Imagine boarding a plane destined for your honeymoon and entering a private suite with a full-sized double bed and sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon while you wait to take off to your long-awaited exotic location. Now imagine paying the same amount of money for this experience as you’d pay for a night out at the cinema. It sounds unbelievable, too good to be true, etc., but it’s very possible to do with credit card rewards.

Planning and paying for a wedding can be the perfect time to capitalize on credit cards rewards that you can utilize to put together the ultimate honeymoon. But in order to do that, you’ll need to be able to put a plan into motion to make it all happen. Here’s some advice and tips for couples hoping to make their honeymoon dreams come true with the help of credit card rewards.

Timing

If you’re looking to use credit cards to take your honeymoon to the next level then try to give yourself as much time as possible to accumulate points and redeem them at your own convenience.

Giving yourself 6 to 12 months to earn your credit card bonuses and use your points on flights, hotels, and other travel expenses is recommended. Remember, you’ve got to earn your credit card points first and then find travel dates that work with your schedule and what’s available for awards.

You’ll usually find it easier to find open awards 6+ months out so it’s good to give yourself at least that much time. If you’re trying to put together a very complex itinerary, however, giving yourself closer to 12 months will be ideal.

Earning sign-up bonuses

Credit card sign-up bonuses are where most of the value of credit card rewards is at.

These bonuses typically require you to spend a certain amount in a specific time period, such as $3,000 in the first 90 days of account opening. This is known as your “minimum spend requirement.”

The time period in which you’re covering wedding expenses is often the most opportune time to sign up for credit cards because you’ll be able to hit so many of your minimum spend requirements so easily.

Try to inquire with all of your services to see if they’ll take credit cards (and which ones). If they only will take a check you can look into services like Plastiq to cover those expenses. Plastiq can help you pay rent, car payments, student loans, and even contractors making it easier than ever to hit your sign-up bonuses.

Also, many people like wedding photographers will be open to receive payments via PayPal, Venmo, or other methods that will allow you to make charges to your card. You’ll incur a small transaction fee with these methods but the sign-up bonuses you’ll earn will far outweigh any fees paid.

Tip: Many times there are multiple offers out for the same credit card with one offer being much more lucrative than the other.

Earning points via every day spending

Since you’ll have so much time before your wedding day, you’ll also be able to earn credit card points via your natural spend. Many times it makes sense to grab a card that earns you points based on your specific spending habits.

So for example, if you spend quite a bit on dining out you might want to consider the Chase Sapphire Reserve which offers 3X on dining and travel or if you spend a lot on groceries the Amex EveryDay Preferred could be a great choice since it earns 3X on groceries (along with a possible 50% bonus). Both of these cards will earn you points that you could utilize on valuable travel redemptions but you’ll be able to find all sorts of different cards that earn extra points on major categories, such as travel, dining, groceries, gas, mobile/online purchases, and entertainment.

Tip: You can often earn tons more miles and points by utilizing shopping portals when doing at type of online shopping.

Two-player mode

One of the greatest things about getting into credit card rewards as a couple is that you can double-up on your rewards. This isn’t a huge advantage for flights since two tickets will be needed but it’s perfect for covering hotel stays.

If you have more than a year to plan out your travels think about getting a card like the IHG Rewards Credit Card. This card comes with a 60,000 points sign-up bonus and a low annual fee of $49 that’s waived the first year. The biggest perk is that after your first year anniversary you get a free night certificate that can be used at any hotel category.

A lot of cards restrict your free nights to lower categories but with the IHG you could use yours to redeem a night at a high-end InterContinental hotel that would normally cost as much as $700+ a night! And if you and your partner double up on this card, you’d get 120,000 points plus two free nights which could cover several nights at one of the top hotels in the world.

Other quality hotel cards are the Hyatt Visa Card, American Express Hilton Surpass, Marriott Rewards Credit Card, and American Express SPG Card.

Tip: Programs like Hilton and SPG will grant you a 5th night free if you book four consecutive award nights so that’s another great way to capitalize on savings.

Hotel status

Nothing is better than arriving to your hotel and getting upgraded to a suite and getting exclusive access to the hotel’s executive lounge where you can relax and unwind with complimentary meals, happy hour, etc.

