Introduction: Springtime in the City of Light

~ cswada

We spent Spring Break in Paris, France. Between reports of national strikes in Paris as well as some bad luck on our flights to Europe, this journey faced some adversity but it was ultimately another memorable experience with family.

This trip occurred in April 2023.

View other posts in this series:

Overview

While I’ll get into the weeds a bit more in each individual post, readers might recall that I booked an open-jaw flight from Germany to the US and back to Europe. Well, the idea was good, but British Airways had other plans. While LHR airport security staff was striking, that wasn’t the reason British Airways canceled our flight. They actually still operated our flight but instead kicked us off it. Charming.

For this spring trip, we brought along Jenn’s parents since they have relatives out in Paris. Finding six seats in business class is difficult, and it’s even more difficult at the last minute when a flight cancels that same day. We were originally scheduled to fly British Airways but instead we flew American Airlines a day later.

While in Paris, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile in large part because we had a party of six people and I wanted an affordable way to book two rooms. The hotel itself is perfectly comfortable for a nice trip but just don’t expect something exceptional (that’s best saved for the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome).

We didn’t experience any problems from the national strike in Paris. Strikes seemed to concentrate around non-tourist areas and there were no delays experienced on the metro. The only real problem we faced was pickpocketing and, best I could tell, that was unrelated to the national strikes.

While in Paris, we did make a trip out to Disneyland Paris, a cheaper option than that related option found near us in Southern California. We didn’t get to do as much sightseeing as we normally would since the main focus of the trip was to see family.

On the way back home, our best option was to use Flying Blue miles to book Air France nonstop CDG to LAX. Thankfully, they had as many as eight seats available for an affordable price in business class, which is great to see on a direct flight to the west coast of the US–a difficult route to find. And, no, there was no one flying in La Première first class. Perhaps we will have to try that another trip, assuming there is a cost-effective way to book it…

Thanks for reading and hope it helps inspire you on what you could do with miles and points!

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