How I made my son’s Paris dreams come true with points and miles – The Points Guy

My oldest son has a lot of big dreams.

Two of his biggest dreams were flying in fancy business-class seats and seeing the Eiffel Tower. He talked about both regularly, and my usual response was to tell him, “Someday.”

As much as I wanted to take my son to Paris, I was always vague about exactly when that day would come. But finally, the universe sent me a sign that now was the time in the form of an amazing deal on business-class awards to Paris. The award availability got my gears turning, and I started estimating the potential costs of the rest of the trip. I was surprised to find reasonably priced hotels only a few steps away from the Eiffel Tower. Now, with the stars almost perfectly aligned, it felt like the perfect time to pounce.

By leveraging points and miles for an incredible deal on business-class award tickets and some luck on hotel prices, “someday” came sooner than expected.

You can always count on TPG for the best flight deals. In fact, this story about Air France business-class flights to Europe being available for as little as 50,000 miles convinced me to “book now.”

It took a bit of playing around with dates, but I soon found two one-way tickets from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) for only 96,250 Flying Blue miles, plus about $400 in taxes and fees.

The cost would have been closer to 100,000 miles if I’d been traveling with my partner, but Air France offers a 25% discount on tickets for kids between 3 and 11 years old, which helped us save even more.

As you can see from the fare calendar, the business-class tickets we purchased often cost more than double the number of points we got them for.

At the time of booking, the cash price for our flight was a whopping $5,064.60. Based on TPG’s August 2024 valuations, the 96,250 Flying Blue points we paid are valued at $1,251.25. We obviously came out way ahead by using points instead of cash, even when you factor in the taxes and fees.

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Because we don’t live in New York, I also had to purchase two Delta Air Lines tickets to get from Louisville, Kentucky, to New York.

With my Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, I earn an annual companion certificate, which I used to cover my son’s positioning flight, so our total to get to and from New York was $378.

My Delta Reserve Amex also helped us get a complimentary upgrade to Comfort+ on our flight home from Paris and a first-class upgrade between New York and Louisville.

Delta Amex Reserve cardholders are eligible for complimentary upgrades and receive upgrade priority over other Medallion members within the same Medallion level and fare class. I reached Delta Silver Medallion status this year thanks, in part, to the annual 2,500 Medallion Qualification Dollars Headstart, which helped me skip to the top of the upgrade list.

I spent another 50,000 Flying Blue miles on two economy tickets from CDG to JFK for our return flight (I don’t want him getting too spoiled) to avoid blowing through our entire stash of points in one trip.

Though our return flight was booked through Air France, our flight was operated by Delta. Both airlines are part of the SkyTeam alliance, so I enjoyed my Delta status benefits and saved on fuel surcharges by booking an economy ticket versus business class.

2 nights at a hotel steps from the Eiffel Tower

I came across a lot of opinions while researching hotels in Paris. Many people said that staying near the Eiffel Tower wasn’t ideal. However, it’s a good thing this was my vacation and not theirs because I did the exact opposite of what they suggested, and it was perfect.

Related: The best hotels in Paris

Hotel rooms near the Eiffel Tower with a tower view can cost between $700 and $2,000 a night. That didn’t really fit in with the budget-friendly nature of this trip. Instead, I saved by going with the Mercure Paris Centre Eiffel Tower Hotel. Our room cost about $250 per night and was only a five-minute walk from the nearest Metro station, and the hotel was around the corner from the Eiffel Tower.

The Mercure Paris Centre Eiffel Tower does have a handful of Eiffel Tower-view rooms, but I preferred to save the money for Champagne and croissants since we only needed to walk out the front door of our hotel to find stunning Eiffel Tower vistas.

The hotel participates in the Accor Live Limitless rewards program, which is free to join. Even at the basic Classic level, members receive members-only rates, online check-in and fast checkout, and you can earn points on every stay.

Unlike with a traditional redemption system, ALL members can redeem points to cover all or part of their stay. Every 1,000 points is worth 20 euros off a reservation. I don’t stay in hotels participating in this program often, but I did earn enough points on this stay to receive a discount on a future one.

All in, we paid just over $500 for our two-night stay in Paris, which isn’t a bad deal considering our proximity to the Eiffel Tower. We also visited during the time leading up to the Paris Olympics when hotel rates were skyrocketing at other properties.

Planning the perfect Paris trip

I knew this trip would be a milestone for my son, so I wanted to make it feel special from the moment my husband and I told him he was going to Paris.

