How did they do it?  In this post I am going to show you how they were able to pull this trip off at a minimal expense and still have a great time.

They Own A Timeshare

First off, they own a timeshare.  This is a great thing to own when you want to go on further trips from home.  The particular timeshare my sister owns is a Marriot timeshare which is a bit more expensive, usually in the $20K + range.

If paying that much for a timeshare is not in your budget then you can try timeshare resale sites like Timeshares Only which is a secondary market to buy timeshares.  A lot of times these go for a lot less than if you bought directly through a resort.

The reason for this is because timeshares themselves have no real value.  Unlike buying a house you are buying a piece of land, with a timeshare you are buying time at a resort, usually one week. However timeshares do have relatively low fees you will want to check into these before you consider buying.

They Carry A Rewards Card

Credit cards that carry rewards have really grown up throughout the years, especially ones with air travel.  Back several years ago you had to worry about blackout dates, airport restrictions, and even which airlines you were able to fly on.  This was a big turn off for users.

Today though they’ve done a complete 180 and have no blackout dates, and can fly on any airline to any airport you want.  Some will even give you up tons of bonus miles just for signing up with them.

They way typical airline reward cards work is they will give you one mile for every dollar you spend.  So if you spend $1000 dollars you will acquire 1000 miles, and to figure out how many miles you need to pay for your flight just times the cost of the flight by 100.  So if a flight cost $150 you will need 15,000 miles.

As in my sisters situation they would charge everything from their monthly expenses like their mortgage, car loans, and even gas and electric bills and pay it off every month.  Doing this would add thousands of miles to their account every month.

This worked so well that when they decided to go to Hawaii they only had to pay their daughters plane ticket.  That can save a lot of money considering a flight to Hawaii can run in the thousands and they got two of their tickets for free by just paying their usually monthly bills.  Not bad.

Doing these things freed them up a lot of extra cash and allowed them to other things while visiting.  In fact their estimated savings was in the thousands.