Europe Trip: Paris, France part 1

My first trip to Europe ever began with a 9 hour flight to CDG airport in Paris. American Airlines did it the French way and served complimentary wine throughout the flight. Even with 2 generous cups, I couldn't fall asleep during the flight. We landed at sunrise with a full day ahead!

However, I want to begin this miniature travel series with logistics to give a better framework of our vacation. We are "budget" travelers but not to the extreme degree. The goal was $3,000 (excluding plane tickets) for both of us - we'll see how we did at the end! With the euros-to-USD ratio being an all-time low near 1:1, this was prime opportunity to maximize the value of traveling abroad.

Plane tickets
We planned to go to two places: Paris and London. We booked our flight using AA miles (20K for economy class each way). As we were going to both France and the UK, I noticed that flying strictly American Airlines (not its affiliates American Eagle or British Airways) and flying out from the UK instead of France incurred the least amount of tax, which made a $100-150 difference. Each round-trip flight totaled $200.

How to pay locally?
The Bank of American Travels Reward credit card is incredibly useful with its 0% foreign transaction fee and $0 annual fee. The Chase and Bank of America debit cards...not so much! It has a $5 + 3% fee of the withdrawal amount. We don't hold any accounts with low ATM fees, but with most places accepting U.S. credit cards, we didn't mind too much.

Credit cards will cost you the cheapest, followed by ATMs. Never use those currency exchange booths, especially in the airport.

Place to stay
We rented an AirBnB apartment, one that I can't rate highly enough due to location and amenities. Unfortunately, I booked it without knowing it charged a 3% fee after conversion from local currency to USD. An 8-night stay for us came out to be $600, but I'm not going to quibble over paying $20 more due to the fee.

We stayed at 19 arrondissement (quarter). It's a residential area that captures how true Parisians live daily. Quiet neighborhoods, locked apartment complex, clean housing, and ample amenities for us to live comfortably, including a washing machine. Our place is only a 8-10 min walk to the metro station, and a 10 min metro ride to the center of Paris. I will update with pictures in another post.

Transportation & Entertainment
At the airport, we bought 2 sets of 6-day Paris Museum Pass (69 eur) and a 5-day Paris Visite Pass zones 1-3 (35,70 eur) for transportation using the BoA card. Combined with the 1-way train ticket (RER B, 10,50 eur) to center Paris, our combined total was about 240 eur. An ATM was situated not far from the Tourism booth either, and I withdrew 400 eur.

In retrospect, I would've done a few things differently:

• I probably could have withdrawn 200 eur instead because so many places took cards. The cash is only useful for local produce and merchant stalls, but keep in mind some small restaurants may not take card.
• I don't recommend the Paris Visite Pass unless you are going to use the metro at least 3 times a day. During the days where we spent all day at one place (Louvre Museum, Versailles), we didn't maximize this pass and could have gone with single-ride tickets. Single-ride tickets only cost 1,80 euro and can come in books of 10 or 20. 
• We also went to Versailles Palace which required a 11,50 eur metro ticket because it is located in zone 4, outside of the Paris Visite Pass coverage. We chose to go to Versailles during one of the 5 contiguous days covered by the Paris Visite Pass. (Poor planning on my part, argh!) That means we each wasted 7 eur by not using the Paris Visite Pass for one day. 

These minor changes would've saved us about $25-$30. Fortunately, that isn't a high price to pay for the freedom to explore the historic city. Starting out, we have spent $860 with an extra $440 in cash = $1,300.

*Update 4/9/2015: After using up the Paris Visite Pass, we bought a stash of single-ride tickets and a day pass for about $32, making our transportation total ~$110 for 2 people.