Travel: How we flew First Class to Hawaii & Stayed at The Ritz Carleton using Credit Card points
Ok! I am so happy to have this all in one place! I get questions about how we did this, daily. I needed Justin’s help to put it together because he did most of the research. Lol. Credit card companies frequently give out very valuable bonuses to entice you to sign up for one of their cards. Justin & I, (mainly Justin lol) have spent a lot of time going through the best deals and so far we have been very successful in getting a lot of value out of these, all without paying a single cent in interest!
There are a lot of reward types available (cash back, Scene points, Avion, Aeroplan, Airmiles, etc.) but we have found the best value is through AMEX points and Marriott points. AMEX points are great because you can get big sign up bonuses, there are multiple high earning cards available, and you can transfer them to Aeroplan at 1:1 ratio and to Marriott at 1:1.2 ratio. The platinum cards also have awesome additional perks like VIP airport lounge access and Marriot Bonvoy Gold elite status. It’s awesome.
Marriott rewards are your best option for booking hotels. They have a huge network to choose from and some of the nicest hotels in the world can be booked for as low as 30,000 points. When you book 4 nights you get a 5th night free, this really makes for some great value. We got 5 nights at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua ($1900/night), and 5 nights at the Ritz Carlton Waikiki Beach ($930/night) ,both with free upgrades due to our Gold Elite status for just 150,000 points each. If you were to book these places at their typical rates, this would cost around $11,000 CDN and $6000 CDN
Best part about it all is that it really isn’t complicated, you can get these perks just for spending money that you would have anyway. You don’t need to pay interest or go into debt, just spend, pay bills, go out to eat like you typically would. The key is to put every purchase you possibly can on one of these cards, and pay It off in full every month. You earn points on every dollar you spend, so you might as well take advantage of your everyday spending. Each card will have a minimum spend in the first 3 months to receive the maximum points. I’ve listed the requirements for each card below. Most aren’t hard to reach, and if you are close you can always buy gift cards for gas and groceries you can use at a later date. The AMEX platinum is great if you have a large expense coming up like a home renovation or Christmas shopping. We reached ours pretty easily while flipping our house in the past year. Once you have hit the minimum spend, simple cancel the card and move on to the next one. We keep the platinum as our day to day card because of all the additional perks that come with it.
So what is the best way to get started? I would start with applying for either the Marriott Bonvoy card or Amex gold card. Then get used to using the card everyday and paying it off each month. You will start to see how quickly the points add up. If you have a significant other also capable of hitting the minimum spend you will really rack up points quickly. Have one of you sign up for a card, use it for a bit and then refer the other person. This will get you bonus points and fortunately you can transfer points between each other. This was huge for us, over time Justin and I would each apply for one of these cards and then refer the other. We spent a lot on our home renovations which made it easy to hit the spending limits.
Before long you will have big number of AMEX and Marriot points. In under a year we were able to get enough points for our entire Hawaii trip. Once you have a destination in mind, check out how many Aeroplan miles are needed for your flight and transfer that amount from you AMEX account. The transfer the rest of your points over to your Marriott account. The best part is that you typically get the best value when booking first class flights. We flew to Hawaii first class, which would have cost us over $10,000, for 160,000 Aeroplan miles!!
Note: You DO NOT need a registered business to apply for business credit cards. If you have side business, or are thinking of starting a side hustle…. you can use that for the business cards.
Let me know if you have any more questions and we will do our best to point you in the right direction!!
Happy Vacationing!! Lol
xx
Allie