Credit card points and miles made my dream of seeing Disney World a reality and it can do the same for you.
Being a middle school teacher, having a family of 6, and living in expensive Southern California, just doesn’t allow me to have extra money to stash away for expensive vacations. So I can safely say, had it not been for me discovering how to travel on points and miles, I would have never been able to take this trip with my family. I cannot tell you how much this trip meant to me. I was able to fulfill a childhood dream of mine, share the experience with my family, and make amazing memories in the process. I have so many new family memories that I will treasure forever.
Here’s the breakdown of how I was able to book this dream vacation in case you want to go here too.
Points Cost
I have to admit this was a very quick trip because we have so much travel left to do in 2024 and my husband has to save his PTO for those upcoming trips. It was a 3 night hotel stay, with 6 roundtrip tickets, and 2 parks out of the 4 to see.
Let me preface all of you by saying, I am not a fancy traveler. I just need to get from point A to point B in the cheapest way possible so that I can enjoy the place I’m going to see. While I would love to have stayed in a Disney property, I just cannot justify staying there when we were going to be spending all day at the parks and not enjoying the resort. Below is my strategy for seeing Disney World for the cheapest points cost possible.
Airfare Cost
To get my family from Southern California to Orlando we needed to buy 6 round trip tickets. I only had to pay for 4 tickets with points because both my husband and I have the Southwest Companion Pass, which allows your designated companion to fly for free with you for just the cost of the taxes, which is $11.20 roundtrip. Each round trip flight was 36,256 points. We spent a total of 145,024 points for 4 flights and 2 of us flew for just the taxes.
To pay for these flights I used all of the my Southwest points that I had in my account. Then I transferred whatever else I needed from Chase to Southwest.
Cash value for 6 flights would have been $2,598. We paid $67.20
Hotel Cost
I paid 27,000 Chase points for 3 nights at the Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista. Two nights were 9,500 and one night was 8,000 points. I transferred my Chase points to Hyatt in order to book this hotel. I booked this about a year in advance because these crazy Disney fans (like me) will snatch up the rooms very quickly. Hyatt opens their calendar 13 months in advance. If you want to snag this hotel, have a date in mind and check Hyatt everyday around the 13 month mark to ensure you are able to get the room.
Cash value of the hotel would have been $767.67 but through points it was $0 to us.
Total point cost for this trip was 172,024 points and $67.20
We saved $3,298.47 by using points and miles :)
Credit Cards I Opened to Get These Points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred card: This card is needed in order to be able to transfer Chase points to partners like Hyatt and Southwest. Welcome Bonus on this card is 60,000 points. Referral bonus is 15,000 points and I received this for referring my husband to the same card.
- Chase Ink Business Card: I also opened the Chase Ink Unlimited card with my side hustle of selling my kids old clothes on OfferUp. This gave me 75,000 points for the welcome bonus. I also referred my husband and at the time the referral bonus was 20,000 points.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Personal Card: This card offered 75,000 Southwest points when I opened it. I referred my husband to the card for 20,000 points.
- Southwest Premier Business Card: I also opened this card with the purpose of getting the Southwest Companion Pass. At the time I got 60,000 points as a welcome bonus.
Points Earned on This Trip
Since you’ll be spending money on your trip, be sure to strategize how to get the most amount of points possible to help pay for future trips.
Strategy 1: Buy gift cards.
Using my Chase Ink Business Cash card, which gives me 5x the points per dollar spent at office supply stores, I was able to earn no less than 5x the points for every dollar I spent. Prior to leaving on this trip I went to an office supply store and bought Disney gift cards to pay for anything I wanted at the park, such as souvenirs and food. I also bought Visa and Mastercard gift cards when they were on sale. On sale means you can buy the cards without having to pay the activation fee.
Strategy 2: Use the best credit card for the category
I mostly used gift cards to pay for items on our trip, but when I knew I was going to get 5x the points through other means, I used those credit cards instead and saved my gift cards for use at a later time. The two cards I used were my Chase Sapphire Preferred card because it gave me 5x the points on Lyft rides. We needed these to get to and from the airport and to and from the hotel to the parks as well.
We also used my husband’s Chase Freedom Flex card because during this quarter they were paying 5x the points on dining.
This strategy alone earned us 7,190 points
Strategy 3: Link rewards programs to other reward programs to earn more points
These points were very minimal but I’ll take some points over zero any day.
I have my Lyft account linked to the free BILT rewards program, which pays 2x the points for every dollar spent with Lyft. This means I earned 5x the points with Chase for my Lyft Rides and 2x the points from BILT for the same purchase.
I also earned Marriott Bonvoy points when I paid for my Uber rental because I linked these accounts. I paid for my Uber rental with my gift card which earned my 5x the points there, but I also earned 3 Marriot Bonvoy points on my Uber ride for the same purchase. You will only earn Marriott Bonvoy points when you do a Uber XL, Comfort, Black and Black SUV ride with Uber.
On our Starbucks coffee runs on this trip we also earned 5x the points per dollar because I purchased a Starbucks gift card at an office supply store and loaded it onto my account. Because I have my Starbucks and Delta accounts linked, I earned 1 Delta SkyMile for every dollar spent at Starbucks.
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