My family just got back from our trip to Italy, and it was one we'll remember for a long time. We stayed in Rome, Florence, and Venice, and made day trips out to Positano, Amalfi, Siena, San Gimignano, and Pisa. Most days I got 25,000 steps so it was very busy and active.
For the miles & points portion of the trip, I used SW RR to fly DD (using my CP) and myself to NY first because she wanted to go to BookCon. We saw Hamilton - OMG awesome - and I used bank bonuses to reimburse myself for those tickets. DH joined us later (paid with SW RR), and we flew JFK - FCO direct economy for 30K SAAver miles + $5.60 each for taxes. I looked several times daily for Business class saver availability for that flight but never did find any. I was more lucky on the returning leg from VCE - DEN, and was able to switch our econ tickets to business (J [57.5K SAAver miles]) for the flight home for the difference in miles needed, fees/taxes were $100 each. It's hard to put an exact number on what value I extracted out of the points I used but if I used AA's cash value for those flights it would come to airfare around $39,000 but I think that's mostly because AA's one-ways are ridiculously overpriced. Still, I think it was worth at least $6000 because even though I would never pay OOP for J class, it was fantastic and there's no comparison to economy.
We had a 5 hr layover in LHR, so I able to visit three lounges in Terminal 3. The one for AA's J and higher passengers was really very nice and spacious with lots of food and drink. There are a couple ones available for Priority Pass: No.1 and Aspire. Those also were good, the Aspire is the smallest of those three and thus felt more crowded and the A/C didn't feel as strong. The No.1 has a buffet for grazing, and a small menu that you can order individually prepared small meals as well as a spa and cosy movie theater. My favorite was the No.1 lounge with the Admirals Club J lounge (there's also a regular Admirals Club and one for First class passengers in the same location but separate spaces) a close second.
I used a combination of Hotels .com, Booking .com, and Chase UR portal to arrange for lodging. My decision mostly rested on property location and reviews and proximity to public transportation/meeting spots for the day trips I arranged. The CSR Chase UR portal has great redemptions with the 1.5 multiplier but it doesn't offer the broad variety of lodgings that some other websites do. I booked apartments at in Rome and Venice specifically for washing machines, and it was so helpful to be able do laundry during our trip. I should be getting TopCashBack money for those stays too.
I hope to run the numbers soon to see what was paid for this entire trip vs what it would have cost otherwise if we'd gone through
ABD or similar. I get a rush out of that, since I kind of view the difference as my "income" as a SAHM.
Maybe I'll use the $39,000 number lol.
Oh, fwiw I saw three ATMs at FCO, in response to a question from (p)ages ago.
And I want to give a shout out to Apple's Find iPhone app. My phone got stolen on a train in Rome, and through frantic use of Find iPhone we were able to track it down even though the police, train steward, our day trip guide and even I all thought that my phone was a goner, DH persisted and we eventually found it a couple blocks from the train station! With only 2% battery left so that was a very close call. Fortunately, that was the only real hiccup on the entire trip.