TPG Reader Hall of Fame: A $30,000 vacation for 700,000 points

Today’s TPG Reader Hall of Fame story comes to you courtesy of Jessica and her husband, who managed to take three weeks off together for a one-of-a-kind honeymoon around the world. From Vienna to Delhi and Malé to Singapore, these two spent their time in ultra-luxe accommodations and economy seats alike, cleverly using their points to stretch their vacation. Let’s see how they did it.

As self-professed readers of TPG for the last few years, Jessica and her husband knew exactly how to maximize their points and miles. A combination of limited-time sign-up bonuses, business travel and credit card spend (especially for wedding expenses!) meant that the couple were able to save up hundreds of thousands of points for their honeymoon. Here are the cards they used:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve: 50,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
• The World Of Hyatt Credit Card: 25,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Plus, earn an additional 25,000 bonus points after you spend $6,000 total on purchases within the first 6 months of account opening.
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card: 75,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. (They actually used the now defunct SPG Amex, but this is the closest comparison).

Unlike many travelers for whom getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible is key, Jessica and her husband took advantage of some crazy routings to stuff in a few more experiences. Take, for example, their flight from Vienna to Malé, which they flew entirely in business class and stopped in Zurich, Delhi and Trivandrum on the way to the Maldives.

Or, even better, their intentional layovers in both Seoul and Honolulu. “We originally planned to fly direct to San Francisco, but when we looked at flights, we found that United actually had a flight leaving from SIN (Singapore), with an 18-hour layover at ICN (Seoul, South Korea), AND a 12 hour layover in HNL (Honolulu, Hawaii) before flying back to SFO for the same price!  We had never been to Seoul and we love Honolulu so we were sold! This flight cost 200,000 United points + $167.42 in taxes and fees to visit 3 cities! Not bad at all.”