Welcome to my first update post after I announced our Year Long Honeymoon plans last month! Check back on that post if you missed it and to view our full itinerary for June 2022-June 2023. I am planning to post an update each month leading up to and during the trip. We have a few exciting announcements since our last post:
Andrew got selected to run the Berlin Marathon in September 2022!
I’ve decided that my official last day of work as an accountant will be May 13th! Andrew is going to work for two more weeks after I quit while I work on packing up our lives (and sneak in a quick 4 day cruise to the Bahamas.)
In the past two months we’ve made a lot of progress on our savings and credit card point accumulation. As more pieces of our travel puzzle have come together, like knowing we’ll be in Berlin for the marathon, and our family booking their flights for Amsterdam in July, more of our itinerary is being set in stone. I’m trying to balance maintaining as much flexibility for our schedule as we can, but also booking things early to save money. Most of the first two months of our trip is booked, and I’ll walk through all of that, plus our point savings and redemptions below.
What We've Booked So Far
US Road Trip
Most National Park campground fill up really quickly so I’ve reserved almost all our nights for our roadtrip. I wish we could have more flexibility, but the National Park system has implemented timed entry tickets and hiking permits to reduce park crowds. Timed entry tickets are now required for Rocky Mountain and Arches National Parks and you must enter a lottery for a hiking permit for Angel’s Landing in Zion. Due to all these constraints, our road trip itinerary is pretty set in stone. I have reserved the following stays for road trip:
2 nights in a cabin at Lake of the Ozarks State Park $53/night
2 nights Kansas City Airbnb $108/night
2 nights Rocky Mountain National Park Camping $30/night
2 nights near Mesa Verde National Park Airbnb $93/night
2 nights Sedona Airbnb $130/night
2 nights Grand Canyon National Park camping $18/night
1 night Bryce Canyon National Park camping $20/night
2 night Zion National Park Lodge $247/night
3 nights Moab KOA camping $57/night
2 nights Grand Teton National Park camping $45/night
We haven’t paid for everything yet but I’m estimating that we’ll spend about $1,900 for 24 nights on our road trip, putting us at an average of $80 a night. I’ve budgeted for $150/day on our road trip, so that leave $70 a day for food and gas and everything else. With gas prices so high right now, I’m not so sure we’ll be able to stick to that. Wish us luck!
Europe
We’re meeting family and then some friends back to back in mid-late July and some stuff is still up in the air. However, I’ve booked all our flights and lodging that we’ll take from when we leave for Europe until then! We also booked our room for when we’ll be in Berlin for the marathon, and they were already so expensive! Our final thing we’ve already booked is a 7 night cruise for our 1st wedding anniversary, but I discussed that a bit in my last post.
Flights from ORD-LHR Cash $340 each
flights LHR-PRG points (discussed below)
flights WAW-AMS points (discussed below)
4 nights London Airbnb $79.25/night
7 nights Prague Airbnb $40.50/night
7 nights Krakow Airbnb $48/night
4 nights Warsaw Hotel points (discussed below)
4 nights in a 4 bed private hostel room in Berlin for the Marathon $154/night but hopefully 1 or 2 people stay with us a few nights to share the cost
7 night Greek Isles Cruise $1,162 total for both of us with an exterior room $166/night including food. This should have been $1,662 but American Express was running a $500 back offer for Royal Caribbean
Credit Card and Airline Points Update
Cards in my wallet:
- Amex Everyday Preferred
- Delta SkyMiles Platinum
- Citi Premier
- Southwest Priority
- Chase Sapphire Preferred
- Amex Platinum
- IHG Premier
After everything we’ve booked so far, we have the following points remaining. The estimated dollar value of the points is taken from a good old Google search of how much each company’s points can be worth based on an average redemption. Almost all of the points we have are from opening new credit cards (or upgrading existing cards) and hitting the minimum required spend to get the intro bonus points. We also racked up quite a few points by spending $$$$$$ on our wedding.
Kailyn American Express: 273,457 points worth ~ $3,281
Kailyn Chase Ultimate Rewards: 114,821 points worth ~ $1,722
Kailyn IHG: 129,977 points worth ~ $695
Kailyn Delta : 24,162 points + Andrew Delta: 20,800 points worth ~ $584
Kailyn United: 1,705 points + Andrew United: 40,368 points worth ~ $475
Kailyn American: 4,253 points + Andrew American: 63,500 points worth ~ $813
Kailyn Citi Thank You: 83,444 points worth ~ $1,251
Total Rewards Points Remaining: 756,479 redeemable for about $8,778
Point Redemptions
LHR-PRA – I redeemed 18,500 British Airways Avios and $2 for two tickets on a flight from London to Prague. The flights had a cash value of $385 so this was a great redemption at 1.85 cents per point. The only downside here is that I transferred American Express points to my British Airways account, and that can only be done in increments of 1,000 so now I have 500 points left over sitting in my BA account.
