My wife is taking a 6 week Yoga Teacher training trip during the month of May 2026 to the Salento region of Southern Italy. During that period, or perhaps after her training is over, my 2 children, ages 12 and 9, and I will join her in Southern Italy for a week before returning home. There is also the possiblity that she may return back to the US for a few days in the middle before resuming her training, totalling a possible 5 round-trip tickets. We haven’t traveled this far before as a family and wanted to seek community guidance:
When paying for the trip, should we be using our Chase Sapphire preferred card or buy an airline branded card to leverage points such as the United MileagePlus Quest card which offers 70k bonus miles but has a $350 annual fee?
We do not travel overseas very often and most of our traveling is done regionally via Allegiant as they are the most accessible to our regional airports (Tri-Cities or Asheville) here in East TN.
Also, when in Southern Italy should we get along via Public Transit or rent a car? We’ve heard you say that driving in Southern Italy can be quite the “Adventure”. I’m not sure my family would enjoy the race-car driver in me coming out in Southern Italy.
Any other tips you have are greatly welcomed.