The American Express Platinum Card is fantastic for achieving hotel status, as it offers automatic Hilton Honors Gold, SPG Gold (and thus Marriott Gold). These are mid-tier statuses which can still get you upgrades, free wifi, and free breakfasts in some cases. If you don’t want to pay the high annual fee of the Platinum Card, hotel credit cards will usually provide you with lower-tier status and allow you to bump up a tier by putting spend on the credit card.

If you’re on your honeymoon, you definitely want to mention that when making your reservations or arriving at the hotel, because it will often end up with an upgrade but if you’ve got elite status with that hotel, that upgrade might be even better.

Tip: If you want to take your status game to the next level, you can learn about status challenges, where it’s possible to achieve an even higher level of hotel status that comes with even better perks.

First class flights

Traveling in a spacious first class seat like the Etihad Apartment to an exotic location for a romantic honeymoon is the dream for many people. But to earn enough miles to make this dream a reality, it takes a little bit of legwork because you need to learn about:

• How to find the most valuable credit card sign-up bonuses for your goals
• Credit card application rules and restrictions
• Award charts and redemptions best for your location
• How take advantage of airline partners and alliances
• How to avoid high fees and surcharges

Because of all of those factors often differ from person to person based on their travel goals, it’s hard to recommend a single card that’s best for first class flights, but I recommend reading my free beginner’s guide to start learning about how to best utilize your points. In there, you’ll find everything from credit score basics to how to find the best sign-up bonuses.

The key is to have a loose plan of where you want to go and how you want to get there.

For example, if all you know is that you want to fly business class or first class to Japan but don’t know anything beyond that (dates, activities, etc.), you already know enough to get started. From there, you can start building a plan where you and your future spouse will target a couple of credit cards that will earn you the right type of miles and points to utilize for your trip.

If you can devise a plan before you start dropping wads of cash on all of your wedding expenses, then you’ll easily be able to earn the points needed and you’ll be off sipping champagne into the sunset before you know it.

Keeping it simple

If you’re not necessarily interested in taking an extravagant trip that will require extra work to achieve and you would prefer to keep the travel rewards process more on the simple side, then consider going for a card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred. The Reserve card will allow you to redeem points through a travel portal at a rate of 1.5 cents per point (which is very high compared to others).

The best part about this is that you don’t have to worry about dealing with black out dates and transferring points to airlines and hotels. You simply find any available room or flight and book it.

Other cards like the Barclaycard Arrival Plus and Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card also offer simple redemption solutions where you simply opt for a statement credit to cover your travel purchases. These two cards often come with sign-up bonuses worth close to $500 in general travel expenses so they can easily help reduce your overall cost of your honeymoon.

Sometimes you don’t even need a credit card to take advantage of savings because you can utilize online travel agencies. When I book boutique hotels, I often book through websites like BonWi.com and earn fantastic savings (sometimes up to 40% back).

Lounge life

More credit cards than ever now offer airport lounge access where you can relax on swanky furniture in a comfortable and quiet setting, enjoying complimentary food, drinks, wifi and sometimes even showers and massages.

Accessing airport lounges can make your travel experience much smoother and also add a luxury element to your travels that’s perfect for setting off on a honeymoon. The American Express Platinum Card is one of my favorite cards for lounge access because it gives you Centurion Lounge access, which are some of the nicest domestic lounges found in select airports.

Other cards that offer Priority Pass airport lounge access can be great options too which include the Sapphire Reserve and Citi Prestige. For those only looking to access a lounge on a single occasion, the United MileagePlus Explorer card offers two free annual passes to United lounges.

Southwest Companion Pass

If you think you’d like to keep your travels mostly in the US or Mexico/Caribbean, then you might want to consider getting the Southwest Companion Pass. With this pass, your partner can fly for free for up to two years and it’s often easily obtainable via Chase Southwest Credit Cards. This is a perfect way to stretch your points throughout a year or two and a perfect option for couples interested in weekend get-a-ways.

Splurge on your experiences

One of the best things about covering your flights and hotels with credit card points is that you can then splurge on experiences while on your honeymoon. For me and my partner, this has meant more exhilarating experiences like private helicopter tours and shark dives. Without the savings from credit card rewards, we would probably only have experienced a fraction of our most memorable travel experiences over the past few years.

