11-DAY GEORGIA & FLORIDA

This trip would have cost us $6,500, but we only paid $460!

For this eleven day trip, we wanted to visit friends in Georgia and my daughter in Florida. Additionally, we tacked on some time in Atlanta and Miami.

    We started out by flying from SFO to ATL. These business and first class flights cost us 50,000 American Airlines miles and $11 (tax). Our avoided cost was $1,627.

   This flight had a stopover in LAX. While there, we went to the Amex Centurion Lounge. We also got free massages at Be Relax Spa. 

   We spent our first two nights in Atlanta at the Loews Atlanta Hotel. We chose this hotel so that we could use our American Express Platinum card’s Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) credits ($200 off a one night booking per card). Our total cost was $469 and we had $400 rebated from that. An additional cost was hotel parking at $40 per night. But the FHR benefit gives us each free breakfast along with $100 per night in credit. So we applied that to parking. This brought our out-of-pocket cost down to $69. 

   While we were in Atlanta, we went to the Porsche driving center and we each drove Porsche simulators on race tracks. We toured the Coca-cola museum. On our second night, we ate dinner at the Curio Hilton (excellent Salmon and tomato-bisque soup). We chose this restaurant so that we could get it comped by using our Hilton gift cards. 

   After Atlanta, we drove to Hiawassee, GA and visited our friends Tom and Annette. We spent two nights there.

  From Hiawassee, we drove to Gainesville, FL where my daughter lives. We stayed at the IHG Staybridge Suites Gainesville hotel. This hotel included free breakfast and parking. We reserved it using two IHG Free Night Certificates. Our avoided cost was $373.

After Gainesville, we drove to Miami. Along the way, we stopped in Orlando and went to the Dezer auto collection in the Orlando Auto Museum at Dezerland Park. This was outstanding. They have a James Bond section with every vehicle from every movie. They have over 2,000 vehicles including just about every vehicle from every hit TV show or movie.

We stayed at the IHG Iberostar Waves Berkeley Shore hotel. Our initial booking cost us over 200,000 IHG points, but when they had a sale we rebooked and dropped our point cost to 176,000 points. Our points booking included breakfast. Our avoided cost was $1,351. But we did have to pay $50 per day for parking and $40 per day in resort fees. Because of problems in our first room, they refunded us two days of resort fees. So our out-of-pocket cost was $280.

  While we were in Miami, we scuba dived in the Florida Keys, listened to some live music, went to the Art Deco museum, the beach and Little Havana. 

We also used our Hilton credit cards at some nearby Hilton hotels to pick up $320 worth of free meals. 

For our flight home, we flew business class on American Airlines. This cost us 66,000 American Airline miles plus $11 (tax). Our avoided cost was $1,287. 

   For the flights back, we stopped in The Club lounge at Orlando (food was poor). At our stopover in Charlotte, we went to the Amex Centurion Lounge. I also got a free massage at Xpres Spa.

In sum, our out-of-pocket costs for airfare, lodging and meals were about were $460. If we had paid cash instead of using points and miles, our cost would have been $6,500. 

THAT SOUNDS GREAT. BUT HOW DID YOU GET THE FREE FLIGHTS, LODGING, MASSAGES, ETC?

    For the American flights, we opened an account with Bask bank. This gave us a sign up bonus of 30,000 miles. And the account pays about 2,000 miles per month per $10,000 deposit. Additionally, shopping portal bonuses gave us even more miles.

    For the Loews Atlanta Hotel, we used our annual American Express Platinum card $200 Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) credit. This gives you $200 towards a hotel in the FHR category when booked through the Amex travel portal. Additionally, you receive $100 in property credit per stay. Kate and I both have this card so we booked two nights back to back.

   For the Staybridge Suites Gainesville hotel, we opened a Chase IHG premier card for Kate. The welcome bonus included five Free Night Certificates (FNCs). We used two of them for this hotel.

    For the Iberostar Waves Berkeley Shore hotel in Miami, we used the three other FNCs. Ah, but you say, “didn’t you stay there for four nights”? Well, yes we did. We had a little trouble with the booking, so IHG converted our FNCs to points. Once they did that, we were able to use IHG’s stay three nights, get the fourth night free when booking with points program.