Expert: Stephen Tanenbaum - 5/20/2008

Question
Hello Expert:
I am 31 years old and will be honeymooning in the Canary Islands (Adeje, Tenerife) in mid-August 2008 for 7 to 8 days. I was able to receive two buddy passes to fly for free the Barcelona, Spain.  However, Delta does not have a direct flight to my destination.  My question is how can I get inexpensive and convenient transportation (air or boat) from Barcelona, Spain to Adeje, Tenerife in the Canary Islands?  

Answer
Greetings:

Sounds to be an awesome trip. Hope you are going to spend time in fabulous Barcelona. If so, head to YouTube and check out the 20 or so videos I uploaded during our 17 days visit their last Summer. IN the YouTube search box type my screen name  WORLDROMER  and look for them. Or type in the name I used for the Barcelona videos. That name is: BAR CAM 07.

I specialize in Free travel so can't help with boats.  For only 20,000 American airline  miles one can fly on sister airline Iberia FREE RT from Barcelona to Adeje, Tenerife.  That is how I would do it. Nothing beats FREE. Spanair also flies their and is a sister airline of United.

Check out all my info in newsletters and my free travel article. The former: again in YouTube type in the search window:  Free global travel 4 you that is my promo video for our free newsletter. In my accompanying YouTube text you will find LINKS to recent editions with info on Citibank cards promo that will have you flying free in the future.

As to your query. I specialize in Free airline travel so I can not help with boats.  The answer to your   question is good and bad news.   GOOD NEWS: easy as pie to fly FREE from Barcelona to Tenerife any  of several ways I will outline below. BAD NEWS:  You are about 2-4 weeks too short on time to complete the promotions for use in August. On the other hand you can do it but only IF you have current AAdvantage miles or United airline miles already 'in the bank.'.

Know that 20,000 miles' qualifies for a FREE RT ticket almost anywhere in Europe including Barcelona to Adeje Tenerife. If you have those miles on American  then you can book through sister airline Iberia. If you have 20,000 miles on United you can use their sister airline SpanAir.  If you do not have the miles for whatever reason then after following my advice you should at least be traveling free on future trips.

Take my short course on FREE airline travel by checking out our recent (free) newsletters and my free travel article. The former: again in YouTube type in the search window:  Free global travel 4 you    that is my promo video for our free newsletter. In the accompanying text you will find LINKS to recent newsletter editions including the super Citibank promo in Summer '07 newsletter and for my free travel article.

The  Citibank offer gives you 40,000 American miles FREE and those miles would be good for RT Hawaii, Mexico, Central America OR TWO RT tickets to most anywhere INTRA Europe Ex. London to Athens etc.

The reasons you can only use that offer for future free travel are that you have to (1) await arrival of the cards (2) spend $750 on each card and (3) wait 8-10 weeks for miles to reach your account.  All together not enough time for getting all done by mid August. The same is true of the United offer (which only requires a first purchase not $750 in purchases) but still not enough time to get the cards, then get the miles posted to your account  and book the flights by mid August.

While the newsletter article has all the details here is the Citibank offer LINK:
https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/showSearchResults.do?family=FAMILY_AADVANTAGE

Here is the United 20,000 free miles offer for their business card. They charge $60 for their non-business card.  My newsletter explains how anyone can qualify for a business card.
http://creditcard.chase.com/cgi-bin/webcgi/webserve.cgi?partner_dir_name=united_...

Just so you know how well these offers work we obtained 20,000 miles each from US Air and used the miles for two RT tickets from Paris to Barcelona on their sister airline Lufthansa.

I hope you will be enjoying many years of free travel in the future.

Happy Travels.... Steve T.