Our 3 Best Business-Class Flights on Points (Family Travel)

 Lie flat seats, five course meals, your kids sleeping comfortably while you cross the ocean.

 This year our family flew internationally again and again, mostly for free, just fees.

 Out of dozens of flights, there were three business class redemptions that completely changed how we travel as a family, not just because of the money saved, which was a lot, but because they made long haul flights doable, enjoyable, and something we actually said yes to.

 I’m Adelaide from TalkBox.Mom, where we help families to start talking in a foreign language the same day you start our program.

Because of course we want you to travel and use the language.

This year I flew 47 times and today I’m breaking down our top three luxury flight redemptions – the ones that mattered most.

 If airfare or long flights are what keeps your family from using your language abroad,  this will change what you think is possible.

 Coming in at number three is our flight to Taiwan.

 We booked our tickets to Taiwan because it was the best points value to get to Asia, where we wanted to go to Japan and South Korea.

 We wanted to go to Asia because my 11-year-old worked so hard to read 42 chapter books in 53 days,  finishing all of his school reading early,  and I really wanted to bring his Eastern Hemisphere studies to life, especially the countries that he found very interesting.

 And when I told my husband that he said, “That sounds expensive.”

 So we definitely needed to find flights with points.

 These tickets weren’t just any tickets,  they were Delta one tickets, seven of them.

 We were able to get seven, and so we invited my mom and my dad because we only needed five.

 Like how fun is that to be able to invite more people for almost free.

 On the plane, there were two big pods in the middle and a pod each on the outside.

For seating, my husband and I sat in pods in the middle with my parents behind us and our two oldest boys in front of us.

To the left of me was our youngest child.

 In these pods, we were able to close the door and they had a divider that went up and down.

 As luck would have it my kids didn’t even fight with each other because they were walled off.

 This was the first time my kids flew business class and they were so grateful and excited.

They were thanking us a ton. They were opening their bag and being like, “Oh my gosh. They gave us a brush. This is amazing. Thank you so much. There’s a toothbrush. Wow, with toothpaste?”

They were so excited for the slippers. It was so nice.

At dinner time, we had a five course meal. My husband was so happy with the food. It was so cute, and set the tone for Taiwan immediately.

When it was time to sleep, my 7-year-old said, “I don’t know how to fall asleep.” He was so excited.

 The flight attendant came and put his bed down, and once I put his sleeping mask on, he immediately fell asleep.

It was quite cute.

We slept the whole night.

 In the morning, they served us breakfast and we landed refreshed.

 So how much were these tickets?

 They cost 98,000 miles and $6 each.

 So a total of 686,000 delta miles and $39 for taxes total for seven people.

 The cash price for these tickets would’ve been $2000 to $3000 per person for a total cash price of $14,000 to $21,000, and we spent $39.

 Now coming in on number two was our trip to Greece that we took with another couple.

 We went on this trip because my good friend said that she always wanted to go to Greece…for the last couple of years.

She knew lots of islands that she wanted to go to. She wanted to have so much fun, and she was so excited that we wanted to have fun with her.

 But standing in our way was the price of airplane tickets until we found four tickets to Greece on points.

 The plane was amazing. It was Emirates, and her father, an immigrant from Cuba, thought it was the most amazing thing that we were flying Emirates.

 He was going on and on about it before her trip with us, and she was telling us all the amazing things that we could expect on the airplane.

The seats of course lied all the way down so we could sleep going over there.

 The pods, though, didn’t have doors, but it was still really classy, really beautiful, and for lack of doors, they made up in gifts.

 The little bag that we got had luxury perfumes and lotions in it. They also gave us pajamas to wear that we could take home.

 That was very fun. My husband still has his.

On the ceiling of the plane, they had little star lights projected when it was nighttime. It was so cute.

The food was great. It also set the tone for Greece and we arrived feeling refreshed and ready to jump in  to my best friend’s adventure that she had been waiting to go on for years.

 How much did we pay?

 We used 348,000 points for all four tickets and $421 total.

 For all four tickets combined.

The cash price for these seats were $3000 to $6,000 per ticket. So for four tickets, we would’ve been looking at $12,000 to $24,000, and we spent $421.

Coming in at number one was our flight back from Japan.

We went to Japan on that same Asia trip, and it made my boys so excited to go somewhere that they never thought they would go.

 They kept saying on the trip, “I can’t believe we’re here. I never thought we would go.”

They were really delighted that we went somewhere they wanted to go. Somewhere in the past that we’ve said, “Whoa, that is way too expensive. We could never do that.”

 We booked seven tickets, two sooner because my parents had to go back to the United States sooner, and five a week later.

This plane was the most spacious.

You had the pods where the doors closed, but you had extra room,  and the Japanese are so incredibly kind and amazing.

 When we went to check in for the flight, they all bowed to us. They bowed!

 Could you imagine people working at the airlines bowing to you? They were so kind and so courteous.

 We did similar seating as our flight to Taiwan, but with our boys behind us and our youngest, again to the left of me.

 The thing that made this flight extra special was that you could order food anytime you wanted from your TV screen.

 In the middle of the night, one of my kids kept ordering ice cream after ice cream, and the flight attended encouraged it because they only had so many hours left of being able to do exactly that.

 We got cute bags that had little things in them like earplugs and an eye mask.

 The core meals that they did serve were five-course meals with different options. It was absolutely delicious.

 How much did we pay for the newest flagship business class tickets?

 We used 75,000 Alaska miles plus $57 per ticket for a total of $399.

 The cash price for these seats are $4,000 to $5,000 per ticket with a total cash price of $28,000 to $35,000, and we spent $399.

 We could have spent $ 54,000 to $80,000 for these tickets on these top three luxury flights that we went on, which I would have never done.

 I would never spend that much money on airline tickets.

 So instead, we spent a total of $859 for 18 long haul business class tickets.