Family Travel Hacking: Saved $13,000 First Year

Family Travel Hacking: Saved $13,000 First Year

Family Travel Hacking: Saved $13,000 First Year. I completed my first Year of Travel Hacking with a wonderful Vacation to Japan with my family. What I learned is that Family Travel Hacking is Different. We can still earn tons of points through common strategies and utilize the points and miles I earned in a way that best fits my family. Thanks to Family Travel Hacking my Family can now enjoy many affordable family vacations every year. AffordableFamilytravel.com shared many of these Travel Hacked Family vacations that are luxury trips on a cheap family vacation budget.

I began my journey on the 10xtravel.com Insiders Facebook group and eventually joined a couple of other groups but primarily follow 10xtravel’s strategy (though most are similar).

Here’s what I have accomplished in 1 years’ time. We are a family of four (ages 5.5 and 7 yrs. old) that typically take 2-3 vacations a year, at least one being international. 

Why I Started Travel Hacking

I started travel hacking because as my children are getting older its getting easier to travel and I wanted to travel more.  My goal is to get to my destination and stay as many days as I can, with as little points necessary, so we focus on economy flights, but hotels are often based on location as well as points. We did not earn enough points to cover flight and hotel for every trip we took but we earned points on the CSR for all the cash travel we did.

How I Calculate Value for the First Year

I do not consider the full cost of an expensive hotel to be savings because in most cases I would have found a cheaper cash option. Therefore, I have 2 values actual cost and the cost we would have paid. My savings is determined by cost we would have paid not the actual cost.  All spending is organic spending I do not do any MS to hit min spending or anything else.  My husband has an LLC that helps us with min spending and is approximately half of our total spending.

Saving over $13,000 our First Year

Total Saving for this year $13,552 less annual fees of $1,214 (deducted $300 from CSR and $400 from amex) making actual savings $12,338. Actual cost of travel that points were used for was $19,037. In addition to this savings I saved over $615 in travel insurance I would normally purchase, though with the increased travel I would be looking into an annual travel insurance policy. The lounge access we receive from Amex and CSR is a wonderful benefit. I calculate the value only on money saved by not purchasing bottled water and meals if needed. We saved $230 using the lounge and received far more benefits than just the savings.

Adding in these savings the benefit of travel hacking for our first year $13,183 compared to the years where we have earned $1500 in cash back on our credit card.In addition, I still have 230,000 pts remaining that were earned during the first year.

Remaining Points at the end of the First Year

• 105,000 MR pts
• 44,000 UR pts
• 40,000 Marriott Rewards
• 36,000 Southwest Airline miles (and companion pass through December 31, 2019)
• 60,000 Hyatt points (will earn soon)
• 50,000 United miles

Where We Went our First Year Travel Hacking

• Amalfi Coast /Greece April 2018  Utilized lounge access and earned a lot of UR from trip spending
• Vancouver and Alaska Cruise August 2018 Utilized lounge access, earned a lot of UR from trip spending & saved w/CSR Insurance
• Orlando for Universal Studios  4nts September 2018:     SWA CP + miles & Cash hotel- Spent only $1300 for 5 days total expenses
• Jamaica 4nts November 2018:  SWA CP+ miles & Cash hotel- spent only $1400 for 5 days total expenses
• Nickelodeon Resort, Punta Cana 3nts January 2019 SWA CP and miles & Cash hotel
• Atlantis, Bahamas 4nts January 2019  SWA CP+ miles and Total Reward Match Free Atlantis Stay spent $730 for flight & hotel fee
• Disneyland Ca 4nts, Oahu 8nts February 2019   SWA CP + miles to LAX and 3nts Hilton Waikiki; Cash for Hawaii flights & 5nts Aulani-earned UR
• Japan 10nts, Hong Kong 5nts April 2019 Flights and 10 nights Marriott and Hyatt; Cash for 5nts-earned UR

 

Credit Cards (2 player mode)	Date Opened	Annual Fee	spending min (and pts earn from	Bonus	Total pts from bonus and min spend	Total pts to date	Notes
	Totals	1,214	63,000	1,120,000	1,183,000	1,160,159	with 120,000 pending
Chase Sapphire Reserve	2/18	450	5,000	50,000		189,001	*more pts from spending were earned then shown
Chase Sapphire Preferred	2/18	95 WFY	5000	50,000		56,966
Chase southwest personal	3/18	69	2,000	50,000		63,257
Chase ink business	4/18	95	5000	80,000		85,000
Chase southwest business	5/18	99	3,000	60,000		63,000
SW biz referral				10,000		10,000
Chase southwest business	6/18	99	3000	60,000		63,000
Chase southwest persona	6/18	69	2000	40,000		42,617
Chase Marriott	7/18	95	5,000	100,000		112,202
Chase Marriott	7/18	95	5000	100,000		106,142
Chase Ink business	9/18)	95	5,000	80,000		85,000
Hilton business	8/18	99	3000	100,000		103,000
Inkbusiness cash	9/18	0 (No AF)	3,000	50,000		53,000
Ink referral				20,000		20,000
American express platinum	11/18	550	5000	100,000		105,000
United	10/18	95WFY	3000	50000		2974	*bonus will hit next cycle
Hyatt personal	1/2019	95WFY	6000			0	*just starting to work on this one
Chase Sapphire travel credit		-300
Amex Plat- SW gift cards		-400

Points Used	pts		Cash Paid (CP)	Actual cost	Cost we would have paid (CWWHP)	Savings  CWWHP-CP)
				$19,037	$ 15,960	$13,552
Southwest Flights Alb-MCO September	26640	SW	$44	$ 848	$800	$756
Southwest Flights Jamaica November	53976	SW	$560	$ 2678.28	$1600	$1,040
Southwest Flights Punta Cana January	56160	SW	$ 481.64	$1,840	$1,840	$ 1,358
Southwest Flights Bahamas January	61932	SW	$472	$2,262.52	$2262.52	$1,791
Southwest Flights EWR-LAX OW February	20462	SW	$22	$736	$736	$725
	219,170
Atlantis	0	match offer	$256	$1995	$906	$650
Tokyo/Hong kong flights	285,956	UR		$5262	$4400	$4,400
5nts Sheraton Tokyo Bay 5th night free (5nts)	200,000	Marriot	$250	$1250	$1250	$1,000
2nts Marriot Tokyo Bay	48,362	UR		$575	$575	$241.28
3nts Kyoto	60,000	UR		$750	$750	$750
Hilton Wakiki	150,000	Hilton	0	$840.65	$840.65	$840.65

Cards we plan to keep: ·      

• Chase Sapphire Reserve: utilized for all cash travel earning 3x pts per dollar and 1.5x in the portal, insurance coverage and lounge access. ·      
• Southwest Personal CC: we love southwest and the fee is covered by the annual miles given, we also earn some referral bonuses. when the first year annual fees hit we called and were able to receive a retention bonus equal to the annual fees thus wiping out the annual fees for our second year.

Please use my referal links when applying for new credit cards. 

Join the AffordableFamilyTravel.com Crew on Facebook to share tips and tricks for affordable family travel.

Follow Affordable_Family_Travel on Instagram

Make sure to like AffordableFamilyTravel.com on Facebook to get all the latest updates. It’s also where I post my Dash Deals that are time-sensitive.