For our first use of points it got a little complicated. We're doing a Mediterranean cruise and using points for the airfare. The problem is that we were flying into one airport and out of another, and for some reason, it would not let us use points for our return leg.

When traveling to Europe from the US, booking a one-way flight is a little more complicated because you have to show a return flight to the US within so many days. Ultimately we just booked a roundtrip to the airport closest to where the cruise leaves from and will do a short flight from the cruises final destination to the airport we flew into for the cruise.

It didn't make things any easier that we were flying Iberia and if you need to speak to an agent, it just disconnected you.

Anyway, one thing we had heard is that you tend to do better transferring your points to the partner rather than using the travel services of the points card (Chase Saphire in this case). We didn't test that theory, but perhaps other more point-savvy travellers could comment.