We already have two international trips booked and a third on the way for 2020. At Peak Award Booking we always advise to book early to find the best award flights. One of our trips was planned about 15 months ahead, this allowed us to get the credit cards and points we needed for this trip in time to be able to book at exactly 11 months out. Doing so allowed us to plan an amazing trip at the high-demand time of spring break.
Cancun all-inclusive
Our first trip is a long weekend to the Cancun area for a friend’s wedding. This will be just for my wife and myself, no kids!!! The wedding is at an all-inclusive resort that isn’t affiliated with any rewards program. We could’ve booked this using our Chase Ultimate Rewards through their portal at 1.5 cents/point, but we tend to find better value for these points by transferring to airline partners. Instead we paid cash through a third-party booking company that had a very discounted rate available. We try to book direct whenever possible, but this deal was too good to pass up. We will be using Southwest points and our companion pass (earned via sign-up bonuses on Chase’s Southwest cards) for our flights down to Mexico. We’ve been able to book Southwest flights at buy-one-get-one free for the last six years, and as soon as my wife’s points post in January we will have it again for another two years. This perk has saved us thousands of dollars. The return flights on Southwest didn’t really work for us, so we will be flying United on a basic economy ticket. Luckily (or by planning), we have the United Explorer credit card and we can check one bag each, take a full-size carry-on and board early. This negates most of the issues of booking basic economy.
maldives and singapore in luxury
Our next trip is almost exactly a month later. Spring Break 2020 will take our family of three to Doha, the Maldives, Singapore and possibly Malaysia. We booked our outbound flights using American Airlines miles gained from several of their credit cards. They have both personal and business cards from both Citi Bank and Barclay. The four options with bonuses that occasionally reach 70k miles, give lots of options to build up your balance. Anywhere in the US to the Maldives will cost you 70k miles per person, plus taxes. We completely drained my AA balance to get three seats. The first leg is just a regional jet on American in domestic first class, but our 2nd and 3rd flights will be business class on Qatar Airlines in their amazing QSuite configured business class. We will be spending one night in Doha before our flight to the Maldives. We had a free night award at any Marriott hotel worth a maximum of 30,000 points that we earned with the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Card. The St. Regis Doha was exactly 30,000 points, making this a no-brainer decision for a quick stay. One more QSuite flight and a seaplane trip will get us to the Maldives. Here we will be using points we gained from American Express Hilton branded credit cards as well as one free night certificate from the Hilton Aspire credit card to stay at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island. The Conrad Maldives considers their Overwater Bungalow a base room redemption, this allows us to use points and book five nights for the price of four! We will be splitting our time between the Overwater Bungalow and the Beach Villa. We’ve heard that with children that the beach villa is a much better option, but we still couldn’t pass up the option to stay in an over-water bungalow for free. Not only will we be staying for free for six nights, we also will get $500 off our seaplane flights and diamond status from our Aspire Card. Diamond status will most likely not get us any upgrades, but we will get free breakfast, happy hour (free drinks and snacks) and afternoon tea (more free snacks). The savings on food alone really adds up!
We will then depart from the Maldives and head to Singapore aboard Singapore Airlines in business class. We booked this flight as part of a one-way flight from the Maldives to Los Angeles with a stop-over in Singapore. The total cost of these flights was 109,000 miles each plus $100/person for the stop-over. We transferred points from Chase to Singapore Airlines to book these flights. Most of the points came from business card sign-ups from their Ink line (Ink Preferred, Ink Cash or Ink Unlimited). These two flights will be on their lie-flat equipped planes. We’ve already selected our meals for the flight from Singapore to Los Angeles using their “Book the Cook” menu, where you can select your meal ahead of time from a large menu of options (lobster thermidor, anyone?).
In Singapore for our “stop-over”, we will be staying at the Conrad Centennial Singapore for five nights. Again, we will be using points we earned from either new Amex Hilton cards or from upgrade offers from American Express. We used the fifth night free option again to get an extra night free. Diamond status will get us a possible upgrade, free breakfast and lounge access. While in Singapore we took advantage of an Expedia promotion that offered 50% off activities to get a lot of excursions we had already planned. We will be visiting the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Bird Park, River Safari, Aquarium, Singapore Flyer and more at a nice discount. We may also take a day trip over to Malaysia for the LegoLand Park. After an exhausting five days in Singapore, we’ll fly in Singapore Airlines business class to Los Angeles. Hopefully, we will have enough diversions to keep a six-year-old busy for 15 hours in a metal tube.
Upon landing in Los Angeles we’ll spend a night at the Crowne Plaza LAX Airport. We redeemed a free night from our IHG credit card to book the closest hotel to the airport. The next morning, we will trade the luxury of Singapore business class for the simplicity of Southwest. We’ll be using points and our companion pass to once again get us back home for the cost of just taxes on the flight.
african safari and victoria falls
Our last currently planned trip will be my 40th birthday trip. It’ll be just my wife and I again. After cycling through about eleventeen different options (Venice and Rome, Hawaii, Tokyo, Bora Bora and Easter Island…), I finally found what I wanted all along… Perfect flights to Southern Africa. We will spend two weeks going through Botswana to Victoria Falls. We’ll have eight days of insanely expensive luxury safaris and three days of adventure activities in Victoria Falls. What better way to celebrate turning 40 than jumping off a bridge or rafting one of the world’s most dangerous rivers?
Our only points usage will be for flights, but they are nice flights indeed. We will have a second turn in one year on Qatar QSuites flying into Johannesburg. This is another 150,000 AA miles being used, which will leave us with only about 50,000 left (time to build those back up!). Our return was booked using United miles, from Victoria Falls back home. The long-haul segments will be on Kenyan Airways on angled flat business class seats. Not the best business class product in the world, but it made it a much quicker journey than any other options. The total of 140,000 United miles were raised from their Chase MileagePlus credit card as well as a transfer from some more Chase Ultimate Rewards.
I’m sure we will add a few more trips using our companion pass to domestic locations. We will probably try to get to Chicago to eat non-stop for a weekend, or someplace south to warm-up when it is cold (looking at Maui and the Grand Wailea). Visiting family in Wisconsin is also on our short-list too.
If your New Year’s resolution is to travel more, reach out to us here at PeakAwardBooking.com to get started. We can help you build your points, or use them to the fullest, so that 2020 can be the year you get to see the world!