Total Costs: Travel to Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong

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 – 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… 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.