2017 Flights in Review $3,870 for 95,647 miles on 16 airlines in 16 countries through 26 airports

My 2017 flight year might be unique among points and miles bloggers in that I only flew on revenue tickets in 2017 without a single miles reward ticket.

I flew 95,647 flight miles with 48 flight segments for $3,870 in revenue tickets over the past 12 months. Technically, I only flew 89,019 flight miles in 2017, however, I am including my flights last week for Prague-Copenhagen-Toronto-San Francisco to get home from my December Europe trip and those flights are included in my $3,870 airline spend tally.

I purchased one $70 ticket on WOW for SFO to London Gatwick for a May 2017 trip I ended up not flying for $3,940 spent on airline tickets.

7 trips to Europe

I traveled to Europe 7 times, visiting 14 countries and 26 cities there, some places like London, Amsterdam, Prague, Sofia and Stockholm I traveled to multiple times over different trips during the year.

I spent less than $100 on self-selected seats and bag fees despite all the low cost carriers I flew.

I traveled over 1,000 miles intra-Europe, mostly by bus and a few trains between cities in Europe, but most of my travel across Europe was by plane.

I stayed 79 nights in European hotels for less than $4000.

I flew 16 different airlines through 16 countries, but only 3 domestic flight segments in the USA in 2017.

16 Airlines:

1. American Airlines
2. British Airways
3. United
4. Aegean Airlines
5. Air Canada
6. LOT Polish
7. SAS
8. Czech Airlines
9. Norwegian
10. WOW
11. Ryanair
12. WIZZ
13. Level
14. Vueling
15. FlyBe
16. Frontier

26 Airports:

1. SFO San Francisco
2. OAK Oakland
3. SJC San Jose
4. LAX Los Angeles
5. DEN Denver
6. YYZ Toronto
7. London Heathrow LHR
8. London Stansted STN
9. London Southend SEN
10. AMS Amsterdam, Netherlands
11. EIN Eindhoven, Netherlands
12. ATH Athens, Greece
13. SOF Sofia, Bulgaria
14. WAW Warsaw, Poland
15. GDN Gdansk, Poland
16. KRK Krakow, Poland
17. ARN Stockholm Arlanda, Sweden
18. NYO Stockholm Skavsta, Sweden
19. CPH Copenhagen, Denmark
20. KEF Keflavik, Iceland
21. VNO Vilnius, Lithuania
22. RIX Riga, Latvia
23. BCN Barcelona, Spain
24. PRG Prague, Czech Republic
25. BRQ Brno, Czech Republic
26. NCE Nice, France

26 cities visited

1. 1. Amsterdam, Netherlands
   2. Athens, Greece*
   3. Barcelona, Spain*
   4. Bratislava, Slovakia
   5. Brno, Czech Republic
   6. Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
   7. Copenhagen, Denmark
   8. Eindhoven, Netherlands*
   9. Gdansk, Poland
   10. Kaunas, Lithuania
   11. Klaipeda, Lithuania
   12. Krakow, Poland
   13. London, UK
   14. Malmo, Sweden
   15. Monaco
   16. Nice, France
   17. Pilsen, Czech Republic
   18. Plovdiv, Bulgaria
   19. Prague, Czech Republic
   20. Reykjavik, Iceland
   21. Riga, Latvia
   22. Sofia, Bulgaria
   23. Stockholm, Sweden
   24. Vilnius, Lithuania
   25. Warsaw, Poland 
   26. Wroclaw, Poland

(Athens, Barcelona, and Eindhoven were airport transit stops with no hotel stay, but some sightseeing and beer drinking.)

In a space flooded with credit cards as frequent flyer mile generators, my travel strategy is fly cheap and fly often and focus my efforts on collecting points for discount hotel nights on my travels.

