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There's a saying, “Good things come in threes.” Thanks to things I've learned through the Award Travel 101 by AwardWallet community, I'm weaving the different facets of travel together in ways I'd never previously imagined. If you love traveling for less, check this out! Awards can be used to put together a trip many would call a “trip of a lifetime,” even if it’s nothing more than an extended weekend.
This is how I put together all of the perks from cards in my wallet to travel for three days, three flights, and three nights using just $54.05 out of pocket for my son (who's on the Spectrum) and I to take a trip together.
Airport Experience
What is it that you dislike most about airport arrival? If you’re like me and most others, it’s the lines, the security, and the waiting. Oh, and the overpriced airport food and beverages. If you have the right collection of credit cards, you may find that there are many ways to overcome the pain points to turn that frown upside-down. That starts with speeding through security.
- Global Entry/TSA PreCheck: Many credit cards can reimburse your enrollment fees for these programs. In fact, I just used two of them to apply for both of my kids, even though it’s not required for children under the age of 18 on domestic flights.
- CLEAR Plus: While some don’t find value in it, I find CLEAR lanes often allow me to skip long lines at airports outside of my home airport of Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE). It even helps at home on busy traffic days. Here's how you can get CLEAR for free.
- Airport lounges: If you have a place to look forward to, perhaps hanging out at the airport prior to your flight isn’t so bad. CLE airport has three lounges: a United Club, The Club Lounge, and Bar Symon. The last is one of dozens of restaurant and spa experiences where I can use up to $28 per person (including up to three guests) for a total of $84 per visit. Ever wonder why both my wife and I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve®? This is it.
Departure Flights
Have you read a travel blog or post on social media today? You won’t have to look far to locate people blurting out, “You should only use your rewards for international travel for the best value!” Don’t you love it when they’re way off base? International travel can provide huge returns, but why ignore the fact that you can get outsized value here in the U.S. as well?
- Best uses of Amex Membership Rewards for U.S. domestic flights
- Best uses of Capital One miles for U.S. domestic flights
- Maximizing Chase Ultimate Rewards on flights within North America
- Best uses of Citi ThankYou Points for flights in North America
In this case, I knew I was planning to fly to Los Angeles (LAX). United is the largest airline operating out of CLE. Does that mean I have to use United MileagePlus to book? Not if there are better, less expensive options. Using United’s Expert Mode, you can identify which fares are available to partners. I’ve written before about using ExpertFlyer; it's a valuable tool for award travelers, but some of that value was lost recently.
Different award rates
Non-elite members and those without a United co-branded credit card, may only have access to the more expensive fares. One of the best perks of having a United credit card is access to expanded saver award space. This means that I had access to economy awards from CLE to LAX for 12,800 miles each, while non-card holders' best rate was 15K each. However, identifying (I) business class and (X) economy class tickets may lead you to even more savings.
In my case, I noticed that I could connect through Chicago (ORD) on a 787-10 wide-body jet, which is typically reserved for international flights. Not only could I connect to a nicer plane, but there were five business-class seats available for both CLE-ORD and ORD-LAX. You can identify this from Expert Mode as “I5.” I5 means there are 5 seats available to partners in business class, but I only need two. This offered me a choice to use:
- 60,000 United miles
- 50,000 Aeroplan points
- 25,000 Turkish Miles & Smiles miles
The plan
Which one do you think I was going for? The issue with the cheapest option has been finding partner award flights on Turkish Airlines' website.
I had 30,000 Turkish miles set to expire at the end of this year, due to a previously canceled trip to Hawaii. We've discussed the Turkish Airlines email booking option in other articles, so I sent emails to various Turkish offices with the flight numbers, dates, and passenger information for the flights I wanted to book.
Confirming the booking
Turkish Airlines replied several hours later, requiring a phone call to confirm and complete payment. There were some quirks to this process:
The actual time spent talking to an employee was about 15–20 minutes, while they updated info and asked for passenger information. When reaching out to the call center at 800-874-8875 to finalize payment, I needed to provide my credit card details, passenger details, and confirm my PIN.
After wrapping this call, I’d burned 25K expiring Turkish Miles and $11.60 to cover flights that retailed for nearly $1,500. We had a booking for domestic first class on the first segment plus international lie-flat seats on United’s best Polaris product on the second segment to LAX.
Car Rentals
While not as fun to brag about as $15,000 first-class tickets, car rentals are an expense that can be more challenging to do on points. Fortunately, we have cheat codes to better your next rental experience. This starts with getting rental car elite status. Who wants to wait in an hour-long line of other annoyed passengers being sold insurance products you don’t want when you can have them covered with credit cards, instead, and skip the line to the best available cars on the lot?
