Is it possible to book a 10-day African safari for a family of eight and pay for it with points? The answer is that by using points and miles you can pay for about 90% of your lodging and international flight costs. But when you factor in other costs that don’t have points and miles options, you only end up covering 67% of the cost. What’s 67% of the cost? It’s over 50 grand! Not exactly chump change.
Kate and I had been to the fabulous Finch Hattons luxury safari tent camp in Tsavo West national park, Kenya in November and paid for it with points then (via a Virgin Atlantic – Virgin Limited hotel booking). When Virgin Atlantic put the points rate for this camp on sale again, we felt it was too good of a deal to pass up for a family vacation. So we built a trip around that.
With the sale dates having a limited time period, some family commitments and wanting to make the trip as late in the year as possible to get more into the dry season for better animal viewing; we ended up with a Finch Hattons booking of May 30th to June 2nd.
Besides Tsavo West, Kate and I had also been to Lake Naivasha, Kenya. We had stayed at Simba lodge and had had close encounters with Bush Babies and hippos, along with zebras and waterbucks. On Crescent Island on Lake Naivasha we had seen lots of animals, but we had tried to find rock pythons and had not had any luck. We decided to add two nights in Lake Naivasha so that our kids (all adults) could also have close encounters with bush babies and hippos. And we would get another shot at trying to find the rock pythons. However, Simba Lodge, where we had previously stayed, now wanted to charge double what we had previously paid. We looked for other options (there were no point options in the area) and we found a VRBO unit called the Farmhouse Sanctuary that had five bedrooms. So we booked that.
Finally, when Kate and I had been gorilla trekking in Uganda, we met a professional animal photographer, Zac, who was co-owner of the Kapoto safari camp in a conservancy adjacent to the Masai Mara national park (it actually turned out to be on private land next to the conservancy). Masai Mara is adjacent to the Serengeti national park. There is no fence between the Serengeti and Masai Mara national parks so you can expect to see similar wildlife. Kate and I had been to the Serengeti, but I had not been to the Masai Mara before. Zac told us he would give us a good rate so we booked the Kapoto camp for two nights. Note that there is one point option available inside Masai Mara national park, but it is a Marriott property with exorbitantly high point rates so it was a better value to pay cash for the Kapoto Lodge. Or so I thought before we arrived at the lodge.
Along with the safari portions of our trip, we would need a staging night beforehand in Nairobi and another night at the end of the trip in Nairobi too. We booked these at the Holiday Inn Two Rivers Mall using IHG points. Kate and I had stayed there before. Holiday Inns in foreign countries are a couple levels above the Holiday Inns in the US so we knew this would be a good hotel.
Our children would be coming from San Francisco and Orlando. There were no direct flights to or from Nairobi and they would all have layovers going to and from Nairobi. I asked if any of them wanted to extend their layovers to add an extra city on the front or back end and four of them took us up on that offer. My daughter Lars and her husband Nakia elected to spend three nights in London on the front end of the trip. My daughter Sierra and my son West elected to spend four nights in Paris on the back end of the trip.
Depending on their flight schedules, our kids would potentially have access to airport lounges four to six times during their trips. I offered to give priority card access to any of them that wanted it and four of them took me up on that. I made them authorized users on my Chase Ritz-Carlton card and then they were each able to get their own Priority Pass card. There is no fee to add authorized users to the Ritz-Carlton card so it’s a win-win all around. Note that the Chase Ritz-Carlton card is not available to new applicants. The path to obtaining one is to first get another card, like the Chase Marriott Bonvoy card, hold that card for a year, and then ask to upgrade to the Ritz-Carlton card. (The two kids that hadn’t taken me up on the Priority Pass offer later wished that they had. And I was able to add them after they got back to the USA).
Our itinerary was:
On May 24th, my daughter Lars and her husband Nakia flew economy class from Orlando to London. This cost us 54,000 American Airline miles + $12 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $1,682.
On May 27th Kate and I flew business class from Madagascar to Nairobi. This cost us 90,000 United miles + $259 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $7,786. Kate and I then checked into the Holiday Inn Two Rivers Mall hotel. We paid 57,000 IHG points for three nights. We were upgraded to a junior suite. Our avoided cost was $667.
On May 28th Lars and Nakia flew economy class from London to Nairobi. This cost us 24,000 Virgin Atlantic miles + $653 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $1,590. Lars and Nakia checked into our same hotel. We paid 36,000 IHG points for two nights and our avoided cost was $250.
