In my last post, “What can a year of credit card sign-ups get your family”, I showed what a targeted credit card sign-up strategy can get a family. Today, I’m going to take that one step further and show you what those points earned can do for you. Again, this is a hypothetical situation. Every family is different and has different wants, needs and abilities but I want to show you some of the possibilities. If you’d like a specific plan for you and your family, please reach out to us at peakawardbooking.com.
This family has spent the past year using credit cards to their advantage. They’ve received all of their bonuses from the six credit cards we outlined (Chase Ink Preferred, Amex Hilton Aspire, United MileagePlus Explorer, Southwest Business, Southwest Personal and the Chase Ink Cash), and now it’s time to put those points to work for them.
This fictional family of four (children aged five and eight) want to take one big family trip to an all-inclusive resort, a long couples get-away, and several smaller family trips over long weekends. We were able to cover all of their flights and their all-inclusive hotel stay for just the cost of taxes. They will however, be on the hook for most of their lodging on their couples trip and their weekend getaways. They could apply for more cards as the year progresses to cover these, but we’ll assume any new points they gain will go to future trips.
montego bay jamaica
Their first big trip will be to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Southwest flies there from Baltimore, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Orlando and St. Louis. and you can also reach it from almost any city that Southwest serves in one stop. For example, flights from Denver were running at 19,032 points round trip. Unfortunately, Caribbean countries charge huge taxes on flights so you will have to add an extra $142 per person. Starting out, for the four people in our family, it will cost them 76,128 miles and $568 in taxes. However, they will use the $500 in gift cards they received from the Hilton Aspire and one flight will cost no points from the companion pass they earned. The family’s total cost is now down to only 57,096 miles and $68. Compare that to the $438 per person for the cheapest flight (also on Southwest) and they are saving almost $1700!
Jamaica is filled with resorts perfect for families, but for this trip we’ve decided on the Hilton Rose Hall due to the fact that the resort is all-inclusive and boasts the largest water park in Jamaica! For younger children there is also a kids club so the adults can enjoy some alone time while the kids play. There are also seven different restaurants on site, so the food will not get tiresome during their stay. Combine that with their beautiful, private, white sand beach and you can’t ask for much more. As diamond members, they will be eligible for room upgrades, free room service and one day free cabana rental (discounts available for extra days).
Rates for a family of four will generally start at $340 per night. Points rates, however, start at 56,000/night, so by using all of their points (plus the free weekend night they received with the Hilton Aspire card) they can get a total of four nights. Unfortunately, the hotel does charge an additional $75/night for children between the ages of 6-14, but our family can use the $250 resort credit from the Aspire card to bring this down to $350 total. Compare with paying out of pocket, their total savings is still over $1000 for the hotel and about $2700 for this trip alone!
Australia and new zealand
After four days in Jamaica with their two kids, our hypothetical parents want to take a wonderful anniversary trip away from the little ones. There isn’t much farther away than Australia and New Zealand.
They transferred 107,000 of their Chase Ultimate Rewards over to United. When combined with the 53,000 United miles from their MileagePlus Explorer signup they have enough for two round-trip tickets to Australia or New Zealand. One of the great things about United MileagePlus is their “Excursionist Perk”. The basic idea is that you can add a short one-way trip in the middle of a round-trip award ticket. This will allow our couple to visit both Australia and New Zealand on one ticket. The sample routing I found was from Colorado Springs to Los Angeles, then on to Sydney. After their time in Australia, they can then fly from Sydney to Auckland and stay there as long as they’d like before flying back to the US. The return routing was Aukland to San Francisco to Denver to Colorado Springs. The total taxes on this route were $162.13 each, whereas similar flights are running about $1600 or more if hey had to pay cash.
While in Sydney they decided to use the last little bit of their Ultimate Rewards points. For 30,000 points they can stay at the Park Hyatt Sydney. This may seem like a lot of points, but with rooms routinely running for over $800/night it is well worth it. The hotel is right on the harbor and some rooms have amazing views of the Sydney harbor or the opera house.
Now, even though they will be responsible for their hotel stays (besides the one night), they will have saved over $3,600 on their dream trip to Australia and New Zealand between the hotel stay and flights. Their total savings for both of their trips so far is now $6,300!
Quick trips
Despite having already gone to Jamaica, Australia and New Zealand our family still has almost 58,000 Southwest points and their companion pass. This is good enough for about $1,200 in Southwest flights if everyone travels together (or more if they decide to ditch the kids again). They could really stretch this by booking cheap flights, for example, from Denver they could go to San Diego, Chicago and Orlando as a family of four and Las Vegas as just a couple for one more weekend away from the kids.
Final tally
From one year of credit card sign-ups this family was able to take a trip to Jamaica at an all-inclusive resort, flights to Chicago, San Diego and Orlando and two trips as a couple, one to Las Vegas and then Australia/New Zealand. They received over $8,500 in flights and accommodations, while spending only $713 in annual credit card fees and $743 in taxes. Their total savings for these sample trips is over $7,000! Let Peakawardbooking.com know about your dream trips and let us help make them happen for you!