Australia, like Iceland as we wrote about yesterday, is an expensive place to
fly to. While Iceland is expensive because not a lot of airlines fly there,
Australia is expensive because it’s just so darn far away. Luckily for us points
collectors though, this doesn’t matter. Using miles to travel to Australia is
one of the most valuable redemptions available. Plus, with many airlines, we
can add in a free stopover somewhere else on the way! Here’s our proposed
itinerary:
Chicago to Sydney
Sydney to Singapore
Singapore to Chicago
And the credit cards we’ll be signing up for:
Chase United Explorer
35,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months
No annual fee first year
Chase Ink Bold
50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 3 months
No annual fee first year
The Chase Ink Bold is a business credit card, but even if you just sell
things on eBay sometimes, you technically have a business. You can sign up using your
social security number as the federal tax ID that the application requires.
Million Mile Secrets has a great
post on the details of having a business even as an individual.
Total Miles: 31,000
Total General Points: 55,000
Total Cost: $0
Flights
My favorite thing about Chase Ultimate Rewards points is the ability to
transfer to transfer them to United Airlines, since I love United miles. They
transfer at 1:1 ratio, and a ticket to Australia costs 80,000 miles, so we’ll
need 49,000.
United allows a free stopover on any international trip, which means I
can stop somewhere on the way to or from Sydney. One of the nicest airlines in
Star Alliance happens to be Singapore Airlines, so I figure why not add in a
stopover there. United’s website is very good at showing me their and most of
their partners’ award availability. I can search all three segments of this
trip at once too:
After a bit of looking around for good flights, I come up with this
itinerary:
And the price?
Not bad for two different continents! Plus
I get a 10-hour layover in Beijing which would probably give me about 6 hours
in that city if I wanted it.
Total Points Used: 80,000
Total Cost: $176.60
Granted, you’re going to have to pay for your own hotels, but those pale
in comparison to the cost of actually getting to these two continents. You
could also sign up for the Barclays Arrival card or the Amex Gold card to get
points towards hotels. However the two credit cards mentioned above will be
enough for your flights.
Here’s a look at the actual price for flights on the same days:
Flights
$3002
Total Savings: $3,002
Need help thinking about the right credit cards for you, or how to book
this kind of trip? Head over to www.wennecorp.com
and we’d be happy to chat with you.
Credit Card Links
United
MileagePlus Explorer (make sure to add an authorized user in order to get
to 35,000)
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