Start of ninth month. This month was actually one month plus one day.
May 15 – 27: On a tour of Madagascar. Madagascar was one of two countries (the other being Ethiopia) where due to the poor infrastructure and safety concerns, we weren’t able to set up our own traveling. So we had to join a tour.
May 27: Flight from Madagascar to Nairobi. Ethiopian Airways business class. Paid 90,000 United miles + $259 in taxes. Avoided cost $7,786.
May 27 – 30: Holiday Inn Two Rivers Mall Nairobi. Upgraded to a junior suite. Paid 57,000 IHG points. Avoided cost $667.
(This is the start of our family vacation, when we flew six other family members over to go on Safari. I’ll have a separate post about how we did most of that on points. This section will just document the expenses for Kate and myself).
May 30: Safarilink bush flight to Tsavo West National Park. Paid $785 (roundtrip cost). No point options available.
May 30 – June 2: Finch Hattons Safari lodge in Tsavo West. Park entrance fees $540. Virgin Atlantic points 330,000 (we transferred 236,000 Amex points with a 40% bonus to Virgin Atlantic which yielded 330,000 Virgin points). Avoided cost $5,940.
June 2: Safarilink flight back to Wilson airport, Nairobi.
June 2 – 4: Farmhouse VRBO rental in Lake Naivasha. Paid $207 (this is 25% of our family of eight cost). No point options available.
June 4 – 6: Kapoto safari camp including Masai Mara park entrance fees. Paid $1,400. No good point options available.
June 6 – 7: Holiday Inn Two Rivers Mall, Nairobi. Paid 17,000 IHG points. Upgraded to a junior suite again. Avoided cost $194.
June 7: Flight from Nairobi to London. Paid 85,000 Alaska points + an Alaska 25k global companion certificate + $719 in taxes for business class (plus we paid a $310 penalty for cancelling an earlier Air Canada booking that wasn’t as good). Avoided cost $5,670.
June 7 – 8. Ruby Stella Hotel London, 24,659 IHG points. Avoided cost $265.
June 8 – 10: For these three days Kate and I did a mini Camino in England, running from small town to small town. These towns were too small to have any point options.
June 8 – 9: Wingrove House in the city of Alfriston. Capital One travel booking, paid $290. No point options available.
June 9 – 10: The Wellington in the city of Seven Sisters – Citi travel booking. Paid $114. No point options available.
June 10 – 11: The Grand Hotel in the city of Eastbourne. Citi Travel Booking Paid $248 and booked through Citi Travel which gives 10X on hotel bookings. This hotel is listed as a Hilton SLH property and should have been bookable with points. For the life of me, I tried over and over to find it on the Hilton website but it never would show up.
June 11-16 NoMad hotel in London. This hotel has a great location in Covent Garden. It’s easy to walk to shows in the area. Paid 400,000 Hilton points (with the fifth night free benefit). Avoided cost $5,800. We were also able to get free breakfast every day. We were also able to use $155 of Amex Business Platinum card and Amex Hilton Surpass credits for free lunches and dinners.
June 16: Flight from London to San Francisco. Paid 165,000 American Airlines miles + $843 in taxes for business class. Avoided cost $24,784.
End of our ninth month of living abroad.
Lodging: cash out of pocket for our ninth month was $2,259. If we hadn’t used points, the lodging costs for our ninth month would have been $15,125.
Flights: cash out of pocket for our ninth month was $2,916. If we hadn’t used miles the cost of our flights for our ninth month would have been $39,025.
Cumulative 9 month totals:
Total out of pocket lodging and airfare expenses: $23,623.
Amount that we would have paid if we hadn’t used points and miles: $170,272.
Average monthly out-of-pocket lodging and airfare expenses: $2,625.
Average monthly amount that we would have paid if we hadn’t used points & miles: $18,919.
Bear in mind, if I state that no point options are available, it’s 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.