Through a series of testimonials from our readers, Milesopedia presents what you can achieve with credit cards and loyalty programs.
Here’s Isabelle and her family’s Disney trip and the savings she’s made with points.
My partner and I are 42 years old and I’ve been a Milesopedia reader since 2018.
When we travel as a family, we try to save money. We achieve this by staying in budget hotels that are recent and well rated on TripAdvisor and Google. We eat infast food restaurants and like to visit the main tourist attractions available.
As my husband and son live with an autism spectrum disorder, we try to alternate visiting days with rest days, which they need to clear their minds.
We went as a family: my partner, my father, our two children aged 7 and 11 and me. Our project was an 8-day trip to Orlando in the winter of 2023. Our itinerary was as follows:
The flights from Quebec City to Orlando and the car rental were paid for in cash.
We stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Orlando at FLAMINGO CROSSINGS Town Center for 7 nights and booked two different rooms. For this booking, we used 296,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.
The money saved on accommodation totals $4094!
The points were used to buy tickets for the Disney parks, as well as restaurants, gas and souvenirs. In total, our savings consist of :
Note: the trick of buying a Disney gift card at Jean-Coutu with Cash Air Miles no longer works. However, these gift cards are still on sale in grocery stores, and this article deals with the subject.
By combining several strategies and types of points, we saved $3580 on activities and various expenses during our trip to Disney.
My partner and I teamed up to collect the points. We ordered a total of 6 credit cards over a 3-year period.
With our credit cards, we have obtained some additional travel benefits such as:
To accumulate lots of Air Miles, we took advantage of many promotions at Jean-Coutu, Shell and other partners. We also bought our Disney gift cards at the promotional rate of 75 Air Miles for $10.
When we had a welcome bonus to unlock, we concentrated all our spending on a single card to achieve the minimum spend required. For example, we used to pay for groceries, gas, school and municipal taxes on one specific credit card.
All in all, we saved an impressive $7674 on our Disney trip! Here is a breakdown of the amounts saved in each category:
As often mentioned on Milesopedia:
The hunt for points is not a race, but a marathon.
For us, it was a 3-year marathon. In closing, if I could only keep one credit card in my wallet, it would be the American Express Cobalt® Card.
Without you, I don’t think I could have made this trip. Thanks Milesopedia!
Read on for more testimonials from members of the Milesopedia community:
Savings are here:
