End of School Year Trip to Amsterdam on Points
How We Got Six People to a Harry Styles Concert in Amsterdam Using Points and What Happened When the Storm Hit Dallas
Total Points Used: ~490,000 pts Cash Out of Pocket: ~$2,500 (excl. concert) Destination: Amsterdam, NL
Point of View: The Strategy Behind a Family Concert Trip
Some trips are planned months out with a spreadsheet and a strategy. Others come together because the right event lands on the right date and you decide to go. This one was somewhere in between.
Two of my daughters, Paisley and Marley, are serious Harry Styles fans. When the Amsterdam concert dates were announced, the conversation moved fast. My wife was in. Berkley, our oldest at 25 and living in Chicago, was in. Hadley rounded out the group. Six people, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam for a concert. The last time all six of us traveled together was six years ago. Three of my daughters are adults now living their own lives. Getting everyone in the same city for a week felt like its own kind of win before we ever boarded a plane.
The Blueprint: Why Amsterdam
We could have seen Harry Styles in New York. I am glad we did not. The decision to go international was not complicated: the points were there, the routing was bookable, and Amsterdam gave the trip a context and energy that a domestic concert date would not have provided. For a family trip that had not happened in six years, the destination needed to match the occasion.
We bought eight tickets and ended up needing six, selling the extras on Ticketswap. The six tickets we used came to $1,815 total.
The Points and Miles Strategy
The booking strategy required three separate flight redemptions because the group was not all starting from the same city.
For the outbound flight, I booked my wife, Paisley, Hadley, Marley, and myself on Flying Blue miles at 15,000 points per person each way plus $392 each in taxes and fees. Flying Blue is the loyalty program for Air France and KLM and transfers at 1 to 1 from both Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards. The KLM nonstop from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam is a strong redemption that most travelers overlook.
Berkley was flying from Chicago, not Salt Lake City. I booked her separately on United MileagePlus at 80,000 miles roundtrip plus $11.20 in fees. She met us at the hotel in Amsterdam. Do not force everyone onto the same routing just for the sake of simplicity. Book from where each person actually is.
For the hotel, chain brands near the Johan Cruyff Arena were either sold out or dynamically priced out of reach due to concert demand. We stayed at Hotel Levell, about a 15 minute walk from the arena. My wife and I hold four Delta Amex cards with annual hotel credits ranging from $150 to $250 each. I booked individual single night stays and applied a different card credit to each night. For the final two nights I layered in my semi annual $200 Bilt travel credit and $100 in Bilt cash. Five nights for six people cost $457 out of pocket after stacking all credits.
For the return, I booked Hadley, Marley, and myself on American Airlines business class via Alaska Mileage Plan at 57,500 points per person plus $119.43 in taxes and fees. Alaska prices American Airlines international business class at rates that AAdvantage itself often cannot match. My wife and Paisley flew a separate routing, and Berkley returned to Chicago on the return leg of her United booking.
Pro Tip: Flying Blue transfers 1 to 1 from both Amex and Chase and consistently prices KLM transatlantic nonstop routes at rates that beat most competing programs. If you have a Europe trip on the calendar, price it here before you look anywhere else.
Routing and Travel Logistics
The outbound routing was clean. Five of us flew nonstop SLC to Amsterdam on KLM. Berkley flew nonstop from O'Hare. We arrived within a few hours of each other and met at Hotel Levell.
The return day was the most logistically interesting part of the trip. Three separate groups departed Amsterdam on the same morning. My wife and Paisley flew to JFK together, where Paisley was departing for a summer study abroad program. My wife stayed with her at the airport until Paisley's connecting flight took off, then flew home to Salt Lake City on her own. Berkley flew back to Chicago on the return leg of her United ticket. Hadley, Marley, and I flew American Airlines business class through London Heathrow and Dallas Fort Worth before connecting to Salt Lake City. Three groups, three itineraries, one morning.
High Point: The Wins That Made This Trip
The single best points win of the trip was the hotel stacking strategy. Five nights at a property running $273 per night across two rooms would have cost well over $2,500 in cash. After applying four Delta Amex hotel credits and stacking Bilt travel credits on top, we paid $457 out of pocket. That is the kind of result that only happens when you hold multiple cards with complementary annual credits and plan the booking accordingly.
The Cathay Pacific lounge at London Heathrow was the standout experience of the return journey. Flying business class on American Airlines as a oneworld carrier gave us lounge access at Heathrow, and the Cathay Pacific lounge operates more like a restaurant than a waiting area. Live noodle bar, pork buns, wonton soup, chipotle wings, chicken fried rice, all made in front of you with Asian sauces and seasonings tableside. It was a noticeably elevated experience compared to any lounge I have been in domestically. I had heard for years that the Cathay Pacific lounge in Hong Kong is among the best in the world. The London location made me want to see the flagship.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve trip delay benefit delivered when we needed it. When a storm rerouted our flight to Chicago and we ended up stranded overnight in Dallas, I had already booked a nearby Hyatt before the airline's hotel offer email even arrived. I filed a trip delay claim with Chase, submitted the documentation, and got reimbursed for the stay. I had held that card for years without ever filing a claim. It works exactly as advertised.
