Step #4

Step 4: Spend the points on the honeymoon!

         Booking the Flights: Besides the 60,000 miles bonus offer, Cedric and Cecilia chose United Airlines (UA) on the departing flight because UA flew a direct route from Newark to Lima. Using the 2 UA credit card sign on bonuses (120,000 miles total), they redeemed the business class flights from New York to Lima for 70,000 UA miles, with 50,000 leftover miles.

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         As for the return flight, Cedric and Cecilia chose to fly with American Airlines (AA) from Bueno Aires, Argentina back to New York. The business class requirement for that flight was 50,000 miles per person (refer to table in step 1). After receiving the bonuses from 2 other credit card sign ups (100,000 miles total), they booked the business class seats accordingly. Although they had to pay a small amount of tax (about $70 total) for the air tickets since the tax portion was not covered by miles, it was definitely still worth it. Otherwise, the round trip business class tickets from the States to South America would have cost at least $2,500 USD each.

         Booking the Hotel Rooms: 14 nights of hotel rooms can be quite expensive, especially if you have no hotel points to redeem. Credit cards that offer hotel points or award night certificates play a critical role here. Out of the 11 cards Cedric and Cecilia applied throughout their engagement, 6 of them were used for hotel stays. Unlike airlines, one great thing about hotel points is that there are no taxes and fees on award stays! Needless to say, they used up all the nights earned from credit cards on their ultimate honeymoon vacation and evaded what would have been a heaping $6,300 on 4 to 5-star hotel accommodations.

         Bonus Tip: Cedric and Cecilia's 11th card was used for travel expenses, which gained them $1,000 travel credit. They used it on their hotel room charges, taxi expenses, and domestic air travels.

         Overall Value Received from Credit Cards: