Hawaii is still a place I think about from a flower I see to a sunset color in a late afternoon, it was such a wonderful experience and knowing we made it happen at such a wonderful price is the reason why I am sharing this post with you.

Traveling and visiting places you only dream about is such an inspiration to make those dreams into a reality, and that is how we made this trip happen.

Well, let’s get to the point (I got distracted just thinking about my trip) jejeje

Well, I was probably were you are at right now thinking this is probably too good to be true or there are so many loops or I have to buy or sell something.. That is not even the case, I am proving that making a change going

→from paycheck to paycheck and following the envelope system

→to apply for a few credit cards in a period of 2 years

This change has allowed us to travel to places like Hawaii, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and France (all within 2 years)

You are probably concern about applying to credit cards (how about your credit score, I have so much debt, is not what others recommend when using the envelope system)  Well all of those concerns were mines as well, just the thought of feeling in more debt or thinking this could be a few steps back quickly took away the possibility of traveling to Hawaii..

But the more I thought about it the more I realized if I follow the same system in the envelope but with my credit cards, I keep the same budget and we continue just spending as we have so far then this shouldn’t be a problem.

Now I could pay the same expenses and get points to travel, so once we were determined we could make this work and avoid paying late fees is the right thing for us to reach our new journey…

Step 1 – We applied for 4 credit cards at first which was enough to cover for our Airfare and hotel (this is something you can do as well and the trip could be a lot less than what we paid for) (below you will see our hotel total but you can use Hotel points for places like Hilton & Hyatt and that would cover your hotel stay)

(here you can see which credit cards I recommend and in case you don’t get approved other steps to follow) Starting with Miles – Which card should I apply for?

Step 2 – once approved, reach the required limit in the amount given (for example a credit card might suggest in order to receive the bonus points of 50,000 you must spend $4000 in a period of 3 months) so we pay our expenses using that card and pay it off before the statement is sent.

Step 3 – once you reach your points needed you are ready to book your trip using the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and any Hotel credit card you applied for…

 

Here I share our previous post explaining our totals for our November 2016 Hawaii trip…

Hilton Hotel 6 days and 5 nights Total: $528.96

A year earlier we both applied for Hilton Credit Cards which were offering 75k Hilton points each, my husband applied for it first and soon we were able to reach the amount necessary, right after I applied luckily the bonus amount was still the same and right away I also got approved.  Now with so many points accumulated we were ready to book our trip, our original plan was Maui.  So we called Hilton to make our Maui reservation but while on the phone they offered to transfer us with a better deal all we had to do was listen, so we did.  On the phone it was Hilton Grand Vacations, they offered a more reasonable price to stay 6 days and 5 nights at the Waikoloa Village Hilton Hotel but is not in Maui this hotel is on the Big Island of Hawaii, so now we had to consider what to do, so we asked will this cover the resort fees, they said yes only if we attend to a timeshare presentation at that same resort just a few minutes away.  We share that we don’t want to spend our anniversary listening to a presentation that could take a day, so they offer the price to be the following

• $900 for 6 days/5 nights savings of ($655)
• $0.00 for resort fees savings of ($180)

So let them know I wouldn’t want to spend my first time in Hawaii and on my 20th anniversary going to a Time Share presentation the representative included another incentive, which made us talk and consider this deal, and we did.. They added to the original offer a car rental during our stay, 5000 Hilton Points and $200 Gift Card.

• $0.00 for car rental savings of ($282.74)
• after going to Presentation we received 5000 Hilton Points & $200 Visa Gift Card (all took months to receive)

Airfare Ticket Total: $44.80 for both

We booked this flight using Korean Air booking skypass reservation, we did have to make this reservation over the phone which took a few days since we had to transfer 25,000 points each from Chase Ultimate Reward portal to Korean Air and submit some document required by Korean Air.

Once we transfer our points and waited until it was available we had created one account on Skypass which gave us a member number.  In addition, we filled out a form from Korean Air Skypass Award Application (includes your skypass number, Skypass redemption which we selected award ticket, booking reference number, all of the names traveling, sign and we faxed the form) this could be done way ahead of time too.

I also read a few steps have improved when booking with Korean Air, most likely some of these steps might be a lot easier.  Here is how much we paid and the amount we saved on the Airfare Ticket.

• $1786.00 Delta Airfare for (2)
• $44.80 and Chase Sapphire Points (50K)
• $1741.20 Amount Saved on Hawaii Airfare for 2

Summary:

• Security Check in – A lot faster with TSA Pre
• FREE – Snacks, Drinks, Salad, Coffee, WIFI, Quiet Lounge
• $44.80 Airfare Total
• $0/FREE – Car Rental Total
• $528.96 Hotel Stay (after $200 visa gc & $250 in points applied)

Total $573.76

Saved $3392.53 for this trip