American Express Points and loose change to pay for trip?

[katie111]

I'm trying to plan a last minute trip to Disney for January. This will be my kids big Christmas gift this year. DH wants to go but is unsure if we can afford it right now as he is in sales and his sales this year are not as great s they have been in the past. However, we have no debt besides our mortgage and a fair amount of money in the bank for savings (that he really doesn't want to touch for a vacation). I'm trying to come up with creative ways to finance this trip so I can then show my husband that we can afford it. Two things I'm thinking about:

Amex points- he has a Platinum Amex that he uses for work/home that has about 130,000 points on it. If we use the points towards the trip, does anyone know approx how much each point is worth? When I priced the trip out on the Amex site, it was about $2500 for airfare, hotel & tix so I'm trying to figure out approx how much could be covered by the points.

My other idea is one I got from these boards. Since my kids were little we've been filling up piggy banks with loose change. We have about 6 medium size banks that are completely full. The kids have said that they would be fine with putting this $$ towards Disney. Any random guesses as to how much $$ would be in there?

Any other ideas that I might not be thinking of?

Thanks!

 

[hpfan100]

sounds like a good start. Does your husband have frequent flyer or hotel points you could use? Also, I try to buy in parts which makes it is easier to budget. I don't know much about AMEX points so I can't help you there.

now idea how much is in the banks...you better start counting and rolling it up.

 

[Marionnette]

I'm trying to plan a last minute trip to Disney for January. This will be my kids big Christmas gift this year. DH wants to go but is unsure if we can afford it right now as he is in sales and his sales this year are not as great s they have been in the past. However, we have no debt besides our mortgage and a fair amount of money in the bank for savings (that he really doesn't want to touch for a vacation). I'm trying to come up with creative ways to finance this trip so I can then show my husband that we can afford it. Two things I'm thinking about:

Amex points- he has a Platinum Amex that he uses for work/home that has about 130,000 points on it. If we use the points towards the trip, does anyone know approx how much each point is worth? When I priced the trip out on the Amex site, it was about $2500 for airfare, hotel & tix so I'm trying to figure out approx how much could be covered by the points.

My other idea is one I got from these boards. Since my kids were little we've been filling up piggy banks with loose change. We have about 6 medium size banks that are completely full. The kids have said that they would be fine with putting this $$ towards Disney. Any random guesses as to how much $$ would be in there?

Any other ideas that I might not be thinking of?

Thanks!

Its going to depend on how the rewards program is set up. One hundred thirty thousand points on my hilton honors amex would buy three or four nights at a hilton hotel (if rewards rooms are available). On my old airline card it would have been enough for five round trip flights. Again, when available. Sometimes you can redeem points for gift cards or cash. My amazon card will send a fifty dollar check for five thousand points. If your husbands card uses the same matrix then those points would be worth about thirteen hundred dollars. The piggy banks probably have about three or four hundred dollars in them. Less if there are alot of pennies. More if there is folding money in there. Do you have any unused tickets or nonexpiring ones? Or maybe do a no parks trip. Tickets for the family will be the big budget buster. Even with a discount they are still spendy.

 

[Carina]

Do you have mypoints points or do swagbucks, what about Icoke ( or whatever coke calls their points in the US - Dont drink coke, ask friends family and neighbors for their caps. Its time consuming, and wont make a huge dent in your budget, but I usually have at least $100 in gift cards I can then use on our trip

I get gift cards from them for places I can use while on vacation (even if its just a small amount) Sometimes it's gas gift cards, or gift cards for places like subway and such. I know it depends if you are staying on site and not leaving the property. But even so a subway card might be able to buy you lunch on the way to the airport! Or $10 worth of gas to put in the car on the way to the airport ( assuming you are not renting a car in FL)

Do you live in a place that gives refunds on beverage containers? Can you and the kids collect bottles from friends and family and neighbors and use the refund money.