I waited until the day before our trip and packed his bag with a few surprises. I told him we were going on a trip the next day, but he had to look through his bag and guess where we were going. After he saw the beret and the baguette (thanks, Target), he knew we were going to France. We all shed a few tears (of joy), and then it was time to pack the rest of our gear.

Our first stop was New York City. We had quite a bit of time between our positioning flight and our overnight flight to Paris, so I took my son straight to JFK’s Air France lounge. We ate lunch, he drank all the free soda he could handle, and we practiced our French.

He’s not afraid of flying, but he doesn’t usually get overly excited about it, either. He sees sitting in the metal tube with windows as a necessary part of getting somewhere fun. But this time, he was so excited to get on the plane and find his seat. While we were in the lounge, he asked me a lot of questions about how much the seat reclined, if we would have movie screens and what we would eat for dinner.

As soon as he sat down, he started testing all the seat’s features and buttons, and he also put his slippers on right away. When our meals arrived, he made me wait to try the cheesecake until we could take a bite at the exact same time, which was very cute.

We decided to watch a movie together while we ate. He chose “42,” a movie about baseball player Jackie Robinson, and we played the “3, 2, 1” game of trying to hit play at the same time. It went quite well, but then we had to hit “pause” and “play” simultaneously anytime one of us needed to get up and use the restroom. It was pretty funny trying to sync up our screens.

After dinner, my son finally got to turn his seat into a bed. I don’t think he got a lot of sleep because he was a little nervous and excited, but we did our best to get some rest before landing in Paris.

After landing in Paris, we purchased three-day Metro passes that we could use to get from the airport to our hotel and around town during our visit.

We took the train to the Bir-Hakeim station, which was closest to our hotel. As we walked toward our hotel, I wondered why we hadn’t yet seen the Eiffel Tower. Then we rounded the corner, and, bam, it was right in front of us. We both looked up in awe and couldn’t wait for a closer look.

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Eiffel Tower. TARAH CHIEFFI/THE POINTS GUY

We took a short nap in our hotel room and then headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. If you want to travel all the way to the top, know that tickets sell out quickly. I stalked the Eiffel Tower ticket website daily and purchased tickets for our visit as soon as they became available. If you only want to go to the second floor (but, truly, why stop there?), you will have an easier time getting tickets. You may also be able to purchase day-of tickets in person, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The views from the top of the Eiffel Tower were incredible. Our visit was even more special because it was only a few days before the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, so we could also see many of the sporting venues.

We both kept looking at each other and saying, “I can’t believe we’re really here,” and we meant it every single time we said it. I think we were both in shock. Especially Avery — he only found out about the trip less than 48 hours earlier.

Avery insisted we take the stairs from the second floor back down to the ground, and I was happy to oblige. Most people take the elevator, so it was not only less crowded but it was also more memorable.

We explored the city and had dinner before returning to our room. We had planned to walk back to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle at night, but I fell asleep before it even got dark outside. Luckily, I woke up around 11 p.m., and because we were staying so close to the tower, we walked over and caught the dazzling nighttime show.

If you want to see the Eiffel Tower’s sparkling lights, they start at dusk every evening and sparkle every hour on the hour and last for about five minutes. This means they turn on later in the summer than in the winter. In the summer, the last show is at 1 a.m., but for the rest of the year, the final showing is at 11 p.m.

The next morning, we rented an electric boat through Marin D’Eau Douce Paris, which I first learned of in TPG’s Paris Pocket Guide. Avery cranked up some music on my iPhone, and we explored the Bassin de la Villette. It wasn’t the most scenic spot in Paris, but it was a unique activity and a lot of fun.

Because we were in Paris for only a short time, I thought a bike ride would be the perfect way to see several city sights. We ride bikes as a family often at home, so I knew Avery was up for the challenge. We booked the Paris Day Bike Tour through Fat Tire Tours.

We saw Napoleon’s Tomb, the Musee d’Orsay, Hotel des Invalides, Place de la Concorde and the Ecole militaire, and we even snapped an Eiffel Tower photo from another vantage point on Rue de l’Universite.

Alas, at this point, our time in Paris was nearly over. We boarded a train to the airport early the next morning and said “au revoir” to Paris and the Eiffel Tower. As we sped farther and farther down the tracks, I caught a few final glimpses of the Eiffel Tower. Each time it came into view, I couldn’t help but smile at the magnificent structure that had inspired this once-in-a-lifetime trip.