In the summer of 2021, my wife and I took our three daughters and their husbands out west to Arizona and Utah for a 16 day trip. We did so to celebrate my retirement from teaching.
It was basically going to be our treat. We covered hotels, flights, rental cars, food, and activities. They had to cover anything above that on their own.
We were more than glad to do it but at the same time we wanted to save money where we could. The way that we did that was by using credit card points to take some bite out of the overall cost.
First Introduction Into Credit Card Points
The first time I used credit card points was when we took our daughter Makenzie on a 10 day trip to California. I did not know anything about credit card points at the time.
I had a goal to get all of our hotels covered with credit card points. We ended up staying at my wife’s cousin’s place for a few days and because of that we did not pay any out of pocket costs for hotel rooms for the 10 days.
Arizona/Utah Trip
Once Tonya, my wife, and I decided to do the trip to Arizona and Utah with the family, I knew that I wanted to take out some credit cards to help cover the costs.
I still did not know much about credit card points. So, I used the internet and did some reading about credit card points. I learned just enough information to be dangerous.
From doing some research, I knew that I wanted to keep in the Chase ecosystem of cards. Chase has many different types of cards and they have some good transfer partners.
Chase also has the Chase travel portal. In the portal, your points are worth 25% more when you book hotel rooms, rental cars and flights amongst other things in the portal.
In other words, if you have 10,000 points they are worth $125 instead of $100 when booking things through the portal. I just thought it would be a good option to have.
I also did not want to have high annual fees on the cards that we were taking out. It was important to stay below $100 per card. That ended up not being an issue.
Cards We Had
There were a number of cards that Tonya and I had at the time. Those included a Marriott card, Hilton card, Chase Freedom, Fidelity cash back card, and Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Out of the above cards, we used the Fidelity cash back card by far the most. It is a 2% cash back card. We ended up having over $2,000 in cash back that we were able to use towards the vacation.
In retrospect, I would have used the cards that we ended up getting along with the ones that we already had differently but that is a story for another day.
Cards We Got
As I mentioned before, I used the internet to learn just enough to become dangerous. In my reading, I realized that I qualified for business cards even though I did not own a business. Isn’t America great?
I have a job that I do on my computer and I have done it for many years. In the eyes of the company, I am not actually an employee of the company. I am an independent contractor.
So, in the eyes of credit card companies you are eligible to get a business card when you are an independent contractor.
On a side note, most people can qualify for a business card. Just a few examples of businesses would be walking dogs, babysitting, selling items online, bloggers, consultants, home bakers, food delivery, ride sharing etc.
Chase has many different types of business cards to choose from. I wanted business cards that allowed me to transfer points to different airlines and hotels.
Chase has one business card that accomplishes that mission with the other two helping out with that goal.
The card that I got that allowed us to be able to transfer points was the Chase Business Ink card. At the time, the Chase Business Ink card had a 100,000 point sign up bonus after you spent $7,500 in three months.
The Chase Business Ink card had a $95 annual fee which is charged on the first billing cycle. I thought it was a fair exchange. I get $1,250 or more worth of points for $95.
The other two business cards that I got were the Chase Business Cash card and the Chase Business Unlimited card. They are both no annual fee cards. Can you say whoop?
Both cards had a sign up bonus of 75,000 points after you spent $7,500 in 3 months.
You can book travel with the cards but you don’t get the 25% bonus like with the Chase Business Ink card. You cannot transfer the points to any of the transfer partners either.
What you can do with the points is transfer them to the Chase Business Ink or either of the Chase Sapphire cards to use the points in the portal. You can also transfer the points to Chase’s transfer partners through the Business Ink and Sapphire cards.
So, with those 3 cards we earned 250,000 points just in sign up bonuses. You also earn points on your purchases while reaching the sign up bonuses.
Another thing that I liked about earning all of these points was the fact that we only had one annual fee.
I thought that we would have a good chance of flying Southwest Airlines and so I got the Southwest Premier Business Card which had a 60,000 point sign up bonus. The annual fee was $99.
I wanted to get a hotel credit card and as I did research Hyatt hotels have the best redemptions. Plus, there would be a number of Hyatt hotels that we would be able to use on our travels.
I ended up getting the World of Hyatt credit card. It had a 50,000 point sign up bonus after you spent $3,000 in 3 months. It also came with a $95 annual fee.
The card also comes with a free night stay every year. That and other perks more than covers the annual fee.
Earning Extra Points
We were planning on taking the trip in the summer of 2020 but there was this little thing called a pandemic that hit that spring.
So, we decided to put off the trip for a summer. It allowed us to gather more points during that time and we ended up with another 50,000 points to use.
How We Used the Points
Hotels
We had 8 people in our party so we always got two rooms with two queen beds wherever we stayed.
Our first stop was in Sedona, Arizona. I ended up reserving two rooms through the Chase travel portal at the Sedona Real Inn and Suites.
It would have cost us $1,176 with cash for 3 nights but I was able to book the rooms through the Chase travel portal for 94,155 points.
Our next stop was the Grand Canyon. This was the splurge on the trip for us. We stayed at the Kachina Lodge which is located on the south rim of the canyon.
It cost us a total of $2,379 combined for the two rooms for three nights. We were not able to use any points on this stay. It was worth the splurge.
