Happy New Year and a Sunday Success Story
Posted by Rick Sunday, January 01, 2012, No Comments
Your Sunday Success Story will serve as a living example that all of us average Americans can indeed see the world at prices we can all afford. We can do this by working together and sharing our stories. Send your Success Story to me at rick@frugaltravelguy.com. Include your first name and last initial, along with your occupation and a photo, if you wish.
Rick,
I just wanted to write in to say thank you for all of your tips and links, which helped my wife and I book a 12-day trip for us and our one-year-old to London, Copenhagen, and Malmo for $2089.09. Here is the breakdown of what we did and the discounts we received:
- British Airways: My wife and I have been using this card for years now and have racked up a lot of points, often hitting their $30,000 threshold for a free companion ticket. That being said, in August they were having a half-the-points sale so we ended up booking our tickets (departing LAX) during that sale and convinced a manager to allow us to use the companion ticket as well.
- Therefore, for 46,800 frequent flier miles and the companion ticket we received two round-trip tickets in premium economy and a crib on the flight for our son.
- The taxes and airport fees ended up being $1257.71, but this flight normally would cost $3404.50 per British Airway’s website.
- Hyatt Hotels: Based upon the link from your website, both my wife and I opened a Hyatt Hotel credit card and received two free nights (four in total) after we each spent $1000 on the credit card, which wasn’t a problem as we normally put all of our expenses on cards to receive the points.
- Each card had a $75 annual fee ($150 total), but that got us a four-night stay at the Hyatt Regency in London.
- The cost of the hotel would have been $2365.52 if we booked the hotel though Hyatt, so these credit cards saved us just under 94%.
- Hot Wire: For our stay in Copenhagen, we couldn’t find any hotels that had a rewards credit card with the exception of Hilton, but it’s next to the airport and we needed to use the Hilton Points for Malmo.
- Booked four nights in a four-star room for $681.38, which breaks down to $127 per night and tax of $173.38.
- If we had booked this hotel though the hotel directly, it would have cost $1651.28, which is over a 58% savings.
- Hilton Hotels: My wife and I used the link from your blog to sign up for Hilton Honors credit cards, which provided us with 50,000 miles each after we spent $750 on the cards ($1500 total).
- We booked three nights at the Hilton Malmo for 102,000 points (I obtained the additional miles needed from e-Rewards).
- There was no annual fee for this credit card so the normal cost for this hotel, $598.31, was 100% discounted.
Overall, if we had paid for these items individually we would have spent $8019.61 for this trip. But with all of the deals, we ended up saving 74%.
Thank you for your help.
Jeremy
