Can you visit European Christmas markets on a budget? The answer is YES. However, this requires:

Planning ahead.
Points and miles.

I am a teacher and our daughter is now in public school. This means we only travel during “peak” season. We took advantage of an extra long winter break during December of 2024, so we earned our points and miles 18 months ahead and booked our flights 10-11 months in advance. Here’s how we planned our trip from the East Coast to Scandinavia using points and miles. (And all the cards we opened in order to make this trip happen for our family of 3.)

Ever since we saw videos of families visiting Rovaniemi, Finland (home to Santa Claus) I knew I wanted to take our daughter. She loves winter, Christmas, and snow. When we were planning our trip to Finnish Lapland, we knew that our excursions and activities would be pricy. So, in order to make our Christmas vacation trip affordable, we decided to cover all of our flights from the US with airlines miles.

Flight #1: Philadelphia to Helsinki

We flew from PHL to HEL using American Airlines points. Philadelphia is an American hub, so it’s easy to get across to Europe using these points. We had a lay over in Paris at Charles deGaulle airport. During the layover, we had to go back through security and then switch terminals. We flew FinnAir from Paris to Helsinki.

Total miles used: 30,000 per person/ 90,000 miles total

Cash paid: $23.20 per person/ $69.60 total

Credits cards: Barclays Aviator and Citi American Airlines Advantage

Flight #2: Helsinki to Rovaniemi, Finland

Many people who travel from Helsinki to Rovaniemi in winter take the overnight Santa Express train; however, the train would cost us cash, take 12 hours, and the flight was around 90 minutes. We left Helsinki at 7am and landed in Rovaniemi 8:35am.

We booked this trip far in advance; we booked in February of 2024 for travel in December of 2024 (so, 10+ months ahead!)

Total miles used: 10,000 miles per person/ 30,000 miles total

Cash paid: $26.20 per person/ $78.60 total

Credits cards: Barclays AAdvantage Aviator and Citi American Airlines Advantage

Flight #3: Rovaniemi, Finland to Stockholm

We wanted to visit more than one country and check out another city during our trip; we also needed to get home using another airline because we used up ALL of our American Airline miles. This means that we needed to go into other stashes of points, so we repositioned to Stockholm and spent four days in the city before flying home.

Total miles used: 12,500 miles per person/ 37,500 miles total

Cash paid: $26.20/ person

Credits cards: Barclays AAdvantage Aviator and Citi American Airlines Advantage

Flight #4: Stockholm to Newark

To get from Stockholm to Newark, we booked on United Airlines, but flew with Austrian Airlines, which is also a part of Star Alliance. We had a layover in Vienna. We’ve been to Europe a handful of times, and Vienna to the US consistently offers the most flights and the best points redemptions to our area (Newark, Philadelphia, JFK).

Total miles used: 43,000 per person

Cash paid: $84.90

Credit Cards: We opened two Chase United Explorer cards and saved the points (referral link) For our two card strategy, one of us opens the card and refers the other.

Featured