How a Business Class Redemption Turned Into a Two-Week Central Europe Trip

This post introduces my Central Europe series, which includes Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Flight That Started the Trip

When I first started planning this trip, my goal wasn’t to fly business class.

My goal was to use up a pile of Flying Blue points.

About a year earlier, I had transferred a large number of points from my credit card to Flying Blue for a family trip that ultimately never happened.

If you’re new to points and miles, that’s one of the biggest lessons you’ll learn quickly: once you transfer points to an airline, you can’t transfer them back.

The points simply live there until you use them—or until they expire.

If you’re collecting points and miles, do yourself a favor and keep track of expiration policies. Whether it’s a spreadsheet, a note in your phone, or a calendar reminder, having a system is far easier than trying to recover an expired balance later.

Trust me, that’s not a lesson you want to learn the hard way.

After canceling the original trip and paying Flying Blue’s cancellation fee to redeposit the miles, I found myself slowly working through the remaining balance.

I’d already used a majority of the points for a family trip to Spain in Premium Economy, but I still had roughly 60,000 Flying Blue miles sitting in my account.

Since airline programs regularly increase award prices over time, I generally prefer to use stranded airline miles before touching flexible points currencies like Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, or Capital One Miles.

So when it came time to plan Central Europe, that’s where I started.

Not with a destination.

With a loyalty program.

My first question wasn’t:

“Where do I want to go?”

It was:

“Where can Flying Blue get me?”

Originally, I focused on Poland because it fit nicely into a broader Central Europe route I wanted to build.

I began searching flights into both Warsaw and Kraków, primarily looking for Premium Economy availability from New York.

Then something unexpected happened.

A few weeks earlier, I had flown home from Central America through Washington Dulles (IAD) for the first time.

To my surprise, I realized the trip from Philadelphia wasn’t dramatically more difficult than getting to JFK.

That opened up another airport for my search.

And that’s when I found it.

A business class seat from Washington Dulles to Warsaw on the exact date I wanted to travel.

60,000 Flying Blue miles plus approximately €225 in taxes and fees.

The funny thing is that I didn’t book it immediately.

I stared at it for a day or two.

Because once I booked that flight, my Flying Blue balance would essentially drop to zero.

Even after years of earning and redeeming points, that scarcity mindset can be surprisingly difficult to overcome.

Part of me kept thinking:

“What if something better comes along?”

But eventually I reminded myself of something I tell people all the time.

Points are meant to be used.

Airlines devalue their programs regularly.

Unused points rarely become more valuable.

And at that moment, I had no other Europe trips planned.

I had never flown long-haul business class.

And I had the exact flight I wanted sitting in front of me.

So I booked it.

For 60,000 Flying Blue miles and €225, I locked in my first business class flight and, without realizing it, the starting point of what would become one of my favorite trips in Europe.

The Hotel Strategy

With my flight booked, the next challenge was figuring out where I would stay.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that my hotel strategy changes depending on who I’m traveling with.

When I traveled to Spain with my family, we paid cash for most of our accommodations. Moving hotels every couple of nights to maximize points, free night certificates, and travel credits simply wasn’t worth the hassle.

When I’m traveling solo, however, the equation changes.

I’m much more willing to move around if it helps reduce costs or lets me take advantage of different travel programs.

That flexibility became a big part of this trip.

Rather than committing to a single hotel chain, I approached each destination independently.

Sometimes that meant paying cash.

Sometimes it meant using travel credits.

Sometimes it meant redeeming points through a travel portal.

And occasionally it meant choosing a slightly less glamorous option because the location or value made more sense.

Throughout this series, you’ll notice a recurring theme in the Travel Breakdown sections.

For each city, I’ll share:

• The hotel I chose
• What it cost
• Whether I used points or travel credits
• Whether I would make the same choice again

The goal wasn’t luxury.

The goal wasn’t spending as little money as possible.

The goal was finding the middle ground between cash travel and travel hacking.

Looking back, that approach worked remarkably well.

My first business class flight got me to Europe.

A mix of points, credits, and affordable hotels kept me there.

The Challenge: One Flight In, One Flight Out

Once I booked my flight to Warsaw, I gave myself a simple challenge:

Could I make it all the way to Amsterdam without flying again?

The answer was always going to be yes.

The real question was how.

A week after this trip ended, I was meeting my sister and cousin in Amsterdam for another week of travel.

That meant my only fixed points were:

• Fly into Warsaw
• Eventually get to Amsterdam

Everything in between was flexible.

At first, I considered simply working my way west.

On paper, it would have been easy.

Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands are incredibly well connected by rail.

The problem was that I had already visited many of those destinations on previous trips.

Instead of retracing my steps, I started looking in a different direction.

South.

That’s when I realized there was an entire region of Europe I had barely explored.

Central Europe.

I had heard great things about Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but had never built a trip around them.

Suddenly, the route started taking shape.

Warsaw.

Kraków.

Bratislava.

Graz.

Ljubljana.

Zagreb.

Split.

Mostar.

Dubrovnik.

Then a short flight to Amsterdam to begin the next chapter of the trip.

One of the things that makes Central Europe so rewarding is how well connected everything is.

Trains, buses, and short overland journeys make it surprisingly easy to move between countries without constantly returning to an airport.

In fact, once I landed in Warsaw, I didn’t board another plane for nearly two weeks.

That ended up becoming one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Instead of seeing countries as isolated destinations, I got to experience how they connected to one another.

Travel Curiosity Got the Better of Me

Of course, travel curiosity got the better of me once again.

I wanted to visit all the places.

See all the things.

Experience as much of Central Europe as I could in the time I had available.

There’s no question that my itinerary was more ambitious than it needed to be.

I could have easily spent the entire two weeks in Poland.

Or divided my time between Slovenia and Croatia alone.

But that wasn’t really the goal of this trip.

From the beginning, I viewed this itinerary as a sampler.

A first introduction to a part of Europe I knew very little about.

I wanted each destination to answer a simple question:

Do I want to come back?

If the answer was yes, then the trip had done its job.

Looking back, that strategy worked almost too well.

Warsaw left me wanting another day.

Kraków left me wanting another trip.

Slovenia convinced me it deserved an itinerary of its own.

And several destinations that I knew almost nothing about before arriving quickly became places I would happily revisit.

As the trip continued, I realized something surprising.

I wasn’t checking countries off a list.

I was building a list of places I wanted to explore more deeply in the future.

The Best Planning Decision I Made

Looking back, one of the best decisions I made was accepting that I couldn’t see everything.

There were plenty of destinations that didn’t make the final itinerary.

Gdańsk was probably the biggest omission from Poland alone.

I briefly considered adding more of Slovenia.

I looked at additional stops in Croatia.

And at one point I probably had enough destinations saved in Google Maps to fill an entire month.

But every additional stop came with a cost.

More transportation.

More hotel changes.

More packing.

More unpacking.

Eventually I stopped asking:

“What else can I add?”

And started asking:

“What gives me the best overall trip?”

That shift changed everything.

What I Didn’t Know Yet

At the time, I thought Poland would simply be the beginning.

I didn’t know Warsaw would surprise me.

I didn’t know Slovenia would become my favorite destination.

I didn’t know which cities would exceed expectations and which would leave me wanting more.

I just knew I had a business class ticket to Warsaw, a rough route through Central Europe, and two weeks to explore a part of Europe I had never experienced before.

What followed became one of my favorite travel experiences to date.

And it all started with 60,000 Flying Blue miles.

Next Stop: Is Poland Worth Visiting? My Honest Thoughts After 5 Days Before arriving, Poland was simply the first stop on my itinerary. Five days later, I was already planning a return visit.