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We booked our flights and hotel stays for Fiji!!
I used 36,000 Starwood points for Cash & Points redemption and 140,000 United miles (by way of Chase Ultimate Rewards) for a 9-night trip at the Sheraton Fiji Resort.
Each night will be $60 USD (not including 15% tax, oh well), and we had to pay a little bit in taxes ($225.80 total) for our United flights.
Totals out of pocket:
- Flights are $112.90 per person through United/Air New Zealand (Price without points is a whopping $2,658.80/pp)
- Hotel stays cost $270 per person for 9 nights, or $60/night (not including tax, and price without points: $1,083.92/pp total, or $240.87/night)
So why did we choose Fiji? Justin and I love the beach. And Fiji is one of those places that beachgoers like us dream about… no other land masses in sight, crystal clear waters and powdery white sand. Polynesian culture is also really interesting! I was also thinking about going to Thailand but the southeast Asian mosquitoes scare me, plus Thailand accommodations are cheap enough for us to save up for them in the future. I’ll get over my fears and go to Thailand someday.
Another reason why I wanted to go to Fiji was because we had a lot of points to use and I wanted to check out a place that I normally wouldn’t go to because of cost. When I checked out the flight schedules, the United site said I could buy the flights outright for $2658.80 per person, which is COMPLETELY INSANE. I suppose its that much higher because its after the rainy season too. Never in a million years would I pay that much for a flight (if I had a choice). I also checked Kayak and the lowest fare I could find was $1740.30 per person. Still very expensive. So… why not go using rewards points and a couple hundred dollars?
I chose to go in May because that’s April is the last month of Fiji’s rainy season and May is supposedly beeeyouutiful! 
I’m hoping the weather will cooperate!
As always, I’ll be taking a lot of photos and documenting the trip in the Vacations page. :D
Points value calculation: I hope I’m calculating this correctly.
- (($240.87 – $60) / 4000 Starwood points) * 100 = 4.52 cents per point for the Starwood stay
- ($5,317.60 / 140,000) * 100 = 3.80 cents per point for the United flights
♥ E&I
That’s awesome, congratulations! I love the Chase card, we have it too – love how flexible it is
So good to hear!! I am building up my Chase points and hopefully can snag a similar deal to somewhere beautiful in the future
Yay for Chase Sapphire preferred!!
So jealous! I’ve been overdue for a vacation since my Cali trip last May but since I just started my new job I haven’t racked up enough vacation days yet
We may just end up waiting and saving up for a big honeymoon trip next year. Fiji sounds beautiful! It’s also a place I probably wouldn’t consider either unless it was a really good deal like in your case.
I’m incredibly jealous! I need to start saving my points.
WOW! That is an amazing deal! I hope you have fun (planning/anticipation is half the fun, right?) and share photos!
That is so awesome! I am about to cash out my spg card point for Maui. 48000 point for 4 nights. Crazy! Your seem like a lot better in value!
Ahhh, I can’t wait for all the beautiful vacay photos! $2658/pp is so insane O_O I’m still trying to get my head around the whole points & miles game, but it’s nice to see what the fruits of all the researching-labor come out to when(/if? haha) I finally do get it! ;P
Yay! This is so exciting. I enjoyed following your Japan journey. Excited to see pics from this vacation. : )
Congrats, that is amazing!!
Ack so jealous of all the travelling you’re doing – that’s an amazing price with the point, have a great time!
That trip sounds amazing, I’m so excited for you guys! I get to travel a lot for work so I’m planning on getting a good credit card deal to rack up miles/points for hotels and plane tickets – could you do a post on how your system sort of works for when you cash out points and what you recommend? Thanks
Sure thing I’ll write up a post about it!
How exciting!! I can’t wait to see the pictures!
Thanks to your posts, I’ll be switching over my credit cards to rewards (which makes sense because I use them more than I’d like to admit).
Att this point, how many credit cards do you have and which ones?
Did you cancel your old cards when you obtain the new rewards cards?
Before I started using travel rewards credit cards, I had only the Blue/Green American Express with cashback rewards and Costco membership, as well as some random Citicard with cash back.
Now I have:
1. AMEX Starwood (everyday spend card #1)
2. Chase Sapphire Preferred (everyday spend card #2)
3. Chase Ink Bold (will downgrade to the fee free one before my year is up)
4. Chase United (I just got the 50K miles from this, will cancel later when I get a new Chase card)
5. Chase British Airways Visa (I just got the 50K miles, will cancel later when I get a new Chase card)
I’d recommend NOT to cancel ANY credit card that you have prior to getting new cards. You could potentially cancel a card with a longstanding relationship with that bank.. and the longer your average credit history, the better. Just put it in a drawer somewhere for safekeeping and to make room in your wallet for your new cards.
pls stuff me in your bags.