ginia.org

Chris’ notes: https://recordofm.org/2025/05/14/alsace-and-munich-2023-a-journey-through-french-and-german-delights/

Pre-pandemic, I either bought or transferred bank points to Lifemiles, Avianca’s frequent flyer program, in Chris’ account. The thing about Lifemiles is that it’s an amazing program: both amazing in terms of possible (outsized) value and in terms of frustration. The pros and cons of this program have been recorded elsewhere, but suffice to say, I keep trying to use this program with mixed results.

Sometime in 2022, I realized Chris had about 100K points about to expire. (Can I figure out what I was originally going to use those points for before I publish this? Nah, not going to bother.) I hate letting that many points expire, so I went about trying to figure out how to use them.

At the time, Chris’ employer gave him both a summer and a winter holiday week off, so this opportunity to travel without using Chris’ PTO was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, this week was in early August 2023: prime-time travel season. There was no way I was going to go somewhere colder (yeah, if you know about our August 2024 travels, you’ll be laughing at that one!), so I resigned myself to using those points for economy seats to Europe.

But I’d be damned if I’d be stuck on connecting flights.

So, I found a direct flight from Chicago to Paris (on United) and a direct flight from Munich to Chicago (on Lufthansa). (Add ticket prices in points and fees.) That meant we needed to get from Paris to Munich in 8 days.

Not a problem: Alsace was right in between! Where there’s a wine region, there’s interest! There was even a TGV from CDG to Strausbourg: perfect. We didn’t even need to head to Paris, switch train stations, or anything. Very efficient. We picked up our rental car near the Strausbourg train station and headed to the first of our 3 wine villages.

AA had already started their Loyalty Points system (check on that), so I booked our hotels via AA Hotels to earn those points. (None of my preferred hotel systems–Hyatt or Marriott–had hotels in the villages we were exploring.) (Add LP earnings and cost.)

Side note: this region led to my most expensive bathroom break! From (village), we walked to (village) for a lovely lunch (add link to Chris’ blog). I did use the toilet at the restaurant, then we continued to explore the village on foot. On our way back to our hotel’s village, I suddenly needed another bathroom break. Fortunately, there was a winery right across the street from me, open for tastings. Unfortunately, this was a very, very, very posh winery where the tastings started at (price)! But when nature calls, gotta listen. So we stopped in, ponied up the cash, and decided to lean in and enjoy ourselves. Silver lining: the tastings were discounted (or free?) if you bought some wine, so we bought a few bottles to take with us to Strausbourg. Our hotel there was an aparthotel, so we had a kitchen, which meant we could take advantage of the town’s markets and Chris made dinner to accompany that wine!

After exploring this region, we then headed to Munich for a couple of nights at the (???) Hotel. A delightful food tour with a lovely Irish guide and an American family who had managed to secure EU passports via ancestry (Croatia, I think) made us really think hard about securing our own second passports. (As I write this in 2025, those opportunities are really closing in — we might need to settle for legal residency!)

The flight home was unremarkable in that I don’t remember a darn thing about it.