Greetings from Zurich!
Mrs. ATX Jetsetter and I are at the tail end of a ten day trip across Germany and Switzerland. The catalyst for this trip was the wedding of some of our DEN based friends in Germany and, since we were already overseas, we decided to tack on a week in Switzerland!
Booking Flights
This was one of the most straightforward flight booking processes I’ve ever had when going to Europe. KLM offers 4x weekly service between Austin and Amsterdam on their 787 Dreamliner and, with easy connections throughout Europe, I started poking around on Flying Blue for our travel dates. I managed to book AUS-AMS-FRA for our outbound and ZRH-AMS-AUS for the return for 80,000 Flying Blue points per person each way. While you can typically find business class flights to Europe with Flying Blue in the 55-60k range, Mrs. ATX wanted convenience and therefore we decided to spend the extra points.
To get around Europe, we utilized the expansive rail networks of Deutsche Bahn and Swiss Federal Railways.
Booking Hotels
The hotels for this trip were pretty simple as well. Our first stop was in Badenweiler, Germany for the wedding and the wedding website recommended the fabulous Park Hotel & Spa KATHARINA. All of the standard rooms were reserved when we called, so we had to get a suite (tough life right?).
In Montreux we found a very reasonable cash rate at the Grand Hotel Suisse Majestic, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel, right in the heart of the city.
Mrs. ATX Jetsetter wanted to handle our booking in Zermatt and found a wonderful hotel up on the mountain with a tunnel to the town. The hotel wasn’t affiliated with any of the major hotel groups but we had a great stay at the Chalet Hotel Schönegg.
Finally, to round out the trip, we had three nights in Zurich. Hotel prices in Zurich are crazy so we decided to use points. We found the Neues Schloss Privat Hotel Zurich, also an Autograph Collection property near the old town and across the street from the Park Hyatt Zurich. Cash rates were over $600 but we booked our room for 200,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.
Thanks for coming along on this exciting trip to Southern Germany and Switzerland!
In This Trip Report