WAW-AMS – I redeemed 20,000 Delta points and paid $40 for two tickets on a KLM flight from Warsaw to Amsterdam. The cash value of the flights was $306 total which gave me a redemption of 1.33 cents per point. This is right on track with an average redemption for Delta.
4 Nights at an IHG hotel in Warsaw – When using points to book an IHG hotel, every 4th night is free, so I am trying to only use IHG points when we’re staying somewhere for 4 nights. I redeemed 36,000 IHG points for 4 nights at a Holiday Inn Express in Warsaw. The cash value of those 4 nights is $324 so at .9 cents per point, this was a good use of IHG points. Generally anything over .5 cents is a good redemption for IHG.
In total for those 3 redemptions we’ve saved $932 by booking with points!
A little bonus redemption that was necessary for the trip but not actual travel: Andrew redeemed 66,600 Chase points to get me a new $1,000 MacBook Air when they were having a 50% bonus redemption with Apple. It’s so cool that by putting a big chunk of our wedding spend on Andrew’s Chase Sapphire Reserve, he was able to get me a free laptop!
Spending/Savings Tallies as of the End of the Month
As I mentioned in my first Year Long Honeymoon Post, our goal is to spend less than $50,000 on our year of travels. We haven’t saved up quite that much yet but I’m confident we’ll meet our goal before we leave! So far I am also feeling pretty good about staying within that budget.
As of the end of February 2022 we’ve spent $2,452.84 and 36,000 points on 40 nights of lodging, $724 and 38,500 points on 3 flights for 2 people , and$1,162 on 7 night cruise. That totals $4,338.84 and 74,500 points, which leaves us $45,661 and 765,479 points (and counting) for ~325 nights of lodging, countless flights, busses, trains, taxis, museums, food, beer, coffee, tours, wine, more food, and whatever else we decide we need. This really will be the adventure of a lifetime, I can’t believe it’s happening in 3 months!
Let me know if you have any questions about credit card sign up bonuses, redeeming points, or anything with our itinerary in the comments below!
12 Comments
I’m so excited for you and Andrew!! I had no idea how many credit card points you had saved up but that’s awesome that you have almost $10,000 worth of point credit to use for this trip! It’s too bad that US National Parks are so stringent about scheduling but I guess that’s how it is with more and more people getting back out into nature and enjoying them.
So exciting to watch the adventure unfold! I love that credit card points are a major part of your travel budget – they definitely unlock a lot of doors. How exciting that Andrew’s doing the Berlin marathon. I’d be interested to hear how he fits his training in with all your travels!
I assume there will be a lot of early morning runs while I’m still in bed or blogging 🙂 Plus I’m hoping he will find cool areas or parks of whatever current city we’re in and take me back to them later!
I am so impressed at how well organized your plan is! You got this! I am so excited for you and can’t wait to read all about it.
I went back and looked at your year-long plan, and can I say: Slovenia is a great addition, Georgia is a wonderful wine-soaked adventure and the food there is brilliant as well. Malaysia is seriously underrated as a destination—it’s a mostly-modern stable area with wonderful food that not many know about. Eat laksa and canai roti every morning.
Can I say: Based on your post, I guessed you were an accountant! You’re keeping track of points and miles and $$ just like a bean-counter. Be proud of that! It will serve you well. $50k sounds like a good budget to me.
We must have similar taste in destinations, Slovenia and Georgia and two of the countries I’m most looking forward to visiting! And yes, being an accountant does help in certain areas, I couldn’t live without my Google Sheets!
Wooow what an adventure! It is crazy how much planning has gone into this already! I am definitely following you along as you start your honeymoon journey soon! I am sure you will have so much fun!
This does sound like the adventure of a lifetime for sure. I highly recommend eating some barbecue in Kansas City. It’s the best I have eaten anywhere.
This is really fabulous!!! You are such a meticulous planner! I envy that, as I’ve always been a much more “seat of the pants” kind of traveler, but you can miss things that way–it’s the trade off for flexibility! I’d love to know what campgrounds you’re using at the Grand Canyon bc that’s a terrific price and I’ve never been and always wanted to go!
We are staying at Mather Campground in the park. I have never been before either, I can’t wait to see it!
I’m planning my honeymoon and this sounds amazing. The tips and examples of the points are really useful. I’m struggling with whether I should take out a paid card for better points or go for the free ones?
I would definitely Google best current card offers. Maybe go with a card with a smaller annual fee to start, around $100 or so.