How We Saved $1000 By Flying to a Wedding and Buying a Gift with Points!

We often collect miles and points for that special yearly vacation to a far away destination like Europe, Asia or a Caribbean island. And we certainly value those. But miles and points are also great for those more “necessary” activities in life we’re obliged to attend… like weddings. We are always happy to be there for our friends and family to celebrate that special day, but attending that celebration can be quite a costly affair. After flights, hotels, extra transportation costs and wedding gifts, our wallets are hurting.

A few weeks ago, we attended a wedding in Chicago… and luckily, miles and points paid for everything. Even the wedding present. The points we used saved us what would otherwise cost us around $1000. These may be expenses we don’t notice or write off as necessary, but they cost just as much as any other weekend trip – and finding a way to offset those costs with points allows us to free up our budget for everything else in life.

Flights with British Airways Avios

Round-trip tickets from New York to Chicago typically cost around $250-$300. Most airlines have flights between the two cities, but the major airline programs charge 12,500 miles each way. Paying 25,000 miles for a $300 isn’t really good value for our miles; we’d like to get a better redemption than 1.2 cents per mile. Fortunately, the British Airways Avios award chart charges by distance per segment and their miles can be redeemed on American Airlines and US Airways flights. As the distance from New York to Chicago is just 900 miles, a SAAver space economy award ticket on American Airlines will only cost 7,500 miles each way. 15,000 miles for a $300 ticket is a much better redemption!

Hotels and Transportation

I have plenty of family in Chicago so didn’t need a hotel. Having family in different places is always a plus! Moreover, with our trip, we got to kill two birds with one stone – a family visit and a wedding. We did rent a car that cost about $30 a day and booked it through the Citi ThankYou points portal.

And finally… how did we pay for a nice wedding present with points?

The Wedding Present with Citi ThankYou Points

Fernanda, the bride, has actually become a very dedicated follower of The Miles Professor. With the tips she found here, was able to plan what she called the “honeymoon of her dreams” completely with points. She’s been very busy collecting miles and redeemed them for two round-trip flights to the Hawaiian island of Kauai with a weeklong stay at the Grand Hyatt Kauai by transferring her Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt Gold Passport.

Knowing this, our wedding gift idea came very naturally. As Hawaii is full of expenses and she was planning to stay at a Hyatt, we decided to get her Hyatt gift checks. We paid for these with our Citi ThankYou points. This is also exactly what we did when we stayed at the Grand Hyatt Kauai last December – used Hyatt gift checks to pay for dinner, hotel incidentals and even kayak tours booked through the hotel. We knew Fernanda was booking a number of activities – boat rides, kayak tours, dinners – and that those gift checks would be a valuable addition to her trip! She was very happy to have them.

(As a disclaimer, I do usually give money as a present when attending weddings and I, by no means, advocate using points as a way of being cheap and skimping on presents. Fernanda, however, made is very clear she preferred any present to be a “honeyfund”. So this was very much in line with what she wanted!)

Summary

Attending weddings is often costly. Our tickets to Chicago and a wedding present altogether would have cost us close to $1000 if we didn’t have our miles and points to help us out. But for 30,000 British Airways Avios and 36,000 Citi ThankYou points, we had it all covered!