travelgirl2

As I have previously posted, Continental is having a great fare sale from Newark to Cologne, Germany (less than $300, though mid-May). The cheapest fares are going fast...

ALSO, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY:
The second part of this promotion reduces the miles needed for a frequent flier ticket to 25,000 (for round-trip), instead of the usual 50,000. It is good throughout the summer! There are still lots of summer dates available!

travelgirl2

I l-o-v-e a great deal!!!

WillTravel

This is why my daughter and I are going to Cologne and Paris in February. I found the 25000-mile roundtrip for SEA-CGN. We have only ever taken two trips on Continental - and those were over 12,000 each. With bonuses for online check-in, 500 miles I got for some silly free sign-up thing, and a slight $32 top-up for my daughter, we had more than enough miles for the trip.

Basically we flew to Europe on Continental twice, and we are getting one almost-free trip for it (at least so far as airfare goes). In order to link my daughter's reservation to mine, I needed the services of a ticket agent, and so our total tally is $40 x 2 for taxes, $15 x 2 for the ticket agent, and $32 for a 1000 miles top-up for my daughter, for two round-trip tickets.

travelgirl2

Awesome for you and your daughter! I hope you have a great trip together.

I see that you are going in February. I couldn't believe it is available during the summer too, but it is. This is the first great deal I've heard of for summer 2007. (We captured $413 Virgin Atlantic Newark to London last summer, which was thrilling too.)

I was checking budget flights from Cologne to Paris and found one-way as low as 19 euros (including taxes/fees) on Germanwings. I'll have to check out Germanwings a bit and see where else they fly and if the feedback is ok on them...

Can you tell that I am very excited right now? Four tickets for summer travel to Germany for 100,000 miles and $142.40 (taxes/fees).

travelgirl2

I just noticed your trip is from Seattle, WillTravel. Even better! Congratulations!

WillTravel

Thanks, Travelgirl2! We already have an August trip planned because a few weeks ago we got a Northwest Airlines fare mistake from Vancouver to Romania (and then we'll take budget flights and train from there). So this February trip is just an unexpected bonus of sorts.

I noticed there is lots of EWR availability to CGN in summer, but I couldn't find any summer availability from SEA or YVR (although because I really didn't need it, I may not have looked hard enough). I'd advise anyone interested in a summer trip, with 25000 miles or near to it on Continental, to look at alternate airports for departure. Even if you have to fly somewhere, this promotion is worth it.

WillTravel

Also, if you use Thalys.com, you might find it's worth it to take the train instead of a budget flight. We have two roundtrip tickets from Cologne-Paris for 116 Euros. The problem is that the train tickets probably aren't available for summer yet, whereas the budget flights are. So in your case, I think I'd go with the sure thing - the budget flights.

travelgirl2

Care to elaborate on the fare mistake? It sounds exciting.

WillTravel

Basically, Northwest loaded fares that worked out to about $250 Canadian from Vancouver to Bucharest, with the possibility of European stopovers. It didn't last long, but lots of people got in on it. I'd suggest reading FlyerTalk.com , because that's the best way to keep up on these deals.

travelgirl2

Will do. That's two great deals this year. I'm impressed.