My first blog post about our honeymoon is going to focus on how we redeemed credit card points to fly Singapore Airlines Suites! I was super-honored that The Points Guy Instagram shared my Instagram story about this, because TPG is the site where I got a lot of my information on how to book our flights!

Sign up for the right credit card.

Multiply your Points Per Dollar (PPD).

Think about what your largest expenses are and will be in the foreseeable future. Then, research which cards will maximize your spending. In the throes of wedding planning, the Chase Sapphire Reserve made the most sense for us. We earned 3 PPD spent at hotels and food & beverage establishments. That meant that for every dollar spent on catering and venue rentals for our rehearsal dinner and wedding, we earned 3 points. We also signed up for the American Express Platinum card, which offers 5 PPD spent on airfare booked through airlines and hotels booked through the American Express website. Both of these credit cards carry a hefty annual fee, but also a ton of benefits, including airport lounge access and credit to cover an application for Global Entry. 

Consider sign-up bonuses.

One of the huge draws of signing up for both cards was the number of bonus incentive points awarded after spending a specific sum in a certain time frame after opening the card. We earned 60,000 bonus points from the Chase Sapphire and 100,000 bonus points on Amex.

Plan as far ahead as possible.

Research options until you know exactly what you want to use the points for. Then, as quickly as possible, figure out how many of them you’ll need to accumulate. We decided on Southeast Asia for our honeymoon, and began planning a two-week trip to Laos, Singapore, and Indonesia. Since we were traveling in a less popular season (January), we were able to secure great hotel deals. Then we turned to what would ordinarily make up the bulk of the costs for long-distance travel: airfare.

One of Saul’s airline employee benefits is a guaranteed round-trip economy flight annually for him and his spouse (omg, I’m a spouse now!). We took advantage of this for the flights between Mexico City and Tokyo, and then set about planning the rest of our trip. If we didn’t have Saul’s flight benefits, we could have flown from the US to Singapore in premium economy for fewer points than we used to fly suites within Asia! We also could have upgraded to business class by spending a bit more. But we had our sights on the glamorous Singapore Airlines suites, which at the time, retailed at $6,000 per person… each way. Spending $24,000 on a trip – let alone only on a portion of airfare – was so insanely and laughably out of our budget, I focused on making it a possibility with credit card points. 

Sign up for free airline frequent-flyer memberships and learn the rules to maximize award flights.

Singapore Airlines’ Krisflyer rewards program is free to join, and offers both regular and “saver” fares utilizing points. Saver fares are points redemptions that require fewer points to book. The website allowed me to easily calculate how many points we’d need for the trip and cabin type we wanted. We booked far enough in advance to nab two saver fare tickets. Although it was a steep redemption, Krisflyer reward flights include one stopover on the same itinerary at no additional charge (plus one open-jaw flight on saver fares)! I also learned from reading One Mile at a Time that you can actually add three stopovers for $100 each, although we didn’t use that option. So, for 140,000 points each, we could each fly the following routes:

• Tokyo to Singapore: 7 hour flight in Singapore Airlines Suites
• Singapore to Bangkok: 2 hour flight in Singapore Airlines Business Class (suites not available on this route)
• Bangkok to Singapore: 3 hour flight in Singapore Airlines Business Class (suites not available on this route)
• Singapore to Tokyo: 6 hour flight in Singapore Airlines Suites

It never hurts to ask for a favor.

At the time I found the saver fares, we hadn’t yet accumulated all of the points that we needed. I called the airline and asked if they would be able to hold the seats for a short period of time. I was shocked by the incredible customer service I received! Not only did the agent offer to hold them for MONTHS, she booked the tickets in our name, assigned seats, and even put in a note about it being our honeymoon – without me committing a single point or dollar. When we were finally ready to book, I simply transferred the 140,000 points from Chase and Amex to Krisflyer. The taxes and fees amounted to $120 per person.

The first stop on our honeymoon was Luang Prabang, Laos. Singapore Air and its affiliates don’t fly to Luang Prabang at this time of year, but I was able to add roundtrip business-class tickets to our existing Singapore Air reservation without an additional fee for us to get halfway there (Bangkok). Then, we just needed to purchase tickets to get us from Bangkok to Luang Prabang. We booked flights on Lao Airlines for $134.30 each, and our flights back to Bangkok were Bangkok Airways for $102.60 each. 

Our travel from Singapore to Indonesia was included in the hotel cost.

So, cumulatively we spent:

$0 on flights from Mexico City to Tokyo

$120 in taxes for flights from Tokyo to Singapore

$0 on flights from Singapore to Bangkok

$268.60 on flights from Bangkok to Luang Prabang

$205.20 on flights from Luang Prabang to Bangkok

$0 on flights from Bangkok to Singapore

$120 in for flights from Singapore to Tokyo

$0 on flights from Tokyo to Mexico City

_______

$713.80 total for 2 people to take 8 flights in between 5 countries

I woke up to a surprise email several weeks after booking, stating that our seat assignments had changed. After a bit of scrambling and several calls to the airline, we learned that this was a good thing! Singapore Airlines is upgrading their fleet and adding the new A-380 configuration to more routes. This change meant that we’d be flying in a cabin with only 6 Singapore Suites, instead of 12! Plus, with the new design, we would each get a chair AND a bed, instead of a chair that converts to a bed. This was about to be the most exclusive flight of our lives.

Check out my post about our experience actually flying Singapore Suites. And y’all, let me just tell you, the buzz about the Singapore Suites is NOT over-hyped.

To learn more about how you can book luxury travel using credit card points, click here to subscribe to my newsletter and get my free guide!