards with elevated welcome offers and had not gotten the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card by the time we booked this trip), so we transferred my points to him by calling Chase. We started off booking the flights online at Air France but then got an error message and called Air France to get everything booked. The customer service representative I spoke to was very helpful.

 

Flight Details

The flight attendants on the LAX > CDG flight were so nice. They gave our son a little toy amenity packet. One flight attendant offered to watch my son if I needed to get up and use the restroom (because she didn’t realize that we were traveling with my husband). When I took him to change his diaper at one point, the same flight attendant opened the door and put down the changing table for me. She even showed me that I could get a frequent-flyer account for my son because we would earn a lot of points. (I didn’t tell her we had booked with points!)

We looked up playgrounds at the CDG and AMS airports to keep our son busy but couldn’t find any. But because we were flying in business class, we had access to airport lounges, which were a lifesaver. We visited the new Air France lounge at LAX, which was beautiful and had great food. We visited an Air France Lounge in CDG that had beautiful architecture with huge windows, but I thought it was a bit dirty; there were some crumbs that hadn’t been picked up and some of the upholstery was worn. The KLM lounge in AMS was lovely, but I thought the food was just ok. It was better at the Air France lounges. My husband and I passed out and slept on a bench in the KLM lounge in AMS; I hadn’t slept in about 24 hours at that point.

We were also served meals on our short CDG > AMS and AMS > WAW flights, even though they were very short. 

 

Holiday Inn Express Warsaw

I booked a transfer from the airport through Rakuten and Viator when it had an elevated Rakuten cash-back offer. The driver was extremely friendly and spoke great English, which was good because my Polish is extremely limited. He told us about all the driving he had been doing the last couple of days because Taylor Swift had been in Warsaw. We arrived the day after her last night and there were a lot of Swifties at the airport with their concert swag.

We paid $119.54 in Warsaw for a room at the Holiday Inn Express Warsaw – The HUB. It was right next to the Crowne Plaza – The HUB. We chose this hotel because it was close to the train station and they offered complimentary breakfast. Polish breakfasts are pretty extensive and filling, so I knew it would be good to eat and take snacks for the train ride. I booked the hotel through Rakuten to stack and earn some extra points, and paid with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card because there was an offer for some cash back from IHG hotels. If I wasn’t going to use points, I was going to stack to earn as many points as I could!

The hotel is in the financial district and next to a metro station. The metro and bus system in Warsaw are pretty good (though we didn’t take the bus this time). The hotel was clean and the staff was very friendly. The breakfast was really good. Our room had one bed and a pull-out couch for our son that the hotel staff prepared for us. It was a tight fit, but it served its purpose of allowing us to stay for one night.

 

 

Visiting My Grandparents

We took the train to my grandparents’ town, Oleśnica, near Wrocław. The train took about 3.5 hours. Three train tickets cost about 200zł ($50). The train we took there had a dining car, but the train we took on the way back to Warsaw did not. We did not plan accordingly. We were all okay, but we found out that dining cars are not guaranteed on every train!

 

 

We stayed at The Apartamenty Stary Browar in Oleśnica. There is no front desk; you get into the building using codes sent via email. There are only about three hotels in their town, and we chose this one because we couldn’t all fit into my grandparents’ apartment and it was within walking distance and had a spacious room for the three of us.

It was right in the old town square and cost 1,441.30zł (about $360) for four nights. It was essentially a studio apartment that had one bed, a pull-out couch, a sink, a microwave, a mini-fridge, and a hot plate. So it was great that we could buy some food to keep on hand and have breakfast. The only negative was that some people in the neighborhood were out late, hanging out and talking loudly, which we heard because we had to keep the windows open for a while to let in cool air!  (There was no A/C.)

 

Visiting Wrocław

My aunt was also visiting from the U.S. at the same time we were, so she took us to Wrocław one morning. We drove in my grandparents’ car and brought the WAYB Pico Portable car seat with us for our son (a great portable, foldable, lightweight car seat). We hung out in the central Old Town square and looked for gnome statues with our son. There are little gnomes are all over the Old Town Square doing various activities (for example, a gnome taking a picture of a smaller gnome). There are maps available to buy at the Town Hall showing the gnomes’ locations so you can go on a scavenger hunt for the gnomes around the Old Town. 

 

 

 

That same day, after my son’s nap, we returned to Wrocław to go to Szczytnicki Park near the Centennial Hall and Wrocław Congress Centre. The park has a multimedia fountain that plays music with 300 water jets that create geysers, water mists, spurts, etc. Think of the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas on a smaller scale. And you can walk in this fountain! It was hot and humid, so this was a great relief to our son. Nearby is a splash pad that a ton of kids were also playing in. It was good fun.

 

 

We spent the rest of the time visiting family, walking around my grandparents’ town, eating ice cream, and taking it easy.

 

Return to Warsaw

We then took the train back to Warsaw and stayed in the same hotel (the Holiday Inn Express). I booked it while we were visiting our family because we were familiar with it and I didn’t want to think about it that hard. We met up with a friend I studied abroad with in France who lives in Warsaw, at a park near her house, and our son loved it. We visited several parks in Poland and they were all pretty good. We did notice that the slides were mostly metal, whereas they are mostly plastic at home, so that was a fun difference.

 

 

Flying Home on LOT Polish Airlines

To fly home, we flew home on LOT Polish Airlines, booked through United. I had had United miles in my account for years and we finally used them! We had to buy 6,000 extra miles, and I accidentally did it twice, so I paid $191.89 and $238.65.  (The amounts differed because there was a sale on the first purchase but not on the second). Three economy tickets were 44,000 points each. We paid $119.10 in taxes and fees and flew on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Even though we were in economy, it was still a pretty easy flight because it was a direct flight from WAW to LAX. So flying in economy with a toddler made a lot of sense for us.

I found this flight using Roame.travel flight alerts. I wasn’t finding many choices when I was looking initially, even considering positioning flights out of Europe. Most flights I had been finding were about 70,000 United miles. But when I saw the 44,000 mile flight, I booked it. I kept an alert going just in case I found anything else that was cheaper and had a good itinerary, but direct flights are hard to beat. Because we had limits on how much time off we could take, we had a specific window on how long we could stay in Poland and when we had to fly home.

We woke up a little later than we had planned to fly home and were running late, but LOT had a family check-in line at the airport with a little play area for the kids. I’d never seen something like this. It was a slow-moving line until they got another check-in agent, but then it moved and we just made the cut-off to board our flight! They also let us cut in the security line because we had our son with us, which was a lifesaver. Family travel in Europe was quite accommodating, and it was great!

 

Bottom Line

This was our first big redemption using points and miles, and I’m so glad we didn’t have to wait too long to use the points we earned. Overall, it was a great trip because my grandparents met my son. I don’t know that they ever expected to live long enough to have great-grandchildren, let alone meet them. They don’t travel anymore, so I’m thrilled we got to visit them.

 

 

As far as the flights went, I don’t know if I preferred the business class flights with a toddler (which were not as restful as I initially hoped they would be) with access to free food in three lounges over a direct flight in economy. They both had different positive aspects that we will consider for family travel in the future. We already have our trip back to Europe booked for summer 2025!

Thanks, Amanda, for sharing your reader success story to Poland on points and miles with all of us!