This is a blogpost for the European readers since the US-Americans will just laugh about it.

You always wanted to do a trip around the world? But that’s way too expensive, right? Nope, sorry, you are terribly wrong. I will tell you now what needs to be done to get a Round the World Ticket almost for free!

As you may know on the 5th of November of 2014 I started my biggest trip so far:

It starts in Brasil from where I am going to explore South America. Don’t ask where exactly I’ll go. I have no idea and will simply go with the flow. In January I will be heading to the US (the flight is to Washington and then three weeks later to San Francisco), from there to New Zealand and Australia, up to Bangkok, to get to know South East Asia, and in the end a three weeks stay in Sri Lanka.

Including my flight back home I booked 8 flights.

And now the most important thing:

Do you know how much I paid? 860 Euro!

8 flights for 860 Euro!

That only a little bit more than 100 Euro per flight. Normally every single flight costs multiple times this amount. Another advantage: Except the flight back home (I had a stopover in India) all flights were direct flights. No annoying long, stressful trips to go to the next destination.

I can tell you: When I booked I was the happiest person on the planet!

The trick is easy. You need patience and endurance! You’ve got those skills? Awesome! Then you can have a Round the World Ticket for this price as well.

Now I tell you how I did it:

Since 2009 I use a Miles & More credit card to collect miles.

With the normal Miles & More card you get only air miles, so you need to fly with a Star Alliance partner to earn miles. But if you use a credit card you will get miles whenever you pay something with that card.

There are even more possibilities to fill your account with miles:

• There are many promotions where you get double or triple miles
• Partners offer miles (e.g. when you open a bank account, get a contract at special phone carriers, for subscriptions of magazines, etc.)
• Payback is a Miles&More partner and every point can be exchanged 1:1 in miles

Like this, I could collect a lot of miles. I collected 180.000 miles in five years, that two weeks ago I redeemed for my premium. You probably understood by now that this premium was the Round the World Ticket.

I know, it took a while. But it was worth it. Because in less than three weeks I start my biggest adventure so far.

You wonder why I still had to pay 860 Euro since the ticket was a premium. Yes, I admit that was a catch: The tickets are for free, but there is still the airport fee and the kerosene surcharge that unfortunately need to be paid. For all eight flights that were 860 Euro.

But still: I am super happy that I bought the ticket. Probably I wouldn’t have been able to buy a Round the World Ticket for the normal price. Paying for all flights separately would have been expensive as well.

In the en,d it was a credit card what made my wish come true.

Perhaps you can fulfill your dream as well!

What is your biggest wish?