Final word

With so many expenses and all of the stress that comes with putting together the perfect wedding day, you might as well reward yourself with the ultimate honeymoon. If you can put in a little bit of work to learn some of the basics and have some patience, you can use credit card rewards to have one of the most memorable experiences of your life.

Just remember that you want to pay off those credit card balances. Travel rewards cards come with high APRs so you definitely don’t want to treat them like loans and aim to pay off your balances entirely each month.

This is the first guest blog on UponArriving. It’s written by Daniel Kao, the creator of Dan’s Travel Guide, who also writes about how to travel without breaking the bank. This article is about a round the world trip he took in business class, consisting of 12 flights and 12 bucket-list worthy countries.

---

At the beginning of 2017, I traveled around the world. I visited 12 countries on my bucket-list. And met countless amazing people.

I experienced Business Class seats on 12 flights, enjoyed over twenty lounges at various airports, and got to see cultures I have never seen. 

I tasted food that I have never tried and I got to experience something I’ll never forget.

A lot of people who travel the world do it for an extended time. Many even leave behind or drastically change their careers, lifestyle, and home.

Hats off to those who can take such a big leap of adventure!

But if you’re like me, such a big change was just not realistic.

So I decided to take my own leap of adventure…and travel around the world without changing my life, using much of my savings, or quitting my job. 

And I had an unforgettable experience.

Here is how I did it:

Flights: Round the world flight on Business Class

For flights, I booked a Round the World (RTW) ticket on Star Alliance using points.

I used 240,000 American Express points transferred to Singapore Air for the RTW ticket on Business class.

The Round the World ticket allows up to 15 destinations on 28 of their airlines partners as long as you follow their round the world guidelines.

A couple of the main guidelines are:

1. The journey has to start and end in the same country (though it does not have to be the same city).
2. The journey needs to follow one global direction (East or West) and cross the Atlantic and Pacific only once.
3. Have a minimum of 3 stopovers and maximum of 15 stopovers. A stopover is a stay of at least 24 hours.
4. The journey cannot exceed 29,000-39,000 total flown mileage (depending on the ticket and class)
5. You’re allowed 1 pc of baggage up to 20kg for economy RTW tickets and 2 pcs of baggage up to 30kg for business class and up to 40kg for first class.

In other words, the RTW ticket with Star Alliance opened the door to let me travel most anywhere I wanted to go!

But how did I accumulate 240,000 points in the first place? I really didn’t change much of my lifestyle or spending. And I accumulated those points in about a little over 1 year.

I signed up for three credit cards that gave me generous bonuses:

• Chase Business Preferred Card – 80,000 bonus
• Chase Sapphire Reserve Card – 100,000 bonus
• AMEX Premier Rewards Gold Card – 50,000 points

(each card also gave me not only points but 2X or 3X points on certain categories such as gas, travel, restaurants).

I did have to plan my spending a bit more carefully to meet the minimum requirements.

So I would consolidate my bills onto one card in order to make sure I got the bonus. However, on most of the cards I only had to spend a little over $1000 each month to cover the minimum (most minimums are about $3,000-$4,000).

I chose Singapore Air because they had one of the best redemption rates for business class and their customer service was impeccable!

After only about a year, I had the amount of points I needed from the bonuses I got on three credit cards.

Accommodations

For cheap accommodations, I stayed with family and friends around the globe. It gave me a chance to reconnect with a lot of people!

In places I didn’t know anyone, I stayed in hotels and hostels.

In Asia, I stayed in several 4 star hotels for around $30-40 USD/night.

A few notable hotels I stayed at Asia –

Hotel Cosmo Kuala Lumpur: Beautiful, newly renovated hotel. It was extremely clean, new, and very spacious. There was complimentary breakfast and was located very close to a lot of great attractions. I was even able to walk to the KL towers from the hotel!

Posh Hotel in Old Quarter, Hanoi: What I loved about this $30 hotel in Hanoi was it was simple but very clean. The complimentary breakfast was excellent and always had a fresh assortment of fruit, local snacks, and a hot cooked-to-order entree. Service is also what you can expect from any high-end hotel. They had excellent concierge service, super cheap dry cleaning, and reliable hotel transport for inexpensive.