Europe Trip 1: Jan 2017 $266 airfare

11,944 flight miles: SFO-Copenhagen, Malmo, Prague, Wroclaw, Krakow, Stockholm-OAK

• Jan 24 WOW $69 round trip SFO-KEF-CPH
• Jan 26 $62 Czech Airlines CPH-PRG
• Jan 31 $19 Norwegian Airlines, 17.70 EUR KRK-ARN
• Feb 1 $116 Norwegian Airlines ARN-OAK

 

Europe Trip 2 Feb 2017 $595 airfare

13,806 flight miles: SFO, London, Amsterdam, Sofia, Athens, Warsaw, Gdansk, Stockholm, OAK

• Feb18 $148 United Airlines SFO-LHR (outbound flights of $296 SFO-LHR round trip ticket purchased using $400 VDB credit earned in London July 2016).
• Feb 21 $101 British Airways LHR-AMS 80.70 GBP
• Feb 25 $51 Ryanair EIN – SOF
• Feb 28 $106.20 Aegean Airlines SOF-ATH-WAW
• Feb 28 $13.89 Ryanair WAW-GDN
• Mar 2 $27.06 Ryanair GDN-NYO
• Mar 3 $149.13 Norwegian ARN-OAK

 

Europe Trip 3 – April 2017 $327 airfare

11,607 flight miles: SFO-Reykjavik-Vilnius/Kaunas/Klaipeda/Riga-Stockholm-OAK

Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipeda-Riga travel by train and bus.

• Apr 2 $69.99 one way WOW Air WW162 SFO-KEF Keflavik, Iceland (Skipped April 3 WOW WW902 KEF-CPH, my ticketed destination).
• April 4 $70 one way Wizz Air KEF-VNO Vilnius, Lithuania 64.99 EUR
• April 11 $36 Norwegian RIX-ARN
• April 12 $151 one way Norwegian Airlines ARN – OAK

 

Europe Trip 4 – June 2017 $645 airfare

14,557 flight miles: Barcelona, Warsaw, Gdansk, Krakow, Stockholm

• June 13 $149.10 LEVEL OAK-BCN
• June 14 $90 Vueling/Iberia BCN-WAW
• June 15 $27 Ryanair WAW-GDN
• June 17 $56 LOT Polish GDN-KRK
• June 22 $44 Norwegian KRK-ARN
• June 23 $279 (outbound portion $558rt) AA ARN-LHR-SJC /SJC-LAX-xLHR-ARN Dec 24

 

Europe Trip 5 – July 2017 $654 airfare

13,101 flight miles: Copenhagen – Amsterdam – Prague/Pilsen/Brno/Bratislava/Brno – London

Bus travel: Prague-Pilsen-Prague-Brno-Bratislava-Brno

• July 11 $285 SAS SFO-xCPH-ARN (return flights on $570 round trip ticket SK Dec 30, 2016 ARN-CPH-SFO. xCPH indicates overnight layover.)
• July 13 $72 SAS ARN-AMS
• July 18 $100 Czech Airlines AMS-PRG
• July 31 $49 Ryanair BRQ Brno – STN London Stansted
• Aug 1 $148 LHR-SFO United [return flights from Feb 18 2017 United SFO-LHR $296 round trip]

Europe Trip 6 – October 2017 $600 airfare

15,815 flight miles: Prague – Warsaw – Nice – Monaco – Athens – Sofia – Plovdiv – Prague

• Oct 4 $367rt BA-AARP ticket SJC – LHR – PRG outbound
• Oct 7 $100 LOT Polish PRG-xWAW-NCE
• Oct 12 $77 Aegean NCE-ATH-SOF
• Oct 16 $56 Aegean SOF-ATH-PRG
• Oct 18 BA-AARP PRG-LHR-SJC round trip return

 

Europe Trip 7 – December 2017 $685 airfare

12,920 flight miles: SJC-LAX-London LHR/London SEN – Prague – Copenhagen-YYZ-SFO

• Dec 24 $274 SJC-LAX-xLHR-ARN Dec 24 (return flights from $558 AA ticket June 23. Skipped ARN Dec 26 flight.)
• Dec 28 Flybe $70 one way SEN-PRG
• Jan 4 Czech $77 one way PRG-CPH
• Jan 5 $264 outbound flights of $527 CPH-SFO United round trip ticket flying Air Canada. Return flights to Copenhagen in June 2018.

 

Colorado Springs Trip – October 2017 Frontier $98 airfare

1,898 flight miles San Jose SJC – Denver – San Jose

Aegean Miles+Bonus Progress Report

I am currently 11,000 Tier Miles from earning Aegean Miles+Bonus Gold elite. I have until mid-July 2018 to collect those Tier Miles. I can knock it out with one round trip ticket flying SAS SFO-CPH-ARN. That is my plan for March or April 2018. I will then have Star Alliance Gold elite status.

My American Airlines Platinum elite status and Oneworld Sapphire elite status is ending in the next month.