I have just booked Dad and I on a two week trip to Germany (and Austria and Switzerland) for next October. I paid 310,000 miles and about $300 in taxes/fees (most of which were German airport and passenger fees). I wanted to get us business class seats both ways, but that would have been 500,000 points since business class didn’t have any saver awards available (yet), so we went with business class over, and economy class back. I already have Global Entry, and Dad completed the application for it last week, so we should be good to go and will get to come back into the States easily.
Grammy is babysitting while we’re gone (we debated taking Daughter Person with us, and ultimately decided to postpone her first international trip until the following year), and is looking forward to it. The tickets are changeable for free in case something happens between now and then (Grammy is 70 after all), and cancel-able for $100 (plus the $300 we already paid). We declined the travel insurance because of that.
Now to plan out where we’re going and where we’re staying while there.