Mexico has been a yearly travel destination of mine for years and years. Today I want to show you how you visit Cancun on points. I’ll go over how to get flights paid for and give you some great options to consider when it comes to choosing your hotel stay.

 

Flights

The first step to visiting Cancun on points is getting free flights. One credit card that will easily get you a round-trip ticket to Cancun is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus card. From both Houston and Denver, I found flights for about 22,000 Rapid Rewards to Cancun. I am sure you can find similar prices from your home airport. Remember that you can earn the Southwest Companion Pass if you earn 135,000 points in one calendar year. The pass allows you to fly someone free with you each time you fly during the year you earn it and all of the following year.

 

 

 

Another possibility is to use the bonus from the Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card. You could transfer points to United Airlines and fly from Denver and most U.S. cities for under 30,000 points. The key is flexibility and looking at the 30-day calendar to pick the cheaper redemptions.

 

 

You can also look into a Delta or American Airlines card. I would compare the prices for each and the flight times to see what works best from your home airport. Reach out to us if you need some help!

 

 

As you can see, it is pretty easy to get to Cancun with just one credit card. In fact, you can probably bring your friend or a spouse with just one card.

 

Hotels

The next step to visiting Cancun on points is choosing your hotel. One of my favorite hotel cards is the IHG card.  Currently, you can earn 140,000 IHG points after meeting your minimum spend. Booking 3 award nights gets you a 4th free night. You could use your bonus from this one credit card to stay at the Intercontinental Presidente Cancun Resort! The redemption cost is about 36K/night, dependent on your dates.

 

 

 

If all-inclusive is more your thing, then you may want to check out the Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Zilara Cancun. Both resorts will cost you 25,000 points per night. This includes food and drinks for two people. Additional guests will cost 12,500 points a night. The Hyatt Zilara is an adults-only resort, while the Ziva is a family resort. 25,000 points a night for rooms, and all the food and drinks you want sounds pretty great to me! With the signup bonus from the World of Hyatt card, you could get 2 free nights. To get some extra free nights, you can also have your travel buddy open a Hyatt card (which you should refer them to!). Another idea is to open a Chase Ultimate Rewards card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and transfer points from that account to your Hyatt account.

 

 

There are other Hyatt all-inclusive resorts you could stay at in the area also as well as Hyatt options that aren’t all-inclusive. Here is a link to many of the Hyatt options.

If you want to use Marriott points, you may want to look into the JW Marriott Cancun. Getting a Marriott credit card and earning the welcome offer will get you a few nights here. If you time it right, you could get 3 free nights here with this credit card bonus. You could even use your Marriott annual night certificate to stay here!

 

 

This is just a small sample of where you could stay in the Cancun area with just one credit card. Have your spouse or a friend get a card, too and extend your stay! Don’t forget to refer them, so you get those referral bonus points!

 

Activities

 

Now that you have a plan on how to visit Cancun on points, it’s time to plan what to do once you get there! Besides the obvious relaxing at the hotel pool and swimming at the beach, there are many other fun activities to take advantage of.

 

Visit a Ruin

This is the perfect area to visit an ancient ruin. I have visited both Tulum and Chichen Itza and highly recommend them. The Mayan ruins are interesting, but both of my visits were in extreme heat. I recommend bringing an umbrella, not for the rain, but to block out the sun!

 

 

Swim in a Cenote

Cenote’s are natural sinkholes and there are many in the Cancun area. I have had the pleasure of swimming in two of them. They are often very deep but quite safe and many tour groups include them on their itineraries. After a hot day at Chichen Itza, it was a welcome addition to our tour.

 

Visit the Isla de Mujeres

The Isla de Mujeres is across from Cancun. It is fun to visit for the day and enjoy the beach there. We rented golf carts and drove all over the town – so fun! There are many tour groups that will take you over and even include a snorkeling adventure on the way! My sister booked us a boat ride over called a “Booze Cruise”! We don’t even drink, but there were a ton of older Mexican couples on it, and the dancing was so fun to watch. The snorkeling was great and the food was good too! I am sure we were the only sober ones on board, but we still had a blast!

 

 

Go to Xcaret or Xel-ha

Every time I go to Cancun we plan to go to Xcaret or Xel-ha. I still haven’t made it to either but they are both popular attractions. There are performances by native dancers, tons of animals to see, and cenotes and coves to swim in. You can have adventures plus immerse yourself in the culture of the area. One of my problems has been in trying to decide which to go to but I found a tour that includes both so that may be the end of my dilemma.

 

ATV Riding or/and Zip Lining

There is an abundance of tours that will let you have one or both adventures. We had a tour with Extreme Adventure that allowed us to do both plus swim in a cenote. We also got a great lunch afterward.

 

 

Bottom Line

Cancun is always a fun destination. What is there not to love about beaches and sunshine? Cancun on points and miles is even better! When you can have so much fun for pennies on the dollar, why not go more often?