Last January we took a 10-day trip to Egypt with portions of the trip booked with points and miles. We took a 3-night Nile cruise which was our largest out-of-pocket expense, but we were able to get other hotels and our flights to and from Cairo using points and miles. Here’s the breakdown of our…
A Midwest Road Trip Using Points
This July, we planned to fly to California for a wedding in Napa. After the wedding, I had the perfect Highway 1 itinerary all ready to go with stops in Big Sur, Santa Barbara, and LA. Thanks to COVID-19, the wedding was moved to next year, Ventana Big Sur canceled our reservation, and we generally…
Planning a Trip to Croatia Using Points and Miles
Last summer, I found myself needing to spend some vacation days before changing jobs. Kind of like my Alaskan Cruise in 2017, I needed a plan fast and I needed someone to go with me! Luckily, my mom was available and gave me free rein of the itinerary. Here’s how I planned our trip to…
Planning a Trip to France and UAE on Points and Miles
This trip has been a long time in the making. We had been talking about going to France for a few years, but I decided to throw in a week in UAE for two reasons. First, after flying first class on Singapore Airlines, I wanted to see how Etihad First Class Apartments compared. Second, I…
Planning a Trip to Peru and Machu Picchu on Points and Miles
I’ve been talking about going to Machu Picchu for years and finally pulled the trigger on planning this trip. The plan is to start in Cusco, hike the Inca Trail, and stopover in Lima before heading back to Boston. It’s tough fitting everything into just over a week but I’m pretty excited about how this…
A $68,000 Honeymoon for $2,000 Using Points and Miles
For about a year before I got engaged, I started opening credit cards left and right, trying to get my hands on as many points as possible. I knew I’d be getting married at some point in the next few years and I wanted to be ready to book one of those insane points and…
Honeymoon Update 9: Singapore Hotels
Introduction In my last honeymoon post, I discussed how to book positioning flights. The last thing on my list was booking hotels for Singapore. As a quick recap, we’ll be spending our first nine nights in Japan, followed by two nights in Singapore, three nights in the Maldives, and a final night in Singapore before…
Honeymoon Update 8: Positioning Flights
Introduction Our honeymoon is really coming together! So far we have all of our flights and most of our hotels booked. We chose to fly in and out of JFK because of the superior award redemption options (Japan Airlines First Class and Singapore Suites), but we needed to get ourselves from Boston to JFK and…
Honeymoon Update 7: Itinerary Change – Japan Airlines First Class to Tokyo
Introduction Having booked most of my honeymoon so far, I haven’t had anything to post about it in a while. In a previous honeymoon post, I shared how I booked Japan Airlines business class tickets from JFK to Tokyo using Alaska Airline miles. Since first class is only 10,000 miles more per person, I was…
Honeymoon Update 6: Round Trip Singapore to Male
Introduction This honeymoon is really coming together quickly! In my last honeymoon post, I shared the hotels I booked in Japan. I still have to book Singapore hotels, a hotel for the night before our flight to Japan, and a flight back from JFK after flying Singapore Suites. This post is about the very specific reason…