In this series I explore real-world examples of just how much you can travel with the points of one credit card sign-up bonus. Whether this destination interests you or not, my hope is that you can take the learnings and get inspired to create your own amazing trip using miles and points.
In this example I am looking at a fall trip for an extended family of 8 in October from Charlotte to Orlando.
Whether you are visiting Disney World, Universal Studios, or both, two things about these Orlando attractions remain true; they are both very popular and very expensive! Getting the flights for next to nothing can save a lot of money or take away the challenge of a long car drive, especially with a big group. Call grandma and grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins and let’s book this trip!
Earning the Points
Even though we won’t be flying Alaska Airlines for this trip, I have selected the Bank of America Alaska card which currently offers 75,000 miles as a sign-up bonus after $3k in minimum spend. A similar offer exists for the business version of this card which may be more attractive as it would not add to your Chase 5/24 count. In either case, we would have at least 73,000 Alaska miles after hitting the minimum spend.
Building the Trip
Alaska miles are the best way to access short, nonstop American Airlines flight. Here are the cash prices from the American website:
Those same flights can be found on Alaska’s site for only 4500 miles per person each way. Even those these flights are relatively cheap at $174 each way, the low cost in miles returns a very attractive 3.5 cents per point value. Even better value is available booking first class for 9000 Alaska miles. You could also book these flights with American miles, but at a higher cost.
For the return flights the costs are nearly identical depending on what time of day would be most convenient to fly. One quirk with the Alaska site is that you can only search for up to 7 seats at a time, so in this case we would need to make two bookings for 8 people.
Overall, this is a great value getting 8 round trip tickets worth ~ $2500 with one credit card signup. At Disney, I could eat a lot of Dole Whip with that cash! For those further away, you can still do very well with the Alaska award chart. At 7500 miles each way from Dallas, Washington DC or Philadelphia, this one card sign-up bonus would still be enough for 5 round trip flights if you first spent an additional $2k (75k total miles).
TL;DR: Taking advantage of a 75k sign-up bonus offer and Alaska’s excellent award chart for short flights on American Airlines, we can get an entire family of 8 to Orlando and back. At only 4500 miles per person each way, the value compared to the cash prices are very strong at ~ 3.5 cents per point.
