Our Reader Success Story from Jen takes us to Long Beach and Sequoia National Park. This included a diving experience, which they are passionate about! Here’s her story:

I’ve been in the points-and-miles hobby for about two years now. Before I found Points Talk Squad, I did some of the common things that others do. I got a Delta card and put all of my spending on that because I’m near a Delta hub and fly with them regularly. I used to get so excited for my one free flight a year! Now, everything has changed. I got my husband fully on board, and over the past two years we have averaged about a million points a year through welcome offers alone.

We both run our own businesses (he’s an IT consultant and I’m a wedding photographer), so business cards have been a huge piece of our card strategy.  Top cards in our wallets include the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Ink cards (I love the Ink Business Cash® Credit Card for the 5x categories), and Amex business cards like the Business Platinum Card® from American Express.  My husband is fully addicted to airport lounges and no longer minds getting to the airport early.

On the very first trip my husband and I took together, we went scuba diving in Hawaii. This was 12 years ago, long before we knew anything about points and miles, but we have been avid scuba divers ever since. Many of our travels focus on various diving locations across the globe. We have three young kids, so this can be difficult, but we love that points let us take more frequent short getaways to get our diving fix.  Last year, for our anniversary, we took a quick trip to Southern California to dive on Catalina Island and visit Sequoia National Park.

 

 

Breakdown of Points and Miles

Flights: We flew Delta from MSP to LAX for 28,500 Delta SkyMiles per person (57,000 total). These were points I still had from my Delta card, and I also get 15% off points bookings because I hold the card.  Flight costs would have been $350 per person, so we saved $700 on our flights and only paid the $11.20 in taxes each.

Hotels: We split our stay between two locations.

First, I booked two nights at the Hyatt Centric The Pike Long Beach, which is in World of Hyatt Category 4. It was 15,000 points per night, and I applied a Guest of Honor award to our stay, so we got free breakfast, free parking, and a suite upgrade. I earned these points with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card and transferred them to Hyatt. I got the Guest of Honor award from a friend. This location was perfect because we could walk from the hotel to the ferry to Catalina Island. We loved the rooftop pool and how easy it was to walk to many restaurants around this area.

 

 

Second, we spent two nights at Hyatt Place Bakersfield. I chose to pay cash for this one, since the cost was low and I wanted to save points for another trip where we could get more value. I paid $135 per night here. It was clean, had a decent breakfast, and was perfectly fine. We were going to be out and about at Sequoia National Park, so we didn’t feel like we needed anything fancy for a hotel here.

 

Highlights of the Trip

1. Catalina Island has been on our bucket list for a long time, but it is so expensive to stay on the island. This was a perfect setup for a day trip over there to dive. The diving was cold but so fun—incredible kelp forests to explore!
2. My husband has always wanted to “see the big trees” in California, so this was a great way to see the stunning Sequoia National Park. We even saw a bear!
3. When we got married, we committed to still traveling together, and now that we have points and miles in our pockets, we can do it much more often than we ever imagined!

 

 

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Reader Success Story to Southern California

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