Hawaii on points and miles

Depending on where you look, estimates for a week in Hawaii come in around $4,000 (or more) when accounting for airfare, accommodations, car rental, meals, and activities. And while it would certainly be nice not to have to think twice about spending this much on vacation, it’s not a realistic amount for many people’s budgets. The good news is that there are ways to make traveling to Hawaii less expensive. Here’s how we were able to go to Hawaii on points and miles.

Getting there

If you’ve read our blog previously, you probably know we’re loyal to United. We flex from Chicago to Honolulu with a layover in Denver. Had we not used points, the flights would have cost $464 per person or $928 for the two of us to get from the mainland to Honolulu.

Hotel in Honolulu

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach for three nights. To cover our stay, we transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points that we’d accrued from regular spending. The total cost of the three nights we stayed on Oahu would have been $1,192.62 if we didn’t use points.

So if you’re keeping track, from just our flights from the mainland to Hawaii and our first three nights out of eight, we saved $2,120.62 thanks to points and miles.

The Big Island

We have a goal to go to every U.S. National Park, so the Big Island was on our list because it’s home to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We booked flights from Honolulu to Hilo for $78 a person. Given the low cost, we paid for these on our Chase Sapphire to earn 2x on travel rather than using points for the flights.

In Hilo, we stayed at the Grand Naniloa – a Doubletree by Hilton for two nights. We didn’t have to transfer any points for this stay thanks to P1’s previous work for an employer that favored Hiltons for work travel. Over the last few years, we’ve become Marriott loyalists, but since we had the points already, we figured we’d redeem them and save even more on our Hawaii trip. These two nights would have cost $720 if we hadn’t used points.

Maui

Our final three nights were spent on Maui. To get to Maui, we flew on Hawaiian Airlines and paid with a credit card because the flights were less than $100 per person. We stayed at the Residence Inn Maui Wailea. To cover this stay, we used points accrued from previous stays and transferred a few thousand points from Chase Ultimate Rewards. The three nights we stayed at this hotel would have cost $2,442.27 if we’d paid with cash (credit card) instead of points.

Getting home

After eight wonderful nights in Hawaii and visiting three of the islands, we headed home from Kahului to O’Hare. We used United miles to cover the direct flight, which would have been $888 otherwise for the two of us.

So what did we pay for?

Activities (like a luau), dining and groceries, and a rental car on each island. Thanks for an employer discount, our rental car costs were under $1,000 total for eight nights and three cars (one per island). Groceries were paid for on the AmEx Gold to earn 4x on the costs. Dining was paid for using either the Chase Sapphire (3x) or AmEx Gold (4x).

Summary

If you’ve added up the numbers, we saved over $6,000 when we went to Hawaii on points and miles. The exact number was $6,170.89. Now did we spend over $1,000 while we were there? Yes – Hawaii is an expensive vacation destination. But because we saved more than $6,000 on our big ticket items (flights and hotels), we felt comfortable with the other expenses while we were there.

Whether Hawaii is your dream destination or you want to go somewhere else, the possibilities with points and miles are endless.