When I started planning our family’s Disney and Universal vacation, I knew it wouldn’t be cheap.
Our six-day Orlando trip for a family of five cost about $8,620, including airfare, hotels, theme park tickets, airport transportation, meals, and other travel expenses.
So, I started looking for a way to offset some of those costs using credit card rewards. Over time, I earned enough rewards to save about $1,920 on our vacation, bringing our final out-of-pocket cost down to roughly $6,700.
We first researched different credit cards and planned ahead
The key was timing our credit card applications to take advantage of their generous welcome bonuses.
Neither my husband nor I had previously held the Capital One Venture Rewards credit card, so we each qualified for the new-cardmember welcome offer.
We learned that at the time, the card offered 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 within the first three months. Since those miles can be redeemed to cover eligible travel purchases, this welcome bonus was worth $750.
After I opened my card, I realized I could also “refer” my husband for his own card. This earned me an additional 20,000 miles as a referral bonus, worth $200.
By opening one card in my name and another in my husband’s name, we earned two separate welcome bonuses totaling $1,500. Between the welcome bonuses, referral bonus, and miles earned from our everyday spending, we accumulated $1,920.75 in travel rewards before we even set foot in Florida.
We put all expenses on the credit cards
We applied for the cards several months before our trip, knowing we had enough upcoming expenses to comfortably meet the $4,000 minimum spending requirement within three months without buying anything we didn’t already intend to purchase. We charged items like meals, groceries, household bills, and our upcoming travel expenses.
It was important that we only used the cards for purchases we were already planning to make and paid the balances in full each month. Otherwise, we could have ended up carrying debt or paying interest, which would quickly erase any savings we gained from the rewards.
Once the travel charges were posted to our accounts, we used Capital One’s “Cover Travel Purchases” feature to redeem miles for statement credits.
Not every Disney expense counted as travel
One lesson I learned is that merchant coding matters.
Our Universal Orlando expenses, for example, were coded as “travel,” making them eligible for redemption. That included our hotel and Universal theme park tickets.
Disney purchases were more complicated. Theme park tickets purchased directly from Disney are coded as “entertainment” rather than “travel,” so we couldn’t redeem our Venture miles to erase those charges. The same was true for Lightning Lane pass purchases from Disney.
Fortunately, we had more than enough eligible travel expenses to redeem all of our rewards. We applied our miles toward two of our biggest vacation costs: about $1,451 in Frontier airfare and roughly $4,948 for our Universal hotel stay and theme park tickets.
If we had needed another eligible travel purchase, buying theme park tickets through a third-party travel agency that codes as travel — such as Undercover Tourist — could have been another option.
It’s a reminder that before counting on points to cover an expense, it’s worth checking how that merchant is likely to code it.
The savings went beyond the welcome bonus
The welcome bonuses accounted for most of our savings, but they weren’t the only perk.
The Venture card reimbursed my husband and me for TSA PreCheck application fees, a benefit worth $76.75 per person, for a total of $153.50.
We simply charged the application fees to each of our cards, and Capital One automatically issued statement credits.
This strategy isn’t for everyone
Travel rewards can be incredibly valuable, but they’re only worthwhile if you’re prepared to use them responsibly.
Opening new credit cards can temporarily affect your credit score, so this approach works best for people with good credit who pay their balances in full every month.
It’s important to note that this card does carry a $95 annual fee. Since we each opened a card, we paid $190 in annual fees. Even after accounting for those costs, the value we received far exceeded what we paid.
When the annual fee comes due next year, we’ll evaluate whether the card’s ongoing benefits justify keeping it. If not, we can consider downgrading to a no-annual-fee version or closing the account.
For our family, though, the math was easy. Our Orlando vacation cost thousands of dollars, but redeeming $1,920 in travel rewards dramatically reduced our out-of-pocket costs.
I’ll absolutely use this strategy again before another big trip.
