topic Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP in Credit Cards

Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:38:08 GMT

So I have 85k hyatt points
110k IHG points
90k Marriott points
And 40k SPG points, so for hotels, I am not worried.

I need airline ticket.
The cheapest one is with Virgin America for 800$
And I have 65k Amex points, so I need more.
I have 31k delta points and 61k American airlines points, and 26k Barclay miles.
So what would be the best option to transfer points to Virgin America?
And I need it fast, because I am planning trip on August 12.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

darwin_wins — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:45:43 GMT

I don't think anyone other than AmEx will be helpful.

You can transfer your SPG points (2:1 ratio I think). I think you can still transfer MR to VX. If so do to that.

P.S. This is just something I think I know, double check just to be sure

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:59:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I have 85k hyatt points
110k IHG points
90k Marriott points
And 40k SPG points, so for hotels, I am not worried.

I need airline ticket.
The cheapest one is with Virgin America for 800$
And I have 65k Amex points, so I need more.
I have 31k delta points and 61k American airlines points, and 26k Barclay miles.
So what would be the best option to transfer points to Virgin America?
And I need it fast, because I am planning trip on August 12.

You can transfer the 40K Starwood points to Virgin America and receive 50K Virgin America miles. Your Amex points transfer 2:1 so if you transferred them as well you could have approx 82K Virgin America miles. No idea if that's enough because don't know your home airport.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 04:41:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I have 85k hyatt points
110k IHG points
90k Marriott points
And 40k SPG points, so for hotels, I am not worried.

I need airline ticket.
The cheapest one is with Virgin America for 800$
And I have 65k Amex points, so I need more.
I have 31k delta points and 61k American airlines points, and 26k Barclay miles.
So what would be the best option to transfer points to Virgin America?
And I need it fast, because I am planning trip on August 12.

65k amex MRs is enough to fly two people round trip economy. Transfer to flying blue will let you fly on delta for 30k miles each round trip, even from the east coast. I would start reserving your hotels now because they might sell out fast.

You can use your barclay miles for any travel related expenses, if its the arrival plus, remember you will end up with some points being held hostage afterwards: https://www.loopholetravel.com/2016/03/16/barclay-arrival-redemption-math-lesson-optimize-your-miles/

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 18:34:02 GMT

Ok So I used 65k MR points and 36k SPG to transfer to Virgin America and get 2 tickets that cost 800$ per ticket.
Than I used 90k and 125$ for 5 nights in Hyatt on Maui.
And 80k marriott points for 2 nights in marriott on Oahu.
And I paid 600$ for 2 more nights in Hyatt in Honolulu

So I still have my IHG, Arrival, Delta and AA points.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 19:04:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok So I used 65k MR points and 36k SPG to transfer to Virgin America and get 2 tickets that cost 800$ per ticket.
Than I used 90k and 125$ for 5 nights in Hyatt on Maui.
And 80k marriott points for 2 nights in marriott on Oahu.
And I paid 600$ for 2 more nights in Hyatt in Honolulu

So I still have my IHG, Arrival, Delta and AA points.

Nice!

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Existentialist — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 19:22:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok So I used 65k MR points and 36k SPG to transfer to Virgin America and get 2 tickets that cost 800$ per ticket.
Than I used 90k and 125$ for 5 nights in Hyatt on Maui.
And 80k marriott points for 2 nights in marriott on Oahu.
And I paid 600$ for 2 more nights in Hyatt in Honolulu

So I still have my IHG, Arrival, Delta and AA points.

Nice job. Just paid entire upcoming (hotel) stay via points. Airfare RT thru Alaska (FC on sale). Enjoy your island hopping

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:23:53 GMT

I assume those were first class tickets or business class? Why would u waste the virgin points when you could have saved them, and another 5k amex mrs, and flew delta using flying blue?

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:30:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I assume those were first class tickets or business class? Why would u waste the virgin points when you could have saved them, and another 5k amex mrs, and flew delta using flying blue?

Maybe he prefers Virgin and he said that they were the cheapest ticket. You can not tell whether it was better to fly on Delta with JetBlue miles without knowing his home airport and whether there were Delta award seats even available thru JetBlue

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:31:49 GMT

Well, for specific dates, the cheapest ticket I found was Virgin America

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:32:29 GMT

Home Airport is Chicago

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 22:00:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Home Airport is Chicago

chicago has delta. You could have flown on delta via klm/flying blue to hawaii for 30k miles each.

Those 36k spg points are enough for 9 nights at certain hotels.... Just saying. You did very well getting a free trip period. But amex MRs are very hard to use and my scenario seemed to be the best value.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

waynes1982 — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:05:11 GMT

I need help going to Hawaii for free as well.

I have 125,020 Amex points

2 free nights at Marriott/Ritz

66,000 Southwest points

I live in Rhode Island and prefer Southwest for my main airline as it's usually the cheapest. I don't care about first class at all, and it would be for two people.

Any help would be great.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:43 GMT

Can you tell me where to look then next time, because for august 11th to 20th, I don't see any Delta, klm or blue flight under 1200$

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 00:20:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Can you tell me where to look then next time, because for august 11th to 20th, I don't see any Delta, klm or blue flight under 1200$

You did good so dont worry about it. Award flights are not always available especially when youre using another airline's miles. It's easy to say you can fly here and there for so many miles but until you input actual dates and look for award flights, there is no way to know for sure.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 01:25:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Can you tell me where to look then next time, because for august 11th to 20th, I don't see any Delta, klm or blue flight under 1200$
You did good so dont worry about it. Award flights are not always available especially when youre using another airline's miles. It's easy to say you can fly here and there for so many miles but until you input actual dates and look for award flights, there is no way to know for sure.

+1 Agree

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 02:04:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Can you tell me where to look then next time, because for august 11th to 20th, I don't see any Delta, klm or blue flight under 1200$

you are looking at cash prices not point prices. also its kinda close to departure so it may not be available.

this question would be answered better at https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel

https://upgradedpoints.com/9-ways-to-redeem-amex-membership-rewards-points-for-max-value/#3-FlyingBlue-on-AirFrance-or-KLM-Can-Take-You-to-Hawaii

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

12njoy — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 23:07:00 GMT

Well it's not ASAP, but Alaska Airlines card offers 30,000 points with companion ticket @ $121, plus you can transfer MR points into Alaska Airlines. Last I looked (months ago) it took nearly 50,000 points on Alaska for free roundtrip to Hawaii and back. Food for thought next time around.

Re: Best way for free trip to Hawaii with points ASAP

NRB525 — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:41:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok So I used 65k MR points and 36k SPG to transfer to Virgin America and get 2 tickets that cost 800$ per ticket.

Did you get the 5,000 point bonus for transferring 20,000 SPG points? With that bonus, it may have been better to start out with using the 40,000 SPG points, get the 10,000 bonus, and then transfer fewer MR points to arrive at the same total VA miles?

Sounds like you were able to put together a good package, just want to understand whether the SPG bonus was working.