Where can you go with 3 people for $778?

Try Australia, with a 3 day stop over in Hawaii, airfare AND hotel included. The flights are in economy, but the hotels are not in your cheap hostels or economy hotel (nothing wrong with these) but Hyatts and Marriotts. Sometimes we get so caught up in collecting miles, we forget the big picture: spending them!

I got my cousin seriously into the miles game back in July when he applied for the Ink card and Sapphire card in November, and it paid off—big time.



He started using the Vanilla Ink Bold strategy to accumulate the miles needed for his vacation, which required just shy of 150k Chase Ultimate Rewards points. He had another 150k+ miles already from the Citi American Airlines signup bonus 2 years ago (2 cards 75k each).

Those cards combined to gave him 300k miles, enough to fly three people from Dallas, TX., to Honolulu, HI., for 3 days, then continuing to Brisbane and Sydney for 2 weeks, and return back home. Some of the Chase Ultimate Rewards points were converted into British Airways miles to cover the return flights, and the rest were converted to Hyatt and Marriott points for their hotel stays. He also tagged on a trip to Toronto at the end, which is included in the miles total.

By the numbers

Grand Total:

• 295k miles
• $778 in taxes and reload fees.

If he were to buy the trip? $21,866.98

Sit back and think about that for a moment.

He literally just booked, what many people would consider a once-in-a-lifetime, dream vacation. And he did with 6-8 months of careful spending and maximizing points for $778.

At prices like this, wouldn't you rather be traveling too?