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Christmas Vacation
Before summer even started, we were already contemplating our annual tropical Christmas Vacation. Given that sunshine in Buffalo, NY is limited; we knew we would be running low on that Vitamin D come December. A warm getaway to survive the cold winter months would be critical. Dave and I gave each other the silent head-nod and opened up the Southwest Airline booking portal.
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Southwest Airlines
We opt to fly Southwest Airlines for short domestic and Caribbean trips as the value of the Southwest Companion Pass is hard to beat in the Basic Travel World! This pass provides us with Buy-One-Get-One-Free-Flights. Because of all of the great deals on flights, we try to book early for the holiday season so that we don’t get caught in holiday push, where they push the fares up for people traveling during that time period. We checked their website to see when the flight schedule would open which would give us an advantage to being one of the first customers in the booking portal during the opening day.
Flight Booking
The flights back to New York were the same price to fly there at $243.20. The taxes though were a little more expensive at $73.51. So we would have paid $316.71 (flight cost + Companion Pass and taxes for Dave) for the way home. Flying there would be $93.80 (Taxes as we booked with points and companion pass for the way there. The out of pocket cost should have been $410.51. However, we decided to use our Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card which allows us to ‘erase’ the cost of the flights! We were able to use 41,100 Venture Rewards Miles to eliminate the $410.51 fee, with a statement credit. This netted our flight costs to $0.00 (or Free 99 as Dave likes to put it.)
Capital One Venture Credit Card
Earn a 100,000 welcome bonus once you spend $20,000 on purchases within the first 12 months from account opening. You can earn 50,000 after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months. You will then have 12 months to spend the remaining $17,000.
Visit our Top Credit Cards Page for our favorite cards!
Basic Thoughts: We love these Venture Miles as they are incredibly easy to use and redeem. You also always earn an unlimited 2x miles on every purchase, every day.
Learn More Here.
Don't quite need Airline or Hotel credit cards just yet? If you are looking for a Cash Back Credit Card, 0% intro APR or a Balance Transfer Card, we've got you covered with our Top Credit Card Offers.
Accommodation
Now that we have flights covered for 2 round trip tickets to The Dominican Republic, it was time to dig into securing our hotel accommodations! Originally we had plans for a hotel in Punta Cana. We were going to be using one of the TimeShare trips we secured from our Thanksgiving Timeshare trip down to Mexico. Annoyingly, they did not allow us to book until after we attended the presentation in Mexico. Since this was only going to be a few weeks before our trip, we didn’t want to risk it. It would be cutting it way too close during the holiday season.
So we scrambled for a plan B and pulled up our Basic Travel Spreadsheet. After a thorough review of our hotel points we found that we had some Wyndham points stashed away!
Wyndham Points
Looking up for the dates that coincided with our flights, we found the Viva Wyndham V Samana Hotel. They also had availability and it was an all-inclusive hotel! We immediately jumped on this opportunity and booked 5 nights at the Wyndham Samana for 75,000 Wyndham points. This cost $0 out of
In total, we spent $0 for a 6 day,
Want a quick getaway trip yourself? Here are the cards to open to snag this trip and get the Southwest Companion Pass:
Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card
You can earn 65,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months. Learn More Here.
Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Credit Card
Earn 80,000 bonus Southwest Rapid Rewards after you spend $5,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening. This is a great card for business owners. Learn More Here.
Basic Travel Couple Big Breakdown:
- 2 Roundtrip Flights from Buffalo to Punta Cana: cost: $972.80, paid $0
- Points Used: 13,182 Rapid Rewards Points and 41,100 Venture points.
- 5 nights at Viva Wyndham V Samana: 75,000 points
- Grand Total Paid: $0!
Grand Total What it Should have cost: $3,467.80 (Flights, hotel)
Capital One Venture Credit Card
Earn a 100,000 welcome bonus once you spend $20,000 on purchases within the first 12 months from account opening. You can earn 50,000 after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months. You will then have 12 months to spend the remaining $17,000.
Basic Thoughts: We love these Venture Miles as they are incredibly easy to use and redeem. You also always earn an unlimited 2x miles on every purchase, every day.
Learn More Here.
Ready to apply for a credit card? Check out our Top Credit Cards page to learn more and to start your journey!
New to Credit Card Rewards Points? Check out the BASICS Below!
- Learn how to utilize credit card points with our Basic Travel Course
- Basic Travel 101
- Basic Travel 102
- Credit Scores 101
- Knowing the Rules
- 5/24 Status
- Top Credit Card Offers
- How to Earn Credit Card Bonuses
- Expedited Airport Screening
- Cashback Sites
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10 comments
Wow this is really great!! I have heard about people using points to travel for free! Thank you for sharing how you did it!!
You’re welcome! We can teach you how if you are interested!
Wow….0$ for what should have cost 3,000$? Damn, I’d love to do this soon.
Yes! Let us know when you are ready, we’d love to teach you!
wow the headline is so catchy Loved it ..
And the post is very informative
Thanks for sharing with us
Thank you so much!! We really appreciate it!
I’d still consider a cost involved. Annual Fees,and just because you have points doesn’t mean using the top of the line room. Could’ve probably used them for additional vacation.
Actually since we have diamond status with Wyndham, we got upgraded to the best room with a plunge pool. But we have plenty of points to spare for other vacations! Thanks for your input.
Didn’t you pay 46.90 in taxes for both of you to get there on SW?
Yes, we did but then we used out Capital One Venture card to help ‘erase’ those fees, so we didn’t pay it as we had points cover it! 🙂