In Europe, I stayed in hostels for about the same price.

On a few occasions, I didn’t mind just staying in the lounge and airport at night. In Singapore, London, and Israel, I showered, ate, and slept at the airport the night before my flight.

In Singapore, I slept at the 24-hour lounge on one of the couches in the back. Sleeping there was popular enough that the lounge even provided free blankets!

In London & Israel, I had to be more creative. I’m not as fond as sleeping on the floor so I found a quiet place, pushed a few seats together, and slept on that.

Most airports don’t mind sleeping travelers. In fact, sleeping in airports has become some popular, there’s an in-depth guide (including tips from other travelers) on how to sleep in airports around the world.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the most comfortable staying at an airport but it was actually kind of fun! You don’t end up sleeping much but it feels like an overnight lock-in adventure.

If I could have done it any differently, I would have spent more time accumulating hotel points (on SPG, Hilton, Marriott, etc.).

Everything Else

All my other expenses consisted of food, basic necessities, some local transportation, and entertainment (which included admissions to museums, experiences, etc.).

Since a lot of my travels were in Asia, all of those expenses were very low. Typical meals averaged around $3. Transportation was a few dollars here and there. And experiences were very cheap also!

For example, I went on a day tour to the UNESCO heritage site Halong Bay in Hanoi for about $40 and went to the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur for about $5.

When I got to Europe, everything was a bit more expensive but I still save a lot of money by getting groceries instead of eating out.

I also rarely took transportation unless I really needed to. I chose to walk as much as I could because it gave me a chance to see more of where I was visiting.

Quite honestly though, I tried to save where I could but I really didn’t sweat the details. I wasn’t particularly trying to stretch every dollar since it felt more like a vacation.

At the end of the trip, I spent about $3,000 + 240,000 points for the entire one month trip around the world.

This included the airline fees & taxes you’ll need to pay for your round-the-world ticket.

Here are some (brief) highlights from the trip…

I flew on 12 business class flights and ate at 20 airline lounges around the world!

At my first stop, I spent almost a week along the beautiful shores of Northern Taipei in Taiwan.

I visited Hanoi, Vietnam – home of the UNESCO world heritage site – Halong Bay.

From there, I stopped by Bangkok, Thailand for coconuts and some incredible food.

I toured the beautiful and culturally rich Singapore. The food was quite amazing as well…

I visited the Batu Caves and tasted equally flavorful cuisine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

From there, I started my journey around Europe. But first, I went to the finest lounge I’ve ever seen in Istanbul, Turkey.

The lounge in Istanbul Turkey is massive. There’s two stories and each story is like a mall! There were at least 4-5 buffet areas filled with hot foods, snacks, local delights, and drinks.

There was a remote car race track for travelers to kill some time racing cars. There was a virtual practice golf swing area. A spacious movie theater with popcorn was available. And then all the best amenities: clean showers, luggage storage lockers, couches, workspaces, etc.

I experienced the incredibly rich history and beautiful architecture in Rome.

 

And met awesome entrepreneurs who brought me into the largest home & decor show in the world in Frankfurt, Germany.

I took a quick detour and toured the beautiful and historically-rich Tel Aviv, Israel.

Before heading back to Europe to travel the U.K. I went around London on a double decker bus and had the best scones.

And visited the British Islands to see the beautiful island shores of Guernsey while visiting family…

I explored Toronto, Canada and visited a few more lounges.

Before finally taking my last flight back home to Dallas.

I traveled to my heart’s content and saw the world in an unforgettable experience.

There were many stories I didn’t include in here and so many incredible people I met I did not mention. 

Indeed, traveling opens your horizons to a whole new world outside of your own. And the world really is far more different than I could have ever imagined.

The best part was getting to experience all of this without having to drastically change my lifestyle at home.

Why? Because having traveled for about 6 years for work, one thing I’ve realized about travel is — as far as you can go, as much as you get to experience, as different as you see how the world is — one thing that still remains constant across every culture and place is having somewhere you can call home.   

For some home can be wherever life takes them, but for me, home is here in Dallas, TX.

I hope you travel more for less. But always have a place you can come home.