We’re Going To Bali For 10 Nights For (Almost) Free – Here’s How

Shae and I are super-excited as we recently booked a trip to Bali to celebrate our 15th anniversary next year.

Our 10 night stay at a Bali beachside resort is made even better by the fact that we’ve paid for the entire trip using points and miles. Our only cost is ~$130 to pay for flight taxes as they’re something not covered by miles.

We didn’t earn these points through business travel; instead, most of those points were earned through credit card signup bonuses. That means a vacation like ours is something within reach for you too.

Here’s an explanation for how we did it.

Hotel

We’re going to be staying at the Hyatt Regency Bali (Update: we had a great stay there, so here’s our review of the Hyatt Regency Bali). This hotel used to be a Hyatt, but it’s been closed recently for renovations and will be rebranding as a Hyatt Regency once it reopens in early 2019.

Considering its location and how nice it looks, it’s surprising that it’s only a category 1 property in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. That means it only costs 5,000 points per night which is excellent value.

Taking into account the 10% service charge and 11% state tax, our stay would’ve cost $2,232.45 if we’d paid cash.  Seeing as we’re staying there for 10 nights, we instead paid a total of 50,000 points. That means we’re getting 4.46cpp (cents per point) of value which is excellent for World of Hyatt points.

The World of Hyatt credit card from Chase is currently offering a signup bonus of up to 60,000 points. You get 40,000 points when spending $3,000 on the card in the first three months, then a further 20,000 points if you spend a further $3,000 within the first six months of opening the card.

We didn’t get our points that way though. Instead, I transferred 50,000 points from my Chase Ultimate Rewards balance which I’d built up through credit card signups and category bonuses, such as earning 5 points per dollar on my Chase Ink Plus card at office supply stores and 3 points per dollar on travel and dining expenses with Shae’s Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

Check out a couple of helpful posts on Frequent Miler for more about how to earn Ultimate Rewards and their travel transfer partners like Hyatt, IHG, Southwest, United and more.

Upgrade

Seeing as we booked using points, only the lowest room type was available. That means we booked a room with a king bed which likely has a garden view rather than ocean view. Still, it’s hardly the ugliest hotel room I’ve ever seen 😉

Seeing as Shae and I now live in hotels and Airbnbs, we’ve ended up staying at several Hyatt properties this year and have about 40 further nights booked for the rest of this year. That means I’ll soon be earning their highest status level – Globalist – which requires 60 nights in a calendar year.

One of the benefits of Globalist status is free access to the Club Lounge. That means we’ll get free breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres during our stay, helping save us money on meals.

Another benefit is a room upgrade, including a suite when available. As a suite isn’t guaranteed, we’ll be using some suite upgrade awards – another benefit of Globalist status. You get four of these a year when achieving Globalist status and each one can be used on stays of up to 7 nights. As we’ll be staying 10 nights, we’ll need to use two upgrades to cover the entire stay. Those upgrades will ensure we get to stay in a suite rather than having to rely on availability the day we arrive.

It looks like suites are anything from 580 sq ft to 870 sq ft, so there’s the potential for it to be larger than our old apartment!

Flights – US To Bali

Booking the hotel was easy; finding award flights was harder. When planning our trip to Australia and New Zealand last year, we’d saved up a ton of American Airlines miles. We weren’t able to find award availability for that trip, so we still had loads of miles laying around, although we used some last year to fly us and two friends to Ireland.

The problem I had this time was that many flights bookable using American Airlines AAdvantage miles weren’t showing up on the American Airlines website. To find availability, I had to use Qantas’s website. That’s because many award flights displayed on there can also be booked using American Airlines miles.

We wanted to leave our dog Truffles with the person she’s stayed with in the past, so we’re heading back to Portsmouth VA and flying out of Norfolk. We found economy flights from Norfolk to New York to Hong Kong to Bali, so booked one-way flights for both of us. That cost 37,500 miles per person, so 75,000 miles total. Although we booked using American Airlines miles, the New York to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Bali flights are on Cathay Pacific.

I have an American Airlines credit card offering a 10% miles rebate when booking award flights. I’ll therefore get 7,500 miles back, making the net cost 67,500 miles. The flight taxes were minimal at $10.10 per person, so $20.20 overall.

It’s currently possible to get an American Airlines credit card offering 60,000 miles after making one purchase. It has a $95 annual fee, but 60,000 miles for $95 is a great return seeing as that’s enough for a round trip flight to Europe or almost enough for a round trip flight to Asia.

Flights – Bali To US

I had some additional problems finding flights from Bali back to the US. Neither American Airlines nor Qantas showed any flights bookable with American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

Our outbound flights were on hold at the time and I didn’t want to take the risk of letting them go, only to not have them be available at a later date. I therefore took a look at some other options seeing as we have miles with several airlines, along with transferable miles with Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards.

When checking Delta, there were one-way award flights for 52,000 miles per person. That’s significantly more miles than we redeemed for our outbound flights, so I was reticent redeeming that many. However, they had good availability for the dates we needed and so we went ahead and booked those.

We’re flying from Bali to Tokyo on Garuda Indonesia, then Tokyo to Atlanta and Atlanta to Norfolk, both on Delta. Taxes were $51.31 per person, so $102.62 total. I had to transfer a few thousand miles from my American Express Membership Rewards balance to Delta (one of their transfer partners), so there was an additional $5.40 tax offset fee. That means the total taxes and fees for our flights came to $128.22.

Something fun about the return journey is that we have a long layover in Tokyo. Shae remembered seeing a video on Facebook of a hedgehog cafe in Tokyo where you can hold hedgehogs while having something to eat and drink. We’ll therefore take advantage of our time there by visiting that cafe and doing a bit of exploring in Tokyo.

Additional Costs

As cheap as our vacation will be, there’ll be a few additional costs. First of all, we need someone to look after Truffles. We found a dog boarder on Rover several years ago who’s amazing, so we’ll be leaving Truffles with her.

Thanks to a current Rover Amex Offer, we’ve been able to book her in for a net cost of $310. We’ll also be earning 4,000 Membership Rewards along the way due to that offer. What’s funny is that Truffles’s accommodation is costing us more than our actual vacation!

We’ll no doubt spend some money in Bali as well. Breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres will be covered at the hotel, but we’ll also want lunch. Although the hotel has restaurants, we’ll likely also head offsite to check out local restaurants and street food. Some of my favorite meals when we lived in Thailand were from local food stalls, so we’ll hopefully find some good local places in Bali too.

Final Thoughts

So that’s how we’re “affording” our vacation. It’s not by spending a lot of money, but rather by taking advantage of credit card signup bonuses.

To be clear – we have no debt and pay zero interest on credit cards as they’re paid off each month. Credit card signup bonuses are simply a great source of points and miles for travel. Let me know in the comments below if you have any further questions about how we did this.

• We’re Going To Bali For 10 Nights For (Almost) Free – Here’s How
• Flight Antics On The Way To Bali – Here’s What Happened
• Flight Review: Cathay Pacific Economy – Washington Dulles (IAD) To Hong Kong (HKG)
• Review: Cathay Pacific The Pier Business Class Lounge, Hong Kong Airport
• 12 Fun Things To Do In Bali (& 1 To Avoid)
• Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Bali
• Hiring A Driver In Bali – Is It Worth It?
• Having Elephant Mud Fun At The Bali Zoo
• Flight Review: Garuda Indonesia Economy – Denpasar (DPS) To Tokyo Narita (NRT)
• Flight Review: Delta Economy – Tokyo Narita (NRT) To Atlanta (ATL)