The Amsterdam Food and Cultural Tour with 10 Tastings was $632 for the group and earned 12,640 Bilt points through a 20x Rakuten multiplier on the Viator booking. The fried cod and the gourmet grilled cheese were the standout tastings. The Van Gogh Museum with audio tour was $150 and equally worth it. The audio tour let each person choose their own depth of narration, which worked well for a group with varying levels of art interest.
And then there was the concert itself. The Johan Cruyff Arena is a proper stadium experience. Paisley and Marley had been waiting for this for months. You can book the flights and the hotel and the tickets. You cannot book the feeling of being in a stadium in a foreign country with all four of your kids next to you.
Pro Tip: Always check Rakuten before booking activities on Viator. Rakuten often has elevated travel multipliers that translate into meaningful Bilt or Amex point returns on larger group bookings. That $632 food tour at 20 times returned 12,640 Bilt points.
Low Point: The Friction
The hotel delivered what a budget property near a concert venue is supposed to deliver. It did not deliver anything more than that. The air conditioning kept shutting off automatically to conserve energy. The staff suggestion was to open the windows. It did not help. The room key system required me to go to the front desk each morning to get both rooms re keyed since the individual night bookings technically turned over daily. These were manageable inconveniences, but if hotel quality matters to you, know what you are trading for proximity.
The Anne Frank Museum was a miss entirely. Those tickets sell out six weeks in advance and are nearly impossible to get last minute. We did not get in. If Amsterdam is on your list and the Anne Frank Museum is something your family wants to do, book it the same day you book your flights. This is not a Pro Tip so much as a hard lesson.
The return routing was the low point on pure logistics. The 21 hour routing home through London and Dallas versus the 10 hour nonstop we took outbound is a real trade off. Business class made it tolerable. The weather diversion to Chicago did not. Sitting on a tarmac at O'Hare for several hours on an international flight where deplaning is not permitted, then flying back to Dallas only to find your connection has already departed, is an experience that tests your patience regardless of which cabin you are sitting in.
The KLM outbound taxes and fees of $392 per person are steep. For five people that is nearly $2,000 in cash just in fees on top of the points. KLM transatlantic taxes are notoriously high and there is no way around it on this routing. It is worth knowing before you commit.
Final Point: The Verdict
This trip was On Point.
A transatlantic trip for six people built around a concert in a foreign city, using six different redemption tools across Flying Blue, United MileagePlus, Alaska Mileage Plan, Delta Amex hotel credits, Bilt travel credits, and Chase Sapphire Reserve trip delay protection, came together the way a well built points strategy is supposed to. Every tool did its job. The hotel stacking saved over $2,000. The lounge access in London was exceptional. The trip delay claim worked on the first try.
The high transatlantic taxes on the Flying Blue redemption are the one variable worth planning around. If you have flexibility on timing, check Flying Blue promo award windows, which can take 25 to 50 percent off select routes. A Google alert for "Flying Blue promo awards" will catch them before they sell out.
The one piece of advice I would give anyone trying to replicate this trip: do not try to put everyone on the same flights when they are starting from different cities. Book each person from their actual departure point using the program that makes the most sense for their routing. I used three different programs for three different flight segments and it saved significant points across the group.
The points made it possible to say yes to a trip that, paid in cash, would have been easy to talk ourselves out of. That is the whole point of building these accounts. Not to save money in the abstract, but to remove the barrier between your family and something worth having. For us that was six of us in a stadium in Amsterdam, all four daughters in the same place for the first time in six years.
The Full Breakdown:
SLC to AMS (KLM, nonstop, Flying Blue, x5): 15,000 pts + $392 each
ORD to AMS roundtrip (Berkley, United MileagePlus): 80,000 pts + $11.20
AMS to LHR to DFW to SLC (AA Business, Alaska Mileage Plan, x3): 57,500 pts + $119.43 each
AMS to JFK to SLC (my wife): Points redemption, separate booking
Hotel Levell, Amsterdam, 5 nights (Delta Stays Credits + Bilt Credits): $457 out of pocket
Amsterdam Food and Cultural Tour, 6 people (Cash + 20x Bilt via Rakuten): $632
Van Gogh Museum via Viator, 6 people (Cash + 20x Bilt via Rakuten): $150
Harry Styles Concert, 6 tickets (Cash): $1,815
Amsterdam Public Transit (Cash, 3x Atmos via Alaska Summit card): ~$110
Total: approximately 490,000 points and $2,500 cash out of pocket, not counting the concert. Including the concert: ~$4,300.
The verdict: On Point. If you have Delta SkyMiles, Flying Blue miles, United miles, Virgin Atlantic miles, Alaska miles, or American Airlines miles sitting in an account and a reason to go to Europe, start pricing it. Layer in your Delta Amex hotel credits and the gap between what a trip like this costs in cash and what it costs in points gets very wide very fast. The tools are there. You just need the right reason to use them.
