So I am going to start a new series here on the blog. I have written about how we afford to travel, etc. before, but I thought I would try and do a post for each trip and break it down for you. I think the most common question we get is how we do it with 6 kids. Well, I am going to attempt to show you!
After this post, I will finally get around to writing about our actual trip!
Flights: The flights for this trip were all hacked together. 7 Tickets (baby was a lap infant). We “paid” for 3 tickets and used miles for 4 tickets.
I used some of my Alaska Airlines miles to pay for 4 tickets – 15k miles per ticket Roundtrip or 60k miles total.
Then we “paid” for 3 tickets. We had a $150 courtesy credit/coupon from our trip to Hawaii that was about to expire. That completely paid for one of the tickets. Then we had a companion pass, so we basically had a BOGO free on the other 2 tickets. I also had Airfare guarantee money leftover from our Hawaii trip, we used that to cover the entire cost of those 2 tickets. We saved sooo much from that Airfare Guarantee that Alaska used to do! They no longer do that anymore – which is a HUGE disappointment for us! We saved so much money using it! I still have $440 leftover to use on future Alaska flights from it…
Rental Car: I have yet to figure out a good way to get Rental Cars for free, especially for 8 people! I simply use Costco Travel and book it and then cancel and re-book when/if the price goes down. It often goes down, so I check the Costco site often. Alamo is usually who we end up renting from because they have 8 passenger vehicles. It was $350 for an 8 passenger van for our 8 days there.
Hotels:
The first night when we flew in, we stayed at a Hilton Homewood Suites near the Airport in Las Vegas. We got upgraded to a LARGE 2 bedroom room! It was free with my Hilton Honors points from a credit card sign up I did a while ago (I got 150,000 points for upgrading my card. I then downgraded my card back down to the no-annual fee one, once my year was over) Cost: 30k Hilton points
Here is a current offer for 90k Hilton Points for a NO-FEE card! That is an awesome deal for free! Easily get 3+ nights at Hilton Hotels for this.
The next few nights we stayed at IHG hotels. We have the IHG credit card and both my husband and I have lots of points, so we could have stayed for free. HOWEVER, my Husband had a GREAT IHG Accelerate offer at the time. Basically, if we paid for 4 nights, we would get enough points for 4-5 nights for free! Pretty good deal (FYI – used some those points for our next trip!). Plus, we got even more points for using our IHG card to pay for the hotel rooms or another night of points for FREE! (Holiday Inn St. George, Holiday Inn Express Cedar City, Holiday Inn Express Page, AZ, and Holiday Inn Resorts Las Vegas). Approx $150 a night = $600 (plus points for 5 more free nights)
For the Grand Canyon – we used our Annual FREE night that we get from our IHG cards. It is an expensive hotel for points or money, so it was a great use of our free annual night. The annual fee for our credit card (which they no longer offer – they changed the credit card offerings) is $49 a year, so a pretty good deal! So I consider that “free” night to be $49, which is a steal of a deal!
For the last few nights in Las Vegas, we stayed in our Timeshare. It came to a cost of $90 a night for a large 2 bedroom with kitchen and Washer and Dryer. The Resort also had a lazy river and several pools! I will do a separate post about our timeshare and my thoughts about it soon.
Parks: We have the National Parks Annual Pass – cost of $80. This paid for all 3 National parks and Red Rock Canyon.
Other than food and gas, everything else we did was free – Except for the Hoover Dam tour which was $88 including parking.
Cost for this trip:
Airfare: Free + 60K miles used.
Car Rental: $350 for an 8 passenger van for a week
Hotels: $150 a night (approx. – some were a bit less) for 4 nights = $600 (plus we got enough points for 5 more free nights). $180 for 2 nights at our timeshare. 2 IHG free night certificates and 30k Hilton points used. $780
National Parks Pass and Hoover Dam tour: $168 (we will be using the pass on future trips this year too!)
Total: $1300 for a family of 8 for flights and an 8-night trip. Plus enough hotel points earned for another 4-5 nights for free.
We didn’t eat out much. Hotels had Free breakfast, we would take lunches to the parks (sandwiches & snacks usually), and then often make dinner at our hotel. I honestly did not keep track of the cost of gas. It may have been another $50-100. So all things considered, probably $1500 for the 8 days. (FYI- I have a hard time computing food and gas. We still eat and use gas when we are home, so it is hard to calculate what we would eat/use over our normal consumption)
