Today’s itinerary is a request from a reader wishing to take his
girlfriend to the Caribbean sometime this summer. The Caribbean is a major area
for low-cost carriers as well as the legacy airlines, so there is plenty of
opportunity to get there on the cheap. Here’s our proposed itinerary:
Boston to San Juan, PR
San Juan to Boston
And the credit cards we’ll be signing up for:
Chase AirTran
32 A+ credits after $2,000 spend in 3 months
$69 annual fee first year
Chase Sapphire Preferred
40,000 points after $3,000 spend in 3 months
No annual fee first year
Barclaycard Arrival
40,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months
Earns 2 points per dollar spent
No annual fee first year
Total Miles: 32 credits
Total General Points: 85,000
Total Cost: $69
Flights
AirTran is now owned by Southwest, and while they are still
integrating, AirTran A+ credits can be used on any coach fare on Southwest’s
website, which includes both Southwest and AirTran flights. A roundtrip costs
16 credits, so this credit card will get us two roundtrips, or enough to get
two people to any destination on Southwest’s website. You can convert your
AirTran credits to Southwest credits for use on Southwest’s site at this link here. I’m going to
look at July 24 to July 28 on Southwest’s site:
As you can see there is a ton of
availability. Any flight that has a “Wanna Get Away” fare available is eligible
for travel on credits. Let’s pick the 6:45am flight because we want as much time
in Puerto Rico as posisble. Now for the return:
Also plenty of availability there. Let’s
pick the last flight out. The total should come out to 32 credits plus $20 ($10
in taxes/fees for each ticket).
Total Miles Used: 32 credits
Total Cost so Far: $89
Hotel
Hotels in the Caribbean are a bit tricky because a beach resort tends
to cost a lot and hotel points are hard to come by in large amounts. Personally
I prefer to use general points cards for stays at hotels instead of hotel
points. A search on the Chase Ultimate Rewards site shows a bunch of hotels to
choose from in or near San Juan:
I checked a few of them on TripAdvisor, and the easy winner was the San
Juan Water and Beach Club. We can put two nights on the Chase Sapphire
Preferred points (Ultimate Rewards), and the other two nights on the Barclay
Arrival card. The total cost per night for the last two nights with Chase is
20,617 points, so we’re covered there. The cost for the second two nights on
Barclay Arrival is 21,906 each, meaning we’ll be 1,812 points short for that.
We can cover that with cash, so the total outlay for 4 nights at this
incredible resort is $18.12.
Total Points Used: 83,234
Total Cost so Far: $107.12
There you have it. Four nights in Puerto Rico on the beach for $107.
Here’s a look at the actual price for flights and this hotel on the
same days:
Flights
$802 ($401 each)
Hotel
$953.52
Total Savings: $1,755.52
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
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