The next stop was Page, Arizona. We stayed at the Hyatt Place in Page, AZ for one night. The costs of the two rooms combined would have been $800. We were able to use 16,000 points to book the two rooms.
Moab was our next destination. We stayed at another Hyatt Place in Moab. The 4 night stay would have cost us $3,300 combined for the two rooms. We were able to use 64,000 points to book the rooms for four nights.
Bryce Canyon was next in line. We booked two rooms at the Bryce View Lodge. If we were paying in cash it would have cost us $341 combined for the two rooms. We booked the two rooms through the Chase travel portal for 27,760 points.
The final destination was Springdale, Utah just outside of Zion National Park. We stayed 3 nights at the La Quinta Inn and Suites Springdale, UT.
The total cost for the two rooms for three nights would have been $1,152. We booked the rooms through the Chase travel portal for 92,174 points.
Excluding the Grand Canyon rooms, if we were paying cash for the hotel rooms we would have spent $6,679.
Flights
We ended up booking all of our flights through Southwest. There are a number of things that I like about Southwest but a major factor is the fact that they don’t charge for luggage.
If we were flying on some other airlines, the luggage alone would have cost us between $600 and $700.
We flew into and out of Phoenix. I had enough points to fly everyone to Phoenix for free. The cost of the flights would have been $1,215. It took us a total of 81,024 points.
On the way home, I had enough points to fly three of us for free. The savings with the three people was $516. We used a total of 34,305 points.
We had to pay cash for the other five people. It cost $860 to fly the other five people home.
Total cost for flying 8 people round trip including luggage was $860. It would have cost us $2,591 if we did not have points.
Final Totals
Hotel savings $6,679 + Flight savings $1,731 = $8,410 total savings
Mistakes Made Along the Way
Booking Flights Mistakes
You rarely go unscathed when starting to do anything new. Maybe you can’t relate but I know that has been my story. This was definitely the case when using credit card points.
I made a couple of mistakes when booking the flights. I had been checking prices on flights on Southwest.
The plan was to wait to book flights 6 weeks to a month from our trip since that is the sweet spot when booking domestic flights.
I started checking flights when it was six months from the trip. It was around three months from the trip that I checked prices and they had dropped a good amount.
The thing that made me panic a bit was the fact that a number of flights were already full. I had never booked eight people for a trip before and I wanted to make sure that I got everyone on the same flight.
I ended up booking the flights. It would have been nice to get a lower price but overall I was not to unhappy with the final results.
The mistake that I made was not checking back in to see what the prices of flights were doing. Southwest allows you to change your flight and rebook if prices drop. I did not fully understand that rule and I wish that I would have had a better grasp of it.
Another mistake in booking the flights was that I booked all the flights together at the same time. I did not check to see if prices would be different if I book tickets separately.
Airlines have different prices for the same type of seats on a plane. If one of the tickets is at a higher price from all of the other tickets on the same reservation, the airlines will bump all of the tickets up to the higher price.
Talk about a dirty little trick. I did not know this happened so I am not sure if I left money on the table.
Hotel Booking Mistakes
Another mistake that I made pertained to booking the hotel stay in Moab. At the time that I originally booked the stay it was not a mistake. It ended up being a mistake in the long run.
If you are not too confused, let me explain what happened. As I mentioned before, we were planning on making this trip in the summer of 2020.
When I went to get rooms for the Hyatt Place in Moab for the summer of 2020, they only had one room with two queen beds available.
I was going to have to book two rooms with king beds along with the one room with two queen beds. So, I transferred an extra 32,000 points into our Hyatt account to take care of the extra room.
After we canceled the reservation and eventually made a new reservation for the hotel, there were two rooms available with two queen beds in them. I was pretty excited that we did not have to use those 32,000 points.
That excitement was short lived because once you transfer points into a hotel or airline program you cannot get the points back. They must stay in that program.
We could have used the points to put towards our flights and we would have only paid for two flights home instead of five. So, it ended up being a mistake that I made but it originally was not. Those points will be used by us at a later date so not all is lost.
The last mistake that I made pertained to booking hotel rooms through the Chase travel portal. Once you book a room through the portal, as long as you don’t pick the pay now option, you can cancel the reservation with no penalty to you.
You can check back in on occasion to see if the price on the room has dropped. If it has dropped, you can cancel the reservation and rebook it.
I did check every once in a while but I didn’t do it enough over the course of time. I don’t know if prices ever did drop but I wish I would have checked more often.
One Final Mistake
If I had to do it all over again, I would have had Tonya get a few general Chase cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred instead of the Southwest or Hyatt cards.
The advantage of having a card like the Sapphire Preferred is that those points can be transferred into Southwest or Hyatt along with many other programs.
It gives you more options. As I mentioned before, when you have points in a hotel or airline program, you are stuck using points only in that program most of the time.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are definite benefits to getting credit cards and using their points for travel. You don’t need to know all of the ins and outs to get the benefits from them.
I would have made some changes here and there but overall I am very happy with how we used the points and the money that we saved.
I hope that you have gained some knowledge and have learned a little from the mistakes that I also made along the way.
You can read the itinerary to our 16 day trip titled “16 Epic Days in the Southwest: Utah/Arizona Trip Itinerary” by clicking this link.
If you have any questions or want to leave a comment feel free to do so.