✈️ The most underrated program for European travel

Estimated read time: 5 minutes and 4 seconds

Good morning from beautiful Sofia, Bulgaria. 🇧🇬

I’ve been using one program to fly around Europe for absolutely insane value. And today, I’m going to tell you all about it.

Let’s dive in:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday Wednesday

• ✈️ The most underrated program for European travel

• 🗺️ The most useful travel app (and how to use it)

• 💳 The question every points nerd asks 20 times a day

• 🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday Wednesday

✈️ The most underrated program for European travel

There’s a loyalty program I almost never hear people talk about… but every time I use it, I’m reminded how weirdly powerful it is.

It’s Lufthansa’s Miles & More program.

Now, on the surface, it doesn’t look that exciting. The miles are a bit harder to earn, there aren’t a ton of transfer options, and it’s definitely not the program most people start with.

But once you actually look at the award pricing, you start to realize something important:

You don’t need that many miles in the first place.

And that completely changes the equation. 🧮

Let’s start with a slightly extreme example, just to show what’s possible: flying from the U.S. to Europe for under 100 miles.

For example, this flight from Los Angeles to Warsaw comes in at just 86 miles:

Now, you’ll notice the taxes are around $300. That’s the part that should definitely make you hesitate.

And to be clear, that’s valid. This isn’t a “free flight.”

But here’s how I think about it…

If you look at cash prices for that exact route on the same date (May 6 in this case), you’re looking at roughly $450-500 for a one-way economy ticket.

So instead of thinking “88 miles for a free flight,” think of it as “using a tiny number of miles to knock a couple hundred bucks off the price.”

That said, where this program really shines isn’t those long-haul flights… It’s what you do once you’re in Europe. 😏

Because within Europe, you’re getting similarly low mileage pricing – but without the heavy taxes.

For example, let’s say you want to plan a trip to Austria and Scandinavia. Flights between Vienna and Copenhagen cost just 350 miles and about $60 in fees.

To put that into perspective, that means you could book flights for a family of FOUR for just 1,400 miles total.

That’s… kind of wild.

Let’s say you’re in Munich for Oktoberfest and then you want to head down to Croatia to fight through the hangover.

This nonstop Lufthansa flight from Munich to Zagreb costs 523 miles and about $60.

Even during peak travel periods, the pricing stays surprisingly low, making it really useful for building multi-city trips without constantly worrying about flight costs.

Now, it’s not like every route is magically a few hundred miles. But even when the pricing isn’t “crazy,” it’s still consistently good.

For example, I just flew from Bologna to Nice last week using Lufthansa miles. It was about 2,800 miles and around $50 in fees to fly Swiss via Zurich.

At the same time, cash prices for that route were over $400.

And that’s the part I really like about this program – the pricing tends to be stable.

Another question I get all the time is how to avoid the high taxes when flying back to the U.S. from Europe.

And unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet for this… those taxes and surcharges are just part of flying out of Europe (with some exceptions we can talk about another time).

But what you can control is how many miles you’re using. For example, this nonstop flight from Zurich to Boston costs just over 1,000 miles in economy. 👇

So yes, you’ll still pay the taxes – but instead of also burning 20,000+ miles as you might with other programs, you’re using a fraction of that.

Not to mention that nonstop route costs well over $1,000 on any given day. So it’s still an insane deal.

So then the obvious question is… how do you actually earn Lufthansa miles?

The only way right now is through Rove Miles.

I won’t go too deep into Rove again (because I can’t shut up about them lately), but one of the interesting things about them is that you can earn a lot of miles through hotel bookings.

For example, this hotel in Zurich is about $130 per night, which is already pretty reasonable by Zurich standards.

If you booked a five-night stay, you’d earn over 10,000 miles from that booking alone.

As you have seen, 10,000 miles put toward Lufthansa Miles & More can take you VERY far.

And if you choose a nonrefundable rate, those miles can post at the time of booking – meaning you could potentially use them right away for flights to and from that very stay.

As a reminder, you can earn 1,000 miles instantly after signing up for Rove, which is already enough for some short-haul flights within Europe.

This isn’t a program you should use for everything… but if you’re looking for ways to get a lot of flights for not a lot of miles, it’s worth racking up a few thousand of them to have handy.

🗺️ The most useful travel app (and how to use it)

I have a trillion travel apps on my phone.

Airline and hotel apps, random travel OTAs, and dozens of sketchy rideshare apps that only work in niche places like Nepal or Burkina Faso.

But there’s one app that I use literally EVERY day in EVERY country in the world, even when I’m at home.

And that’s Google Maps.

In this week’s Daily Drop YouTube video, we’ll tell you all about it – and how to unleash its true potential.

🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

Earlier, we asked which U.S. city was ranked the best coffee city in America…

If you chose Portland, Oregon — congrats!

WalletHub ranked Portland as the #1 coffee city in the U.S., thanks to its massive number of highly rated coffee shops and strong café culture.

Why Portland?

• ☕ Tons of affordable coffee shops rated 4.5 stars or higher

• 💻 Plenty of cafés with free Wi-Fi (perfect for laptop travelers)

• 🏠 A surprising number of residents with home espresso machines and grinders

The study also found that Americans drink about 519 million cups of coffee every day, which explains why coffee shops are basically everywhere now.

Moral of the story?

If you're planning a trip and need a guaranteed good latte… Portland might be your safest bet. ☕✈️

That’s all I’ve got for you today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed today’s content, and I look forward to seeing you bright and early tomorrow.

Ciao,

42.6977° N, 23.3219° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt and Sam Anthony