Every points trip report ends with a number. Almost none of them show the receipts behind it, and almost all of them quote a cents-per-point figure that was never verified against a cash fare anyone actually saw.
Here is the closing ledger for ten days across France, Switzerland and Italy, with the gaps left visible.
The ledger
| Redemption | Points | Cash on top | What it covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta CDG to MSP in Comfort+, then Main Cabin on the leg home, 2 passengers, Sep 7 | 139,400 SkyMiles | $240 | The return flight |
| Grand Hotel Victoria Concept & Spa, Menaggio | 170,000 Hilton | $0 | One night at a €1,348 rate |
| Novotel Paris CDG | 8,800 Accor | about €0 | The pre-departure night, roughly €176 |
| Total | about 318,200 points on the three redemptions above |
Two honest notes on that total. The outbound award is not in it: that one was 30,000 points and we already wrote it up separately, which puts the whole trip nearer 348,200 points. It carried taxes and fees on top, as every award ticket does.
The Victoria in Menaggio: 170,000 Hilton points, the biggest hotel line in the ledger. Photo: RewardsGuru.club
On top of the points, these card credits went out the door:
| Credit | Where it went | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Amex Platinum H2 hotel credit, through Fine Hotels + Resorts | Hôtel Lancaster, Paris, plus a $100 property credit spent at dinner | $300 |
| Amex Platinum H2 hotel credit, second account | The Capra, Saas-Fee, booked through Fine Hotels + Resorts. Also carried daily breakfast for two and a $100 property credit | $300 |
| Capital One Venture X travel credit, one $300 pool | Château Gütsch, Lucerne, booked in the Capital One portal. The full $300 went against this one stay | $300 |
| Delta Reserve Delta Stays credit | Hotel City Lugano, with a small cash top-up | $200 |
| Delta Platinum Delta Stays credit | Moxy Milan Malpensa, with a small top-up | $150 |
| Amex Platinum to Hilton Gold, free | SLH breakfast for two and a one-category upgrade at the Victoria | about €80 to €120 a night |
| Total | about $1,250 plus status |
Two of those nights were Fine Hotels + Resorts bookings four days apart, and together they are the most transferable thing in this table.
The FHR benefit suite attaches to each booking. Amex's wording is "With each Fine Hotels + Resorts booking, Platinum Card members receive a complimentary suite of benefits", so two stays meant two breakfasts for two and two $100 property credits.
The $300 statement credit does not work that way. The same page says "up to $300 back in statement credits semiannually", and our two Fine Hotels + Resorts nights fell in the same half of the calendar year. On one Platinum account that is a single $300 stretched across both stays, and the second one carries perks only.
We hold two Platinum cards between us, so there were two H2 credits, one per account. The Paris night used one and the Saas-Fee night used the other. That is the entire reason this row appears twice, and it is worth being blunt about what it does not mean: the Platinum is $895 a year, so the second card is $895 against $600 of annual hotel credit. The hotel credit alone does not cover the fee. Whatever else the card does has to cover the other $295.
The two $100 FHR property credits are not in the total above, which counts statement credits only. Both were used, and both went the same way: dinner at the property. The Paris credit came off the folio at the Lancaster, and the Saas-Fee credit was applied against dinner at the Capra. Counted, they would add $200 to the figure above.
The Capra, Saas-Fee: one Platinum account's $300, breakfast for two and a $100 dinner credit. Photo: RewardsGuru.club
Château Gütsch, Lucerne: the whole $300 Venture X travel credit in one night. Photo: RewardsGuru.club
The Moxy at Malpensa, on the $150 Delta Stays credit and a small top-up. Photo: RewardsGuru.club
The Hilton Gold line is the one worth copying. Gold comes free with the Platinum, it works at Small Luxury Hotels properties booked with Hilton points, and it meant we did not apply for a Hilton Aspire card to get breakfast.
Why we are not printing a cents-per-point figure
The Delta return cost 139,400 SkyMiles plus $240 for two. To turn that into a value per point we would need the cash fare for the same seats at the moment we booked, and we did not capture it.
So we are not going to print one. That fare is gone. Rebuilding it from a fare search today would produce a different number for a different day and dress it up as a receipt, which is how most of the cents per point figures you read are made.
While we are being precise: "two in Comfort+" would have been the flattering version. The transatlantic leg was Comfort+ and the domestic leg home was Main Cabin. Award tickets mix cabins by segment far more often than trip reports admit, and quoting the better cabin for the whole journey is a small dishonesty that makes a redemption look sharper than it was.
Screenshot the cash price at the moment you book. It takes four seconds and it is the only way the value claim survives.
6:30am for a 10:00 flight, and what CDG did with the time
We left the hotel at 6:30 for a 10:00 departure from Terminal 2E. Two things drove that.