On May 29th, Sierra (my daughter), West (my son), Rick (Kate’s son) and Rin (Kate’s child) flew economy class from San Francisco to Nairobi. This cost us 172,000 KLM miles + $880 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $4,368. Sierra, West, Rick and Rin checked into our same hotel for one night. We paid 34,000 IHG points and our avoided cost was $220.
On May 30th, we took two hotel shuttles from the Holiday Inn to Wilson Airport (this is the airport that the bush planes fly out of). There are only two bush plane companies that fly from Wilson to the Tsavo West airstrip, SafariLink and Fly ALS. Neither one had a flight scheduled for this day. But I knew from our previous trip that SafariLink flies 12-passenger Cessna 208 Caravan turboprops. I contacted them a couple months in advance and simply told them that I had eight passengers ready to book a round trip if they would add a flight for this morning. They were happy to accommodate me. Our round trip flight cost for eight passengers was $3,140 (there were no point options available).
After departing Wilson airport, we flew to Tsavo West national park and landed on a dirt runway. We were met by our guides in two Land Cruisers. They had cold water bottles waiting for us that had our names on them. It was about a 15 minute drive to the Finch Hattons Lodge.
For the Finch Hattons lodge we needed four tents (each one is a luxurious tent that accommodates two persons. They are made up in 1920’s decor but with modern conveniences. Although they are called tents, they are more like individual cabanas that happen to have tent fabric for part of the walls and roof). Unfortunately, Virgin Limited would only let us book three tents with points. For those three tents, we paid 1,020,000 Virgin Atlantic Points (we transferred 708,000 Amex points with a 40% bonus to Virgin Atlantic which yielded 990,000 Virgin points. Plus we already had 30,000 Virgin Atlantic points in our account). We had to pay cash for the fourth tent and that cost us $5,940. If we had paid cash for all four tents it would have cost us $23,760. So our avoided cost by paying 1,020,000 Virgin Atlantic points + $5,940 was $23,760. Additionally, we paid Tsavo West park entrance fees of $2,160 ($90 per person x 3 days).
Finch Hattons was everything we expected it to be. Top notch service, accomodations, guides, vehicles, etc. We had an excellent breakfast upon arrival and then we did a bush walk with three Masai warriors. We saw crocodiles, terrapin, baboons and vervet monkeys. The Masai explained their traditions and talked about the flora and fauna. We had a delicious lunch and then had some free time until the afternoon game drive. Some members of our group chose to do a yoga class.
During the afternoon game drive, we saw elephants, giraffes, dik diks, common waterbucks, bush bucks, rock hyrexes, lesser kudus, common zebras, lilac crested rollers and striped hyenas. We saw the eyes of two bush babies as we drove back to camp in the dark.
On the morning of the 31st, we had breakfast and then a morning game drive. During our afternoon free time I got a massage and it was the second best massage I have ever had. Some members of our family took another yoga class before the afternoon game drive. Two members of our family got to see snakes on their tent porches. During this day, we saw tons of giraffes, 12 elephants, water bucks, bush bucks, a leopard, jackals and lots of bush baby eyes.
On June 1st, besides other animals I’ve already listed, we saw warthogs, Sykes monkeys, Vulturine Guinea fowls, goshawks, a genet, and a group of four lions. We swam in the camp pool in the afternoon. I should also mention that we saw a crocodile in one of the camp’s waterholes multiple times. After dinner, we sat around the firepit and listened to one of the Masai, Issac, tell the story of how he participated in the last lion hunt in 2012. After that, the Masai created the Masai olympics (spear throwing, arrow shooting, etc) to replace lion hunting as a rite of passage.
On June 2nd, we took the bush plane back to Wilson airport. At the airport, we met our driver, Jeff, who had a large Toyota Hilux van to chauffeur us around in. For the rest of our trip, we would need to drive north to Lake Naivasha, then west to the Kupoto camp and then east back to Nairobi. I had looked at different transportation options. There weren’t any self-drive options for renting a large van. And the cost of renting two vehicles plus fuel turned out to be more than renting a chauffeured van (plus, you really don’t want to drive yourself in Nairobi). So we ended up renting a van with a driver from Gravity Vans. There weren’t any point options and we paid $1,064 for this.
Jeff drove us up to Lake Naivasha. We checked into the Sanctuary Farm House. There weren’t any point options available in Lake Naivasha and so we paid $827.
Since we wouldn’t be staying at the Simba Lodge, we had booked a dinner reservation there and we went there for dinner. When we were here in November, we had been able to walk within ten feet of hippos (they were on the other side of a small electric fence) and we had seen numerous bush babies that would hop right by you. Unfortunately, the property had suffered a flood a few weeks before we arrived in June. And in the ten acres between the facilities and the lake, they had cut down about a 100 trees and plowed up about 50% of their grassland. The hippos no longer came close, they had lost most of their Bush Babies and 90% of the zebras, waterbucks and other animals we’d previously seen there seemed to be gone. Needless to say I was very happy that we ended up staying at a different place.