What about trying to trim the grocery budget even once a week and putting what you would've spent that day into the trip fund. Have a pancakes night once a week or a choose from something we have night. When we do this all 5 people end up eating something else, but its usually cleaning the bits and pieces from the fridge and freezer. If I only have 8 perogies in the freezer, it becomes a choice, 2 hotdogs in the pkg, its a choice, leftover meatloaf from last night, ect. Then I offer up the choices and make seperate dinners. I do get the kids in there helping, and really its not as much work as you'ld think...lol probably because several selections only need to be microwaved.
Is this a secret from the kids?

I have no "big" suggestions, but I am a firm beliver in every penny counts....

I'm thinking to convince hubby you need to make a 'real' budget of what it will cost, and how much you have towards it already - cash in coins to find out what is there, or at least roll them all.

Also Find out what you can do with those airline points. You should be able to sign into your account and start to book the package, put your points toward the package and see how much you still have to pay, without being locked into doing it.

Also, realize that the value is not the same on all redemptions for example it may be a better deal to put towards just hotel than towards whole package - and as a FYI, they have hotel gift cards in $25 denominations that can be used at any hotel that takes Amex)

 

[Philleigh]

Call AMEX Membership Rewards - they'll be very helpful in telling you what your points will buy. I had enough AMEX points last Dec. to buy two roundtrip tix on Southwest for BF and me - we used them for a trip to WDW. Can't remember how many points I used - I think it was in the 60,000 range. The plane tickets would have been in the $400+ range each. Didn't have enough for the whole trip, but got free dining at WL, so it was still a cheaper trip than Grand Californian at DL (BF wanted to stay there b/c of its "lodgy" feel), which is in driving distance from us. I think you can apply all of your points, and if you need to, can pay the difference (from your change jars). Good luck!

 

[jel0511]

you can price out how many points you'd need right on Amex's site. Usually you get about $.01 per point of value sometimes it's $.005, so you probably have at least $650 to as much as $1300 in value there. To be honest, the best value is to transfer the points to a frequent club card and use the points that way, you'll have to stay off site or at the swan/dolphin, though 130k Amex points will only get you 4 nights at the swan/dolphin I believe. It's not a none to one conversion to the SPG program, you get 333 SPG points per every 1k AMEX point. It's 10,000 SPG points per night at the swan/dolphin. Using the points for air will also be difficult, as at this time most of the 25k airline tickets are probably gone so you'll end up paying more than that. I also played with Amex's site and saw that if you try to book the whole vacation with points, they only give you about $.008 of value for your points, so it looks like you'd only get approx 1040 credit towards the trip.

 

[katie111]

Thank you so much for all of your responses! I'm definitely going to look into all of these suggestions. I think tonight I'll try to calculate the points online and tomorrow I'll head to the bank with the first of the piggy banks and see what happens. I know there are tons of quarters in there so hopefully we'll hit the jackpot there!

 

[mrsklamc]

I was just looking- I'm kinda bummed we didn't cash our amex points out for southwest credits when it was still an option

 

[katie111]

OP here.
Well, I just checked the points and it looks like i could trade them in for a little over $1000 in travel expenses. Also, my DD8 and I counted one of her piggybanks tonight & there was almost $300 in there (I was shocked!). We have 2 more small ones and 2 more big ones to count so we're getting pretty close! She mentioned our plan to Daddy tonight & he just kind of laughed thinking we wouldn't be able to get anywhere close to what we need but he was SO shocked when he found out how much was in one of their banks! I just need to figure out how to come up with $$ for dining. Luckily my kids aren't really into the souveneirs anymore so that shouldn't be a problem. I could always have someone get them a small giftcard for Christmas.

 

[woz1971]

I thought I would mention that Delta Skymiles can be used to pay for hotels and rental cars. We are staying at the Hyatt at MCO for I think 14,000 points. I had a 20,000 in Skymiles for over 5 years and did not know they could be used for anything but airfare. I never had enough to pay for a ticket. Most of the Disney resorts were available also but this worked out nicely for our first night as our flight is coming in late.