Member Success Story: $33,000+ Saved on a Dream Honeymoon Across Europe
Points prices mentioned in the story reflect the redemptions at the time of the trip. Award pricing changes over time, so today’s cost may be different.
“Flying business class for the first time completely spoiled us.”
That’s Ankit, a Travel Freely member from Seattle, WA. He and his wife, Melissa, turned their honeymoon into a 17-day trip across Europe, complete with business class flights, a Michelin-starred dinner in Paris, and paragliding over the Swiss Alps. Between them, they put 543,000 points to work across Chase Ultimate Rewards® points and American Express Membership Rewards® points, and saved over $33,000 on their major flights and hotel stays alone.
This story is a look at what points and miles can do once a strategy has had time to grow. Ankit and Melissa earned this together, and it shows in the scale and aspirational nature of this trip. You don’t need anywhere close to 500K points to start seeing real savings. A single welcome bonus is often enough to cover a flight or a hotel stay on its own. If that’s closer to where you’re starting out, our beginner-friendly guide is the best next step.
👉 New to points and miles? Read our beginner-friendly guide: How to Get Started with Free Travel
Tell Us About Yourself
I live in Seattle, WA, and work in tech as a software engineer. I dove into the world of points and miles in 2021 with our prospective dream honeymoon in mind. Once I showed my wife Melissa the incredible redemptions we could get, she became a believer too. By working together with my wife, we’ve earned just over 5 million points in total so far since we started. This hobby unlocked a level of travel we thought was completely out of reach, and now five-star trips are a regular part of our lives.
Tell Us About Your Trip
This was our 17-day dream honeymoon, a trip over two years in the making. Repositioning, which means flying to a different city to open up better award availability, worked out perfectly for us. We flew into NYC first and added a night at the Andaz 5th Avenue to kick off the trip with a toast alongside our friends. From there, we crossed the Atlantic and splurged on a Michelin-star dinner. We explored the Amalfi Coast, relaxed on the islands, and finished the trip paragliding and exploring the Alps.
What Kind of Points Did You Use for This Trip?
We used a total of 543,000 points across Chase Ultimate Rewards, World of Hyatt points, and Amex Membership Rewards. Here’s the breakdown of our major redemptions:
- Flight, NYC to Paris (business class): 110,000 Amex points transferred to British Airways + $418 (cash value $5,511)
- Flight, Zurich to Seattle (business class): 162,000 Amex points transferred to British Airways + $902 (cash value $21,812)
- Andaz 5th Avenue, New York (1 night): 30,000 Hyatt points (cash value $573)
- Hotel du Louvre, Paris (2 nights): 70,000 Chase points transferred to Hyatt (cash value $1,683)
- Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme (2 nights): 90,000 Chase points transferred to Hyatt (cash value $3,500)
- Magma Resort Santorini (3 nights): 81,000 Chase points transferred to Hyatt (cash value $1,551)
In Ankit’s words: Our biggest win was the flight home from Zurich to Seattle. We scored a redemption on a flight that retailed for nearly $22,000, and we got to sleep comfortably on the long journey back instead of white-knuckling it in economy. We also lucked out because there was a 30% transfer bonus to BA which stretched our Amex points further.
We built this point total with signup bonuses over the year leading up to the trip from the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, plus the World of Hyatt Credit Card, Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, and Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card for more Chase Ultimate Rewards. On the Amex side, The Platinum Card® from American Express‘s 150,000-point welcome offer covered our flights, and the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express added to the pool.
Cards used: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, World of Hyatt Credit Card, Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card, The Platinum Card® from American Express, Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express
Quick Eligibility Note: Chase now treats the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card as part of the same card family. That means you can earn the welcome bonus on one of the two, not both.
How Much Money Did You Save Using Points and Miles for This Trip?
We saved over $33,000 on our major flight and hotel redemptions alone. The total cash cost of those flights and stays would have been $34,630, but we paid only $1,320 out of pocket in taxes and fees. We also had some cash hotel stays and tours throughout the trip, and using points and miles for the big-ticket items is what kept our total costs under our overall trip budget of $12,000.
What Were Some of the Highlights of Your Travel Experiences?
On the ground, the highlights were the smaller, sensory moments: dining at Le George, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, making pizza in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast, and paragliding over the Alps in Interlaken. Those are the memories that don’t show up in a points breakdown, but they’re the ones we talk about most.
What Advice Do You Have for Someone Just Starting with Points and Miles?
For very high-demand places, book your major flights and hotels 11 to 12 months in advance if you can. Otherwise, plan as far ahead as you’re able; even a few months of lead time makes a big difference. Take the time to learn the transfer partners for your flexible points, and always look for transfer bonuses to stretch your points further. Finally, most importantly, get your spouse or partner onboard!
Travel Freely Tip: We recommend using award search tools to help you find award flights and hotels. Setting up alerts saves you a ton of time since you’ll get alerts when availability opens up. We’ve found these tools to make this part of the process much easier. Click through to our article, Award Travel Booking 101 and scroll down to the section entitled, “Use An Award Booking Tool.”
How Has Travel Freely Helped You Achieve Your Free Travel Goals, and What Do You Like Best About the App?
Travel Freely is our command center for managing over 20 active cards between Melissa and me. It makes it easy to track our 5/24 status (Chase’s rule on how many new cards you can open in 24 months), keep an eye on upcoming annual fees, and stay on top of hitting our active signup bonuses. It takes the stress out of the logistics so we can focus on planning our next redemption.
Travel Freely Tip: You don’t need 20 cards to travel freely. Start with one card, put your everyday spending on it, pay it off in full, and earn your first bonus. That one bonus alone can be worth hundreds of dollars in travel.
Final Thoughts
A huge key to finding outsized redemptions is flexibility: being willing to shift your travel dates by a day or two, or repositioning to a different departure airport like we did, can unlock a lot of value. Without points and miles, there’s no way we could have made this honeymoon so spectacular. Flying business class for the first time spoiled us, so much so that we now try to fly business on all our long-haul flights. But having my wife, Melissa, fully onboard has been truly priceless.
👉 Inspired by Ankit and Melissa’s honeymoon? Start tracking your cards with Travel Freely today – it’s free, and it’s built to help you plan redemptions like these, whether you’re chasing your first welcome bonus or your tenth.
Have a success story you’d like to share with us? We’d love to hear it! Reach out to us at or fill out our form here.
Cards that helped Ankit and Melissa experience their European honeymoon:
