Today, I’m talking about the most expensive trip I’ll take this year, and it’s because I couldn’t use points/miles to book it. Let me explain. My husband and I have old friends (old as long-time friends and old as in age because we are all grandparents!😜). They go to Arizona yearly with their fifth wheels. We decided to meet them this year for 10 days.

The only way to use points and miles to stay at the Palm Creek Resort in Casa Grande would have been to charge the stay to my Venture X and then use some Capital One Venture Miles to erase the purchase. But I get more value out of my Venture Miles by using transfer partners. So instead, we used a credit card to  EARN points. Our 10-day stay there cost us almost $1,000.

We don’t have a fifth wheel because we don’t have time to use one with all our points/miles trips. And to be honest, I prefer to travel the world staying in hotels over staying in a trailer. We did rent a great one through Outdoorsy for a cost of $2,300. They even delivered it for us, had it set up, and then came and got it after we were through (for an extra cost but worth it). We also earned points/miles by paying for this on a credit card.

Earning Credit Card Points and Miles on Our Most Expensive Trip

We put $3,300 on our Freedom Unlimited card, which earns 1.5 points per dollar spent, but we also have the match offer for this year (no longer available). This means we will earn 3 points per dollar of my favorite points on this purchase, or about 10,000 points.

We will not spend $3,300 on one single vacation this year, including trips to Disneyland, Carlsbad, Singapore, Honduras, Italy, and more to be planned. Amazingly, the most expensive trip takes place in a trailer to Casa Grande, Arizona, while we travel in business class and stay in luxury hotels for much less. That is the power of credit card points and miles!

We also used credit cards to pay for our groceries, eating out, and flights to earn additional points/miles on this trip. I could have used miles to pay for our flights, but they were not expensive, and I prefer to save my miles for business class seats for international flights. Additionally, I want to keep my elite status on United, so I need to meet a certain spending requirement with them each year, so I always pay for my domestic flights.

The most expensive lodging and trip of this year!

Bottom Line

While on my most expensive trip this year, I realized the power of this points/miles hobby. I had a great time with our friends, and it was fun to “camp” for that time. It also was a time to reflect on how far this points/miles game has taken me and that the ability to “see the world” in a style I could never have imagined is truly amazing. I’ll camp once a year and pay dearly for it, but give me those luxury hotels and business class seats the rest of the time for pennies on the dollar.