Traveling on Cash and Points, Oregon Edition

[canyonwalker]

Whenever I travel for leisure I look at whether it's better to pay with cash or points. I have points with several airlines and hotel chains, so I have lots of options. While it's almost always possible to pay with points, the rates aren't always worth it. Often I end up booking less than half the flight/hotel costs with points. On our recent trip to Oregon for the long July 4th weekend, though, I found decent points rates for most of it. Five Things:

• We booked all four of our hotel nights on points. For one I used a free night cert I get from owning a credit card. I look at the certs as paying for the card's $49 annual fee. We saved almost $200 by using that cert vs. paying cash for comparable accommodations, so the card's fee is more than paid for this year. (I routinely expect to make these certs worth $150.)


• Three of the nights came from Hawk's points. Yes, she collects points, too, though not as aggressively as I do. Basically I recommend where she open a new credit card once or twice a year for the signup bonus and then suggest when/where it's worth redeeming points when we travel. In the lingo of the card churning discussion boards I participate in she's a "P2".


• The flights I split. We flew on points out and cash home. There was a cheap enough points rate on the outbound leg. Home-bound it was more expensive so I paid cash.


• When flying Southwest there's another variable in the calculus about when to use points vs. cash: status. Redeeming points is great, but it doesn't renew my elite status each year. My plan to remain dual-elite with Southwest this year (A-List Preferred and Companion Pass) entails buying tickets worth a certain amount of money. That helped push one of the flight legs above the threshold where it makes more sense to pay cash than redeem points.


• The rental car we paid with cash. I stopped chasing free-day rewards with car rental companies years ago when they all massively devalued their programs. I credit car rental points to my airline programs instead. The car rental cost us a bit over $200. But I look at it as having gotten our money's worth by driving it 738 miles.