Honeymoon Heroics: How I Saved (and You Will Save) $3k on a Getaway

A honeymoon is something that every young couple dreams about when they are planning their wedding. It is an escape -  even a sigh of relief - the true prize for all the dreaded planning that goes into such a high pressure and intricate gathering. For most people, after they plan a wedding, the last thing that they want to do is plan a honeymoon. However, if done right, these two missions can actually be one in the same.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “What the heck is this guy talking about?” or, “Is that really possible?” The reality of the situation is that it is possible…kind of. You see, having a wedding is the most expensive day of most couples’ lives. There's a church, dress, photographer, videographer, reception, band, and even chargers (I had no idea what these were either when I got married). In today's day and age, weddings can cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars to pay for. I may be going off of my own assumptions here, but every couple I have known to get married puts these purchases on a credit card with the thought of getting some “Cash Back” from the exchange of services. This is one of the worst things a couple that is getting married can do.

You see, most people in the world carry one - or if you are like me- 7 credit cards. A common misconception I and some of my college friends believed was  that cash back is free money. While that is not necessarily incorrect,  cash back is actually a thief. There are a variety of credit cards out there that offer what is typically known as “transferable credit card points.” All of the major banks such as Chase, AMEX, and Capital One are vendors of these points that allow you to transfer them to partners in the travel world that include airlines, rental cars, and even hotels. The key with these is that they can often reward a user with a greater redemption value than any cashback card could provide.

You may be wondering what I am referencing with the idea of a redemption value, so let me pause to introduce that topic for those who are unaware of what that means. Evidently, not every cash back dollar or reward point is created equal. If you take a Discover credit card's typical one cent earned per dollar spent, a $1000 purchase would yield you $10 cash back. However, if you placed this on a simple rewards card, this $1,000 purchase would yield you 1500-2000 rewards points. Here is where it gets fun. Rewards points do not always have a fixed redemption value and can vary to significant  degrees. Let's dive deeper.

What if instead of using your rewards points on the vendor’s app where they originate, you did a quick exercise of points shopping, and instead transfer them to a travel partner to multiply their value by 8x or more. Okay, if you’ve followed this explanation, let’s dive into a quick example, and then a real life case study.

Tying us back to the idea of weddings, let's say there is a photographer that you love and they cost $4,000 for the entire day. Putting this on a 2x points earning card, you would be earning 8,000 transferable points. This same purchase on a normal cash back card would only reward you $35. Depending on what card may  best fit your lifestyle will determine the transfer partners you are eligible to transfer to. Say for instance you earn these points with Chase and transfer them to Southwest Airlines in order to get a one way flight to your wedding out of state. This flight would likely cost anywhere from $110-125, but on points can be scored for around 6,800 points. That is nearly $80 greater earnings than a measly $35 that will just get used on some random purchase.

If you’ve made it this far, you may still be  a little confused. So, in order to help, I’m going to explain how my wife and I were able to leverage points to save us thousands of dollars on our honeymoon  a few months ago.

Let's start with some background on us. I have been trying to build up travel points for the last 2 years since I learned about them back in 2022. Because of this, I have been able to save up points and use them on this once in a lifetime event. My wife and I were getting married over in Florida and had to get there from Louisiana. Yikes! Kicked off the wedding with travel money spent before we even got to the honeymoon. How did we get to Florida? Southwest, the best domestic airline. I had signed up for their credit card (again) earlier this year in order to get companion pass. (Keep an eye out for an article on the Southwest companion pass, coming soon!) So, our Southwest flights that would have cost us around $266 cash wound up being only 3,671 Rapid Rewards points and $11.20 in taxes. Boom —instant savings of $250 to start off the wedding weekend. Not bad. Let's keep going. We stayed in a hotel with our families the two nights before the wedding, but needed a place to stay for the night of the wedding and the following day since we were staying an extra day in Florida. Enter the first points transfer: Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt Hotels. This is one of the best relationships in the points world. We booked two nights at a Hyatt on the river in Florida with a cash price tag of $539.26, but only spent 24,000 Ultimate Rewards points since they transfer 1:1 with Hyatt. Again, don’t worry about the intricacies, as this will be explained more in the future.  Instead of getting 1 cent per point (cpp) that my card would typically give, this rewarded us with 2.25cpp, a 125% increase. 

After our wedding, we were off to the airport on our honeymoon. After some issues, we got on an American Airlines (AA) flight for 20,000 AA miles and $86.20 in taxes (due to international fees) instead of paying $430 cash. Although Antigua does not have any chains to transfer points to (which was fine by us!), we stayed at an amazing all inclusive resort. After a great getaway, it was time to head back to the states via a JetBlue flight that was regularly $606, but of course we transferred 20,000 points and covered the taxes. This awarded us with a respectable 2.35cpp.

We were fortunate for my little travel addiction because it allowed us to extend our honeymoon by 3 days! We discovered that New York was actually cheaper to fly to than flying home, so we figured, why not. While we were there I made a redemption of 239,716 Hilton Honors points instead of a cash $1,343.  I will explain why this is such a huge redemption another time. The final leg of the trip was a flight home via Delta for 29,000 Delta SkyMiles and $11.20 in taxes, avoiding one last time a cash cost of $326. Phew, thanks for sticking through all of that with me.

There was so much information thrown at you in the last thousand words, but lets summarize it here. The cash price of these parts of our honeymoon was $3,244.26 but instead we only paid $244.20 in taxes. Total. That’s it. With our story of a net savings of $3,000.06, how can you not be intrigued by what points can do for you? The moral of the story is this: travel points outweigh cash back by a significant amount if you let it. I’m here to help. Let’s talk about it.