The biggest costs to any trip are usually airfare and hotels. I’m here to show you how those can be cut significantly, so you can easily take a quick round the world trip like I did recently to Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
I wrote about the miles and points associated with flying and staying in hotels here:
Airfare: How I Flew in Business Class to Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong for Under $100
Hotels: How I Stayed in Fancy Hotels for 10 Nights for Under $400
Flights:
FLL-ATL-LAX: Delta Economy – $179
LAX – SYD: Virgin Australia Business Class – 80,000 Delta Miles + $37.10 tax
SYD-AKL: Air New Zealand Economy $324
AKL – HKG: Cathay Pacific Business Class – 30,000 American Miles + $20.90
HKG – JFK: Asiana Airlines Business Class – 80,000 United Miles + $41.60
JFK-FLL: Delta First Class $397
Total: $999.60
Hotels:
Park Hyatt Sydney: 3 nights – 2 free-night certificates + 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points
New Zealand AirBnb: 2 nights – $127/each
Intercontinental Hong Kong: 3 nights -Â 120,000 IHG points (plus $240 for my upgrade)
Total: $367.00
FINAL COST: $1,366.60
Now, obviously there are costs associated with food and fun purchases like snazzy scarves you hastily buy because it was 60 degrees in Hong Kong and you are a full-blooded Floridian now so you were freezing.
I digress…Â But since those costs are very particular to each person, I didn’t include them here.
If I desperately wanted to save more dolla dolla bills, I could have forgone the room upgrade, and perhaps planned a bit better and bought my ticket to New Zealand sooner. We paid a lot for that one-way ticket, but weren’t exactly proactive about finding flights in time.
Also, my flight from JFK-FLL was in paid first class because it was only $40 more than economy and I knew after a 15 hour flight from Hong Kong, I’d appreciate it. All of those costs could have been cut, but since I saved so much money in other areas, I was okay with spending it. That’s what’s so great about travel hacking!
The bulk of costs for any vacation are getting there and staying somewhere, I hope you took something from this to see that taking a major trip is a very real possibility if you plan it well and use miles and points.