This week, I booked BF and I’s trip to Oahu in October. Thanks to my perpetual infatuation with reward points, I think this 9 day/9 night trip should run us (for flight + accomodation + car rental for two days) a grand total of $850 each.
First off, we booked on a seat sale with Westjet for $169 to $199 one way (plus taxes) which ended up costing us $530. I think we could have gotten it for cheaper, had we booked earlier (maybe around $430 return) but the seats were filling up fast anyways.
Then, I scoped out what we could do with our SPG points. We wanted to get use up his points because he didn’t get the Amex SPG like I did, and his SPG points would then expire in February. I got an extra 11,000 bonus SPG points thanks for the AMEX SPG Mastercard promotion so I wanted to put that to good use too. We ended up using cash and points (which means you pay a deeply discounted X amount of dollars and trade in X amount of points) for Sheraton Waikiki and Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, and used two full free nights at the Westin Moana Surfrider. To stay at these hotels without using hotels.com or Expedia, it would cost us about $950 each. To stay at these hotels using the SPG points, it would cost us each $320…which is about $35 a night. Quite the steal- you can’t even stay in a motel on Waikiki beach for that amount…!
I know that you can transfer your SPG points to an airlines, and in transferring over 20000 points, they will throw in an extra 5000 points. I did some calculations and if we went through an airlines (got a free flight instead) we would still be paying about $200 in taxes. Then we would have to find a decent hotel that doesn’t cost more than an arm and a leg on the Waikiki strip. Three star hotels run at about $120 a night, so with that option, it will run us about $740 each. But we always wanted to stay at the Westin so we decided with this route instead. Besides, the Sweet Sleeper beds at the Sheratons are amazing!
Finally, I had about 17000 Delta SkyMiles that I accumulated a few years back. The problem with them is that not only do they expire every year if you don’t have any activity in your account, you can’t transfer them to other reward programs. You can’t even get a flight for that amount of miles. Because of that, I think I will use them towards a two day compact car rental in Honolulu, which would save us about $110.
Enough about me and my excitement. Onto some great personal finance reads this week.
PF Blog Love:
- KNS Financial asks whether you really need that emergency fund?
- Canadian Finance Blog asks you if you learned to fail fast
- Money Reasons talks about the pitfalls of being rich and famous
- The Financial Blogger gives us tips on how to get a raise after a raise (nice!)
- 20 Something Finance preps us on couch surfing 101- the do’s and don’ts of couch surfing
- Boomer and Echo talks about the sexiness of dividend growth investing
- Million Dollar Journey discusses why the long term growth of the economy is irrelevant to investing
- Well Heeled Blog says there’s a thin line between minimalist and moocher (I hate moochers!)
- Invest it Wisely has a great thought-provoking post on consumer ethics- where do you draw the line?
- Krystal at Work is lookin’ for a new travel rewards Visa card
- Dual Income No Kids explains what born again DINKS are
- Money Smarts Blog has HUGE news! Mr. Cheap is leaving and Mike wrote a book!
- Girl with the Red Balloon shares with us something that is hard to admit for any of us
Oh, and TalentEgg interviewed me for their Career Incubator article: Getting Into “Good” Debt: part 1- Why education pays but BMW’s don’t. Talent Egg is Canada’s online career resource for students and new grands, so please check it out!
Have a great weekend. My to-do list this weekend is to do my net worth calculation (sad to say, but I actually relish in doing this now!)
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