We saved over $28,000 on travel this year

Want to know how we save money on travel? Here’s a 2023 summary of the amount we were able to save thanks to points and miles.

We are all about values-based spending. And travel is one of those categories that we are willing to spend money on. Thanks to travel hacking, however, we can save money on travel and increase the number of places we’re able to visit each year!

If you missed our previous recap, here’s where we went in 2023. It was our most-traveled year ever, which is a credit to being smart with points and miles to ensure we were able to save money on travel and splurge when we needed.

Nearly every trip we take is a combination of points & miles and paying with cash (credit card), but there are a select few trips when it’s all paid with a credit card. Never go into debt paying for a trip! We only put travel costs on our credit cards when we know we have the funds already in our account to pay them off.

Keep reading to find out the numbers on our 2023 travel savings.

January

We visited three Hawaiian islands in January 2023 – spending 8 nights total in Hawaii. Our big costs (flights and hotels) were covered with points and miles. We did pay using a credit card for the rental cars on each island, the flights between the islands (less than $100 per person per flight), and of course food & activities.

Flight from Chicago (ORD) to Honolulu (HNL) – we flew United thanks to miles earned on the sign-up bonus from the United Explorer card. We had each opened up the card in July 2022 and hit the SUB for a combined 130,000 miles. Had we paid cash for these flights, the total would have been $928.00 ($464 per person).

We spent three nights at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach. To cover these costs, we transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt. The total cost of these nights would have been $1,192.62 if we didn’t use points.

After Oahu, we flew to the Big Island for a two night stay at the Grand Naniloa in Hilo. We didn’t have to transfer any points for this stay as we had accrued enough from previous years (particularly when P1 worked for an employer that required Hilton hotels). This hotel would have cost $720 for the two nights.

Finally, we flew to Maui and spent three nights at the Residence Inn in Wailea. This was covered with points we had earned from previous Marriott stays and by transferring a couple thousand points from Chase. Our final stay would have cost $2,442.27 if we paid out of pocket.

To return to Chicago, we flew from Kahului (OGG) to Chicago (ORD), again using United miles. These flights would have cost $888 total.

March

The next trip we redeemed points and miles on was when we went to Washington D.C. for a long weekend in March. We only covered one flight that would have otherwise cost $184.70.

Why did we redeem these miles instead of saving for a larger redemption? Earn and burn! We saw a chance for savings and figured why not.

May

We spent a week and a half in Dublin & Edinburgh in mid-May. Thanks to an employer discount code, our hotels were actually very reasonably-priced, so we decided to pay out of pocket and earn points on those stays.

We flew from Chicago to Dublin and then home from Edinburgh to Chicago, saving a total of $2,150 on our United flights.

July

Over Fourth of July weekend, we headed to Portland, Oregon. P2 had a flight credit from a previously adjusted flight, so his roundtrip was covered. We used miles for P1’s flight, saving $735.85 on the United flight.

Later in July, we visited New River Gorge National Park. We drove there from Chicago because we brought our dogs, but we used Hilton points to cover two nights in the Hampton Inn in Beckley, West Virginia. We didn’t have to transfer any points from credit cards as we had enough on our Hilton account. This stay would have cost $686.60.

September

For Labor Day, we enjoyed a nice long weekend in Santa Barbara. We paid for our flights to LAX and rented a car to drive up the coast. We transferred Chase points to Hyatt to cover three nights at the Mar Monte Hotel, which is located right on the beach. This stay would have been $1,692.00 if we had chosen to pay for it during these dates.

October

Our second international trip of the year was to Vienna. The flights we took were on Austrian Air (to Vienna) and Austrian air (to Frankfurt for a layover) and then United (Frankfurt to Chicago). Thanks to miles, we saved $2,828.50 on these flights.

We were also able to cover our stay at the Residence Inn in Vienna for just 63,000 Marriott points. Marriott offers a stay for 5, pay for 4 when using points, which is what helped us keep the cost on points low. Here’s why we like Marriott over other hotel options. We transferred some American Express points to Marriott to cover the costs of this stay, which would have cost $913.44.

November

The final international trip of the year for us was to the Iberian Peninsula. We flew TAP from Chicago to Lisbon using miles, saving us $1,400.00. In Lisbon, we used points to cover one night at the Lisbon Marriott ($266.00) but paid out of pocket for the remaining two nights.

We then flew to Barcelona on TAP, which cost less than $100 for the two of us. In Barcelona, we paid out of pocket for our three-night stay before taking the train to Madrid. We spent three nights at the JW Marriott Madrid, which opened earlier in 2023. We used a combination of points and free night certificates to save $1,803.87 on our stay.

To get home, we flew Iberia from Madrid to Chicago in their economy-plus equivalent. Seats with leg room, a toiletry kit when we got on, etc. – it made the 9+ hour flight much more smooth. For these benefits, the flights would have been over $4,000 per person! Thanks to Chase points we transferred to Iberia, we saved $8,104.00.

December

Our final trip of the year was to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. We drove because we wanted to bring our dogs to the beach. On the drive down from Chicago, we stayed in Asheville at a Four Points for about $130 for one night (paid out of pocket).

In Hilton Head, we stayed at the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa for five nights. Again, we took at advantage of the stay for 5, pay for 4 when using Marriott points. This stay was a combination of free night certificates, points earned from previous Marriott stays, and transferring some American Express points to top off the amount needed. These five nights would have cost us $1,562.60.

And for our final hotel night of the year, we stayed at an Aloft outside of Louisville as we drove home. We had a Free Night Award expiring mid-January that we weren’t going to use, so we used it to save $157.86 for this night.

In total, we saved $28,656.31 on travel in 2023.

This was a significant travel year for us, one that we likely won’t replicate for many years. Thanks for following along, and we hope you see how you can save money on travel using points and miles!