As frequent readers of this blog know, we are big proponents of using points and miles to drastically reduce our travel costs. As we head into a new year, we thought it would be interesting to look back at 2021 and recap what we were able to save. The point of this post is not to brag about the wonderful trips we took, but instead to show our readers how much value can be obtained by playing the points and miles game.
We made five major trips of four days or more last year: two international trips and three domestic jaunts. We also made four quick weekend trips. Call it revenge travel or whatever you’d like, we were on the road for approximately sixty nights in 2021. Here’s where we went and how much we were able to save.
Palm Beach, Aruba sunset
After booking and canceling six Aruba trips in 2020, we finally made it to the One Happy Island in March and April. We flew round trip on Southwest, using Mrs. E’s miles to save about $1200 in airfare. Even though our two-week stay at the Marriott Vacation Club’s Surf Club didn’t cost us anything out of pocket, we don’t include that as travel savings because we purchased our timeshares in the past and pay an annual maintenance fee. You can read about the trip in our two blog posts from April, A Visit to Aruba, 2021 – The Impact of Covid-19 and Aruba Trip Report, 2021 – Part II.
The Parasol Down Bar at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas
In June, we were off to Las Vegas to celebrate Mrs. E’s birthday. This time, we flew United, adding to our United miles by transferring some Chase Ultimate Rewards points to pay for our $1150 airfare. What happened in Las Vegas didn’t stay in Las Vegas; we wrote about our trip in this blog post from June: What Happens in Las Vegas. . .
Sunset in Positano, Italy
Our travel highlight for the year was a trip to Italy in August and September. . .two glorious weeks in Rome, Positano and Ischia. We dipped into our points and miles stashes for some major savings on this Italian holiday: $2500 for our Delta flights between NYC and Rome, $3600 for our hotel in Positano, another $700 for one of our five nights in Ischia, thanks to our Citi Prestige card, and $2000 for our hotel in Rome. Total P&M savings for this trip alone added up to about $8800. And the experience was priceless; we covered the highlights in these four posts: Bella Positano! , Where is Ischia? And other questions answered. . .A Trip Report , Five Days in Rome and My Big Italian Famiglia.
South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida
Next up was a week-long trip to Washington DC to watch our daughter run a half marathon, continuing on to South Beach for a relaxing pre-winter dose of sunshine. Unfortunately, we ran into some rainy weather as well, but still managed to enjoy our trip. We were able to save about $850 in airfare (we flew American Airlines) and we used Marriott points for our hotel in DC, saving an additional $600.
Our final trip of 2021 was supposed to take us to San Diego between Christmas and New Year’s Day. But as we watched the weather forecasts deteriorate to highs in the 50’s and rain nearly every day (very un-San Diego-like), we made a last-minute decision to cancel. Instead, we went back down to Miami Beach, where we enjoyed beautiful weather with highs in the 80’s and no rain in sight. Even with last minute travel plans, we saved $1150 in airfare on Southwest and American plus another $3750 for our hotel on the beach. Hotels are very expensive in Miami Beach that last week of December, and we were able to book five nights at the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club with 240K Marriott Bonvoy points, for a value of a little over 1.5 cents per point, which is terrific for Bonvoy points.
During the course of our weekend trips, we saved another $500 on a couple of hotel nights. This brought the final travel savings accounting to a grand total of $18,000 for the year. We burned a lot of points in the process, but averaged about two cents per point in value, tapping into Southwest, American, Delta and United airline miles as well as Marriott and Hyatt hotel points. We also transferred some of our Chase and Amex points to various travel partners to add to our points and miles balances.
We didn’t do anything complex that any of our subscribers and followers couldn’t do themselves. It was all relatively easy, and we were able to make both major and minor changes to our trips without forfeiting a single point or mile. And, thanks to several new cards we signed up for during 2021, we still have plenty of points to put to good use in the future.
So here’s our New Year’s resolution: We want to show each of our readers how to unlock significant travel savings using points and miles. To that end, we invite each of you to send us an email at phil@theexceptionaltraveler.com and tell us about a trip you’re planning in 2022 and what points or miles you currently hold. We’ll respond back with specific recommendations about how to use those points and/or miles to “pay” for airfare or hotel expenses. If you don’t currently have any points or miles stashed away, that’s OK. . .we’ll recommend a credit card or two that will allow you to earn them. All we ask in return is that you tell five of your friends (or more!) about TheExceptionalTraveler.com and ask them to subscribe to our blog (it’s free, as you know).
Happy New Year from South Beach!
Thanks for being a subscriber/follower/reader. Next year, we hope to be telling your stories of unlocking great travel value with points and miles.
I enjoyed reading about your travel savings summary! Were you able to relax at many airport lounges, our alternatively hotel lounges that you got access to due to status?
Lounges have become a real problem! Most of the hotel lounges where we visited were still closed. And it’s become very difficult to get into the airport lounges, especially the Amex Centurion lounges. The Miami Centurion lounge was closed each time we were in Miami; once because of a broken elevator (which I interpreted to be a capacity issue) and it was also closed on New Year’s Day at 5pm because of labor shortages.