The first is the exit side of the new entry-exit system, which processes departures as well as arrivals. The second is the morning long-haul bank: everything to North America leaves at roughly the same hour, so the queues all form at once.
Delta at CDG is Aérogare 2, Terminal E. Gates L and M sit behind an internal shuttle, which is another 15 minutes after you clear security. Budget for it as walking time, not as a rounding error.
Having used CDG at both ends of this trip, the practical advice is to give it more time than feels necessary. Our arrival landed later than scheduled and cost us the front of a day, and for the departure we wanted three and a half hours of buffer to feel unhurried. Build the buffer in and CDG is fine; arrive tight and it is the airport most likely to make you regret it.
The contrast inside the same trip is DFW Terminal D on the way out, where three lounges and a spa sit within a few minutes of each other, and an 11:00 to 19:12 layover became a working day.
The six-hour layover we planned at MSP
Global Entry handled re-entry at Minneapolis, and it was a short walk to the connecting gate. If your card reimburses the application fee, the last day of a long trip is the day it pays for itself. That left roughly six hours, and a plan for them:
- Blue Line light rail from Terminal 1
- Minnehaha Falls, a short ride up the line and free to walk
- Or a sit-down meal in Bloomington, ten minutes off the line, checking the lunch-close-and-reopen gap before committing
- Back through security by 18:15
We did none of it.
Six hours, nine days of moving already behind us, one flight to go, and the plan to ride a light rail out to a waterfall lost to the two things that were already inside the terminal. We spent the layover in the Delta Sky Club, and booked a massage at the Chiroport, the walk in chiropractic counter in the concourse, which the airport describes as offering "trigger point massage, stretching, and adjustments."
That is the honest answer to whether leaving the airport is worth it on the last leg of a long trip. We planned it properly and did not want it when it arrived. Make the plan anyway, because six unplanned hours are worse than six planned ones. Just do not feel you owe the plan anything once you are standing in it.
There is a symmetry here we did not design. The trip opened with a massage chair at DFW on a Priority Pass visit and closed with a massage at Minneapolis. On both long layovers the best use of the time turned out to be the thing that made the next flight bearable, not the thing that would have made the layover sound impressive.
The strike we missed by a day
Italy's national rail strike began on the evening of Day 10. Our last Italian train, the Malpensa Express back to the airport, had run the day before, and by the time the strike started we had left Europe.
That was luck, not planning. It is also avoidable next time: Italian strikes must be announced ten days ahead and are listed publicly, so the check belongs in the booking step, before any non-refundable rail ticket. French notices work differently, and the rule there is to check the operator after 17:00 the evening before you travel.
Where to stay, with hindsight
Roissypôle, the hotel cluster at CDG, earns its place only for an early flight. The CDGVAL train is free and runs 24 hours, and the hotel is a three to five minute walk from its Terminal 3 stop. That is the entire case for it.
Roissypôle is an airport business park rather than a neighbourhood, so plan dinner before you get there; ours was a delivery pizza and that worked fine. Book it to protect an early airport arrival, which is the one thing it is genuinely good at.
Lockers and bags
Nothing to store on the last day: the bags came with us from the hotel to the terminal. Across the whole trip, though, luggage storage is what let single days do double duty. Zurich HB large locker CHF 12, Montreux CHF 7, Visp on floor minus one and worth arriving early because they sell out mid-morning, and hotels holding bags free at both ends of a checkout day.
Useful tips
- Screenshot the cash fare when you book an award. Without it you have a redemption, not a valuation.
- Count the internal shuttle at CDG's Terminal 2E as real time, especially for gates L and M.
- Check the published strike calendar before you buy non-refundable rail in Italy. Ten days' notice is the legal minimum, so the information exists before your ticket does.
- Free elite status you already hold through a card can be worth more than a new card. Hilton Gold via the Platinum covered breakfast at a Small Luxury Hotels property with no annual fee attached.
The Swiss rail math, ticket by ticket, is in Day 3 and Day 4.
Part of a free series. Ten days in Europe on premium credit cards — 10 daily guides and a closing ledger, with the receipts and the mistakes left in. It starts on Day 0, with the award flight that got us there. Itineraries like this sell as $10 downloads. Ours is free because the bill is not yours to pay. The site earns from affiliate links to tools and retailers. The card links in it are personal referral links, which can earn points rather than a commission, and we run no card affiliate programme at all.
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Booked and paid as described. No names, no faces, our own photos only.
Related articles
- Day 9 of 10, Milan to Paris: 8,800 points, and the buffer CDG nearly ate
- Day 8 of 10, Lake Como: 170,000 Hilton points, breakfast on Gold, and the €4.60 ferry
- Day 7 of 10, Lugano to Lake Como: a slow morning, and the $200 last leg
- Day 6 of 10, Zermatt to Lugano: every connection missed by two minutes
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