While my status comes by way of years of matching back and forth across agencies, there are multiple ways to get rental car elite status, and many of today’s premium cards will grant top-tier status. Since I frequently rent with National, as an Executive Elite member, I receive a free day after every five rentals. These rental credits do expire, and one of my three credits was expiring. I figured, “Why not use them all?”
Taxes and fees are not included on free day rentals, so I had to cover $31.65. That’s still less than the $267.63 rental cost. Tally that up, and each free day gave us $78.66.
Hotels
Carrying on our discussion of threes, I planned to take my son to visit three places:
- Legoland California
- San Diego Harbor
- Santa Monica Pier
That meant we needed three hotels. Since the original trip idea sprung from an AwardWallet notice of an expiring hotel free night award (FNA), I knew I had the perfect locations in mind for the final location, but now I had to search for two more.
Free night awards
Having recently requalified for World of Hyatt Globalist status, one of the benefits earned is a Category 1–7 free night award. The issue is that these FNAs expire six months after the issue date, but with my schedule through mid-January, it was going to be tough to use this any other time. Most people want to use these at higher-tier properties to obtain value in places where they don’t want to spend their points or cash. I chose the Category 7 Park Hyatt Aviara for our stay at Legoland, as it’s literally next door, and it will count toward my next FNA earned from the famous Brand Explorer bonus.
For the San Diego Harbor, I figured a stay at the Category 4 Grand Hyatt Manchester was my best choice. This is due to the free harbor tour included as part of the resort fee — which is waived on award stays, even though you still get the benefits. Funny enough, I’d forgotten I had a Category 1–4 free night remaining after my renewal of The World of Hyatt Credit Card.
With Hyatt Globalist status, I'm eligible for complimentary suite upgrades, free (valet or self) parking, and complimentary breakfast. The Grand Hyatt Manchester in San Diego is one of the few remaining properties with an open Club Lounge, and while we missed out on a prime rib dinner, we had a decent breakfast.
Finally in Santa Monica, I chose the Oceana LXR through Hilton Honors. Hilton doesn’t do award charts like Hyatt, but this property cost a whopping 105,000 Hilton Honors points.
As mentioned earlier, I had an expiring Hilton free night earned from spending $15,000 on my Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card last year. Great uses of these awards include incredible destinations like the Maldives, Seychelles, or Los Cabos. While parking is not free, there is a $50 daily credit for Gold and Diamond members, and Oceana is a place I'd love to return for a longer (more than one night) stay in Santa Monica.
The Return
Of course, the return trip required many of the same things as the departing trip. We covered TSA PreCheck/Global Entry and CLEAR, but what about lounge access at the airport? Terminals 7 and 8 at LAX, where United is located, don't have any lounges other than United Club or the Polaris Lounge. The Polaris Lounge is restricted to travelers on international business- or first-class itineraries, so that leaves the United Club LAX. We used the two annual United Club one-time passes offered by The New United℠ Business Card. While United values those visits at $59 each, I'd say the real value is about one-third of that, unless you happen to cozy up to the bar for an extended stay.
While nothing was available initially for business class on the return flight, I’d located X9 economy saver awards using United Expert Mode again. That meant that there were at least nine discounted seats available at the lowest award level. With 5,ooo expiring Turkish miles remaining, I figured I might as well go all the way. I emailed Turkish Miles & Smiles again. This time they responded quicker, putting my reservation on hold, so I transferred (instantly) the remaining 10,000 points from my Citi ThankYou account. It took 25 minutes on hold plus 15 minutes speaking with an agent, 15K Turkish miles, and $11.60 to get a confirmation, but the trip was booked for our return flight home.
I may have been able to talk my way into upgrades for the return, but that conversation is reserved for our next Award Travel 101 Meetup in San Antonio, TX (April 26–28, 2024), located at the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk. This event is sold out, but if you’re interested in participating, join the waitlist, and we'll contact you if tickets become available.
Bottom Line
There were lots of perks used in this trip, but here are the highlights (and savings):
- 25K Turkish miles for lie-flat Polaris business-class seats + $11.20 ($1,483.20 cash price)
- 3 Free National Days + $31.65 ($235.98 cash cost)
- Category 1–7 Hyatt free night ($1,060.63 cash cost)
- Category 1–4 Hyatt free night ($313.40 cash cost)
- Hilton free night ($1,046.41 cash cost)
- 15K Turkish miles for economy flights + $11.20 ($596.60 cash cost)
This doesn't even begin to cover all of the additional perks and benefits we received from airline and hotel status. By my calculations, status benefits added another $645 in value. Free hotel nights, free car rental days, 40K Turkish miles, and $54.05 created memories we'll never forget at an incredibly low cost. Reducing the trip cost also freed up cash to spend on other activities, where we may have previously skimped.
What are some unconventional ways you've created trips using rewards programs?
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