On June 3rd, we took a boat to Crescent Island on Lake Naivasha. We saw lots of wildebeest, giraffes, hippos, waterbucks, ostriches and elands. We saw two baby rock pythons that were about 18” long and a ½” in diameter. And, we saw an adult rock python that was 12’ long and about 4 to 5” in diameter. This was a highlight for me. The boat cost was $62 and there was a $33 per person entrance fee ($264 total) to the Island.
On June 4th, we checked out of the Farm House and drove to the Kapoto Lodge. We had originally been told that it was in a private reserve next to the Masai Mara national park. But in fact, it turned out to be on private property next to the reserve. We had expected to be able to do a game drive in the reserve in addition to the game drives in the Masai Mara, but it turned out that the lodge hadn’t worked out permission to do that yet. Our cost for two nights at the Kapoto Lodge was $4,000 + $1,600 for Masai Mara park fees ($100 per person x 2 days).
We saw tons of animals in Masai Mara national park. So that part was great. But the lodge itself was highly disappointing. While the tents themselves were adequate, the dining/reception area was terrible. Pretty much just a bare concrete floor, bare walls and a dining table in the middle. Meals and drinks were disappointing compared to other lodges we’d stayed at. The lodge’s Land Cruisers were in poor condition. And we thought the guides/drivers were terrible.
The animals we saw on June 4th were a pride of about 14 lions, two spotted hyenas, tons of zebras, three jackals, topis, elands, Thompson gazelles, impalas, wildebeest, grant gazelles, warthogs, a cheetah and giraffes,
On June 5th we saw another pride of lions and at least 30 spotted hyenas surrounding them. The hyenas were harassing the lions, hoping that they would leave the area to see if that had the scraps of a kill there. But the lions didn’t have any scraps and they just ignored the hyenas. We saw a couple packs of mongooses, the cheetah that we had previously seen, two secretary birds and more lions and elephants.
On June 6th, we checked out of Kapoto lodge. On our drive out we saw a leopard and baboons. We drove back to the Holiday Inn in Nairobi. For our four rooms for one night we paid 72,000 IHG points. We were again upgraded to a junior suite. Our avoided cost was $584.
On June 7th, Sierra and West flew economy class from Nairobi to Paris. We paid 55,000 Alaska points + $699 in taxes. Additionally, we paid a $100 cancellation fee on a Virgin Atlantic reservation that we originally had. Our avoided cost was $1,992.
On June 7th, Kate and I flew business class from Nairobi to London. We paid 85,000 Alaska Airlines plus a 25k Alaska Airlines global companion certificate + $719 in taxes. Additionally, we paid a $310 penalty for cancelling an earlier Air Canada booking that wasn’t as good. Our avoided cost was $5,670.
On June 7th, Lars and Nakia flew economy class from Nairobi to Orlando. We paid 80,000 American Airlines miles + $242 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $2,134.
On June 7th, Rin flew economy class from Nairobi to Denver. We paid 40,000 American Airline miles + $121 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $1,077.
On June 7th, Rick flew economy class from Nairobi to San Francisco. We paid 40,000 American Airline miles + $121 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $4,100.
On June 11th, Sierra and West flew economy class from Paris to San Francisco. We paid 30,000 Virgin Atlantic points + $613 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $4,049.
On June 16th, Kate and I flew business class from London to San Francisco. We paid 165,000 American Airline miles + $843 in taxes. Our avoided cost was $24,784.
Additional expenses we had were about $920 in groceries and restaurant meals, $300 in hotel shuttle costs (six trips) and about $1,000 in tips.
Cost basis is based on apples to apples comparison. So if the points purchase price was fully refundable we compared it to fully refundable cash costs. Note that if you make nonrefundable cash bookings you can sometimes get lower rates. For our kids that added extra days in London or Paris (and for Kate and my extra days in London), those expenses were not part of the family vacation so they were not added in. (Although you will be able to see Kate and my expenses for London as part of our nine months living abroad post).
So our total out-of-pocket expenses were $26,849. If we hadn’t used points and miles, our total cost would have been $82,230. Our total savings was $55,381.
Bear in mind, if I state that no point options are available, it’s still often possible to just cash credit card points out for cash and to make a payment that way. But that is usually very inefficient compared to transferring points directly to an airline or hotel so I never do that.