How much did my trip to Europe and Abu Dhabi Cost?

The following will be an accounting of my 2023 trip to Europe and Abu Dhabi. If you’ve not read the blog, you can do so here. Or if you want a small wrap up, you can check that out here. It can provide some context to the costs below! All prices will be in Canadian (or converted into Canadian when it shows up on my CC bill).

The Costs

All in all this whole trip cost (me individually) $4335.37 with a per day cost of $289.02 over 17 days. And it breaks down as follows:

The Transportation

In total, the transportation costs for this trip total $1230.56 with a few point redemptions. Transportation can be broken down into two main sections: Airfare and Ground Transportation which costs $915.06 and $315.50 respectively.

The Flights

In total my airfare cost $915.06, 110,000 Aeroplan points. For  the Airfare the following are all my flights taken on this trip:

• (KLM & Delta Economy) Round Trip Vancouver-Amsterdam ($662.26)
• (Etihad First Class) Brussels-London-Abu Dhabi ($169.20 + 65000 Aeroplan Points)
• (Etihad Business Class) Abu Dhabi-Amsterdam ($83.60 + 45000 Aeroplan Points)

In general air travel is pretty straight forward in that its primarily a round trip from North America to Europe. The standout though is the brief stint to the UAE in First and Business Class as a bit of a birthday treat! I was already pretty excited about the flights, let alone the upgrade to the Residence. So just for fun, I did some looking and am happy to find that for roughly $250 dollars and 110,000 points, I got about $14,000 worth of value! 

Getting around on the Ground

My ground transportation cost $315.50. A good chunk of this cost is the rail pass for Europe. The remaining costs is getting around the different cities I visited. The following are all my ground transportation costs for the trip:

• Eurail Benelux Pass ($187.00)
• Amsterdam GVB Pass ($31.39)
• Brussels Metro Tickets ($44.92)
• Multiple Abu Dhabi Taxis ($52.19)

In general the costs are pretty straight forward. I think if I did a bit more planning I probably could have optimized some of my transit costs in Brussels. I mainly paid on demand transit fares and didn’t get a multi journey pass. In retrospect, I probably could have saved a few dollars if I did the pass. Overall though, these costs feel more than acceptable for the places I visited.

The Accommodations:

A good chunk of the costs for this trip are my accommodations. Europe is generally quite pricey and the hotel stays reflect that. To help I did take advantage of a promotion and award redemption to bring my overall costs down.  All of my accommodation costs in total come out to $2020.03. Below are all the different places I stayed at:

• 5 Nights Hotel Van Gogh ($585.87) 
• 2 Nights Bruges AirBnB ($338.86)
• 3 Nights La Senne BnB ($548.70)
• 2 Nights W Abu Dhabi – Yas Island ($425.42)
  • The true cost would have been $695.61 however, using an AMEX promotion I received $270.19 CAD in savings when spending over $500USD)
• 1 Night Centro Yas Island ($121.18)
• 1 Night Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel (35K Free Night Award + 2000 Point top up)

Food and Beverage ($764.11)

Food is often the big highlights while travelling! Sometimes its quite difficult to track food when they can be spur of the moment purchases or cash transaction. So while I do try my best to track these expenses, I suggest taking this total with a grain of salt! In total my trackable expenses for meals and snacks throughout my trip amounted to $764.11.

Miscellaneous Expenses ($320.67)

There is so many unique experiences in every one of the places I visited. Because of this there are a number of activity expenses incurred on this trip. This ranges from museum tickets to distillery experiences. It also includes data connectivity for Europe and the UAE. In total these expenses add up to $320.67.  The following are most of the trackable activity and miscellaneous expenses:

• Van Gogh Museum ($29.88)
• Anne Frank House ($23.12)
• Amsterdam GoCityPass ($126.55)
• Luxembourg Casemates ($11.79)
• Atomium ($23.55)
• Red Light Secrets ($22.43)
• Bruges Beer Museum ($26.68)
• Louvre Abu Dhabi ($24.13)
• Airalo eSIM for Europe ($28.01)
• Airalo eSIM for UAE ($4.53)

Totals

After adding everything up, we get a grand total of $4335.37. Averaging this out over 15 days, we get an average cost of $289.02 per day. Overall this is actually one of the more expensive trips I’ve taken in a while. But given the location, I’m not all that surprised. I guess there really is a premium on travel in certain places!

If you’re still reading, I hope this post is helpful or interesting! I continually track my costs to see where I can try to bring my overall expenses down while enhancing the experiences where I can! If there is extra information you’d like to know, or have suggestions, please feel free to drop a comment below and let me know!