So I decided to write a post about how I leveraged my different credit cards for a two week trip to China. I figure this may help some people understand how the different perks of credit cards can be utilized. Now it was not peak season when I went to China and since the room rates were somewhat lower my return on some of my redemptions was diminished, but it beats going out of pocket. Also, the prices I quote are the default listed prices. I'm sure in some situations you can get discounted rates for the same rooms etc.
First off was getting there. For this I flew roundtrip in cathay pacific first class from NYC to Hong Kong. I have seen these flights price out everywhere from 18k to 34k. Given my flight dates the cost would have been around 28k. I paid with this with miles I had 110k miles from my citi AA exec card signup and initial spend. However, that left me short 25k miles. I was able to transfer 20k miles from my spg card and in the process get a bonus 5k miles for the transfer. Now in addition to this I had downgraded my citi exec card to a citi aa plat. One of the perks to this card is that you get 10% back on redemptions up to 10k miles. So when I redeemed 135k miles I got 10k kicked back to me. Therefore my total flight redemption was 125k miles.
Now the first class flight includes free food and drink as well as lounge access both at jfk and upon arrival in hong kong. There are also preflight dinners. The cathay lounges in hong kong are something else with gourmet meals and I got significant value back by all the food and drink I had during the course of the two flights and prior to takeoff.
Now I am in Hong Kong and my first night I spent at the grand hyatt. The room for the first night was rougly $387. I had signed up for the hyatt card so I used one of my free night certificates here.
The next two nights I was at the conrad hong kong a hilton hotel. Via my hilton credit card I had two free weekend nights that I was able to use here on a friday and sat night. Each night would have been $361 so the two free nights saved me $722. In addition the hilton card gave me gold status which allowed for a upgrade to a better view. In addition, I was provided lounge access which is more free food and drinks.
After that I needed to fly to Shanghai, since the airline tickets were fairly cheap I paid out of pocket. At the airport I was able to use one of the lounges due to the priority club card I had as a result of my citi prestige card and I was able to have a nice chinese breakfast there before flying out.
In Shanghai I stayed at the park hyatt for two nights. These stays were paid for with UR points earned via my freedom/csp/ink cards. Each night was 20k points and rooms were going for around $289 a night. Not a great return at around 1.5 cents per point, but better than going out of pocket.
In Beijing I had four nights at the park hyatt beijing cost was around $322 a night so the redemption value was slightly better at 1.6 cents and I paid for three nights with 20k points per night and the final night I used my second free hyatt night.
Next I headed over to xi'an where I stayed at a westin for 7000 spg points.where the room went for $137. Roughly a return of 2 cents per point. In addition I was given a slight upgrade and provided lounge access. I don't think the upgrade was the result of the credit card itself though.
Next I went down to Guilin where I spent a night at another spg property the sheraton which was a $127 a night for 2000 spg points. so a remdeption of 6 cents per point.
I had two nights at another property where there were no chain hotels around and then I flew back guilin to hong kong for around $250. Since I bought this airfare directly from the airline with my citi prestige card I got that money back as an airfare credit. Also in flying back to Hong Kong I was able to use my priority pass via the prestige for access to another airport lounge while waiting for my flight.
Finally upon flying back to NYC I was able to take advantage of the global reentry which I had signed up for and been reimbursed by my citi prestige card.
A couple of misc things. My citi prestige card also allowed me to signup for a citigold account with citibank. This gave me a debit card where I could withdraw money throughout china without getting hit with atm fees, which resulted in a significant savings. Not to mention the signup bonus I will get for using the account. Also signing up for the citigold account lowered my AF on my citi prestige from $450 to $350. Between the airfare credit and global entry credit I have completely earned back the AF and I haven't even gotten the signup bonus yet and the airfare credit will reset in Jan.
Also, as a hyatt credit card holder I was able to get a 20% rebate back on the points I used each night, so actually my return was slightly higher. For example on a night where I redeemed 20k points I got 4k of those points back making the redemption 16k points per night, so in the beijing example I actually ended up getting a return of 2 cents per point, which I can live with.
So this is how I used my points for two weeks in China. Like I said I didn't get as large of a return on my points as I could in other places, but with a handful of credit cards I was able to reduce my vacation expenses considerably.
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@Anonymous wrote:Great story and a well planned trip. I have all the same cards you used so I'm hoping to do something similar.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks. Obviously it is usually best to use points at more expensive destinations but I ended up going with China because I wanted to try out the CX F product and I was not sure if that redemption was going to be around much longer at the same value given the changes I suspect we will see in the future AA partner chart. You know a flight is awesome when after 16 hours you are a little bit sad the flight is over.
@red259 wrote:
Also, as a hyatt credit card holder I was able to get a 20% rebate back on the points I used each night, so actually my return was slightly higher. For example on a night where I redeemed 20k points I got 4k of those points back making the redemption 16k points per night, so in the beijing example I actually ended up getting a return of 2 cents per point, which I can live with.
This I will have to look into more. I have been pricing the Hyatt points without any kind of redemption. This 20% rebate changes the equation.
Great story. "Here's how I traveled First Class through China for 2 weeks on $20" 
Thanks for sharing.
@NRB525 wrote:
@red259 wrote:
Also, as a hyatt credit card holder I was able to get a 20% rebate back on the points I used each night, so actually my return was slightly higher. For example on a night where I redeemed 20k points I got 4k of those points back making the redemption 16k points per night, so in the beijing example I actually ended up getting a return of 2 cents per point, which I can live with.
This I will have to look into more. I have been pricing the Hyatt points without any kind of redemption. This 20% rebate changes the equation.
Great story. "Here's how I traveled First Class through China for 2 weeks on $20"
Thanks for sharing.
The 20% redemption was an offer made to hyatt credit card holders months ago and you had to signup for it at that time. It is an example of having to pay attention when these special deals pop up and to sign up for them even if you do not have a trip planned in case you want to take one in the future. As a result of the deal I earned 20k points. Heh.
@red259 wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
@red259 wrote:
Also, as a hyatt credit card holder I was able to get a 20% rebate back on the points I used each night, so actually my return was slightly higher. For example on a night where I redeemed 20k points I got 4k of those points back making the redemption 16k points per night, so in the beijing example I actually ended up getting a return of 2 cents per point, which I can live with.
This I will have to look into more. I have been pricing the Hyatt points without any kind of redemption. This 20% rebate changes the equation.
Great story. "Here's how I traveled First Class through China for 2 weeks on $20"
Thanks for sharing.
The 20% redemption was an offer made to hyatt credit card holders months ago and you had to signup for it at that time. It is an example of having to pay attention when these special deals pop up and to sign up for them even if you do not have a trip planned in case you want to take one in the future. As a result of the deal I earned 20k points. Heh.
Yes, I see that now. I only just got the Hyatt card with an app at about January 24, so not "in good standing / activated" by January 31.
Hopefully that type of promo appears again.