In the first 6 months of 2024, I saved a total of $3,712 by using credit card points, instead of spending my hard-earned cash.
Toronto. Atlanta. Dhaka. Nashville. Chattanooga.
I was able to travel to these 5 cities, either flying business class, or living comfortably in good hotels for almost free.
It’s even more impressive to me this year compared to other years, given the high inflation and constant news of job losses. By having access to credit card points, I could keep traveling without any meaningful impact on my savings rate.
In this blog post, I will tell you about each of my redeption story, points earning strategy, and the credit cards that made it possible.
If that interests you, let’s get started.
I stayed 4 nights in IHG’s Crowne Plaza hotel by spending 51,000 IHG points.
A couple of years ago, I signed up for Chase’s IHG Premier Card with a sign up bonus of 140,000 IHG points.
Just by putting all my regular expenses on this credit card for 3 months, I was able to hit the spending requirements, and within a week the 140,000 points posted to my IHG account.
The credit card also comes with IHG’s second highest elite status — Platinum Elite.
Because of the elevated status, we were upgraded to a higher floor room with a view, got 30% off all food purchases during our stay, and received dedicated conceirge support during our stay. It felt great!
Let’s do some number crunching now.
Cash Value = $567 IHG Points = 51,000 Cents-per-point (CPP) = 1.11
In other words, if I had paid cash instead of using credit card points, my 4 nights hotel stay would have cost me $567. Instead, it cost me $0.
In the past few months, I had to fly between Toronto and Atlanta multiple times.
Most of the times, I had to travel with 2 checked-in luggages and had to book my flights last-minute.
This meant 2 things:
Extra luggage cost if I travelled Economy
Cash price of last-minute flights can be exorbitantly expensive (you will see soon)
If I added the luggage cost to my economy ticket, it was almost the same as booking business with credit card points.
That’s why, I decided to fly business in both my flights to Atlanta.
I took 2 business class flights from Toronto to Atlanta by spending 62,800 Air Canada Aeroplan points.
I transferred over 62,800 American Express Membership Rewards points to Air Canada.
How did I earn so many points? Actually, it was quite easy.
2 of my most used credit cards last year was — AMEX Gold and AMEX Blue Business Plus. On top of that, I do most of my online shopping through Rakuten, which gives me MR points as well.
All those combined, I earned more than 80,000 MR points last year. I transferred a subset of that to Air Canada Aeroplan.
By flying business class, not only did I get complementary extra baggage, but also access to Toronto’s Maple airport lounges, priority check-in and priority security lanes.
Let’s do some number crunching now.
Cash Value = $750 + $797 = $1,547 Aeroplan Points = 23,800 + 39,000 = 62,800 Taxes paid with cash = $94 + $94 = $188 Cents-per-point (CPP) = 2.2
In other words, if I had paid cash instead of using credit card points, my 2 business class flights would have cost me $1,547. Instead, it cost me $188 only.
Staying on the subject of flying between Atlanta and Toronto, I also used 13,200 Aeroplan points to fly economy in Air Canada.
Even though the experience was nothing crazy, this was one of my best “value redemption”.
Let’s crunch the numbers to see why that’s the case.
Cash Value = $562 Aeroplan Points = 13,200 Taxes paid with cash = $60 Cents-per-point (CPP) = 3.80
That’s almost 4CPP, which, in my humble opinion, is fantastic!
If you have paid attention so far, you will also have noticed a few interesting things:
Cash price difference between Economy and Business was only ~$200
Cash prices are very high, given flight time is only around 2 hours
Okay, getting back to points redemption now, if I had paid cash instead of using credit card points, my economy flight would have cost me $562. Instead, it cost me $60 only.
I stayed 3 nights in Marriott’s Renaissance Nashville hotel by spending 3 Marriott Free Night Certificates.
Okay, let’s start with the definition of Free Night Certificates (FNCs).
I was quite new to FNCs, until I signed up for American Express’s Marriott Bonvoy Busines Card. As a sign up bonus, I was awarded 5 FNCs after I met the spending requirement.
Each FNC was worth 50K points.
That means, I could use 1 FNC for a hotel night that would cost me under 50K. So, I could use the same 1 FNC for both a 35K hotel night, or a 50K hotel night.
To maximize the value, you want to use your 5 FNCs on 5 nights, each costing exactly 50K. That’s how you get your money’s worth. However, you will soon see that might not be always possible.
Let’s crunch the numbers to see why that’s the case.
Cash Value for 3 Nights = $879 Marriott Bonvoy Points = 150,000 (3 FNC, each worth up to 50K points) Taxes paid with cash = $94 Cents-per-point (CPP) = 0.52
You will see that my CPP is very low. That’s because I did not use my 50K certificates to their fullest potential.
However, that’s for a good reason — the hotel had the best location and amenties. If I picked a hotel to maximize my CPP, I would have to go out of my way and book a resort miles away from downtown Nashville, where we wanted to be.
Because of that, we decided to accept the low CPP, in favor of better location and amenties.
To bring things back to redemption, if I had paid cash instead of using credit card points, my 3 night hotel stay would have cost me $859. Instead, it cost me $94 only.
Coming full circle, let’s see another redemption using IHG points.
I stayed 1 night in IHG’s Indigo hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee by spending 28,000 IHG points.
On our way back from Nashville, we decided to spend one night in Chattanooga to soak in some beautiful river views, riverfront restaurants, and be in close proximity to northern Georgia mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains.
If you remember the leftover 89,000 IHG points after my redemption in Dhaka, I used 28,000 from it for my hotel stay in Chattanooga.
Let’s do another number crunching.
Cash Value for 1 night = $158 IHG Points = 28,000 Cents-per-point (CPP) = 0.56
You might complain looking at the low CPP, but IHG points are valued pretty lowly.
As long as I get anywhere north of 0.5 CPP, I am happy with IHG points.
Also, don’t forget, I earned all 140,000 IHG points through sign up bonus, so I didn’t really care too much about my redemption value, if I am being honest.
To bring things back to redemption, if I had paid cash instead of using credit card points, my 1 night hotel stay would have cost me $158. Instead, it cost me $0.
Summing up everything, that’s $3,712 worth of free travel only in the first 6 months of 2024.
If you have made it this far, I hope you found this valuable.
The best way to support me is to use my referral credit card links that I sprinkled throughout this blog post. Just make sure it’s the best available offer for you.
I have already booked another $2,000 worth of travel for the second half of 2024. Stay tuned for that.
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