Vacation in the Caribbean for Less than $200 with Two Easy Credit Card Bonuses!

Want to take a trip to the Caribbean this Spring, for less than $200? Check out these two credit card bonuses to get now and make this daydream a reality!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know by now that I am a sign-up bonus fiend. Whether it’s credit cards, bank accounts, or brokerage accounts, I’m always looking for the best deals to get free money, trips, and other various perks from these bonuses. I’ve written quite a few articles about different credit cards in the past, as well as my history with sign-up bonuses where I’ve been able to earn 1,000,000 points/miles, over $11,000, and four free hotel nights in the past three years. Needless to say, on my path to financial independence, credit cards have been one of my primary allies and definitely a friend instead of a foe.

An Example of an Awesome Trip with Credit Card Rewards:

Because I am always watching for deals and increased sign-up bonuses on my favorite credit cards, I decided to give an example of a trip that you can book this Spring for very little cost out of pocket using only two currently available credit card bonuses. Whitney and I both currently have these cards and have gotten very good value out of them during our current trip around-the-world, so I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as well.

I do want to point out that the links below are our personal referral links, and if you decide to sign-up we would really appreciate you using them. You still get the same great bonus that you would get if you don’t use the links, but if you do we would also get a small referral bonus as well, which will help support our future travels.

First let me tell you about what this trip could look like using the sign up offers I’ll tell you about!

Example: You leave from Roanoke, VA (this is my hometown airport, you’d have to modify this based on your home airport of course) on April 7th, 2019 headed to beautiful San Jose Del Cabo in Mexico. You spend eight nights there at a 3-star hotel with wonderful reviews right on the beach.

Not only is the hotel on the beach, but it also has an outdoor pool that you could lounge around if that’s more you speed.

After 8 full days in the sun relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous scenery, you fly home (Roanoke, VA for example.. It’s not a bad place if you want to move there and use my home airport too) on April 15th, well rested and ready to conquer the world!

This trip would only cost you less than $200 out of pocket for the flights, the hotel, and the card fees. Then you only have to pay whatever you chose to spend for food and drink while there. Sounds wonderful, right? Let me show you how to make this a reality!

Credit Card Sign Ups

Alright without further ado, here are the two cards that you can sign-up for in the next few months and get a wonderful, very cheap vacation to the Caribbean.

• Chase World of Hyatt

This card is currently offering a sign-up bonus that consists of 40,000 points after $3,000 in spending in the first 3 months, and then an additional 20,000 points after you spend an additional $3,000 in the next 3 months. So to get the full 60,000 point bonus you would need to spend $6,000 on the card in the first 6 months after you’re approved. That bonus is awesome, and I recommend getting the full bonus if you can, but for the trip I outlined above, you can stop at $3,000 in spending if you can’t manage the full $6,000 since it will only require 40,000 Hyatt points anyway.

Hyatt points are my favorite hotel rewards currency, and I’ve loved their category 1 properties that are usually extremely nice and can be booked for only 5,000 points per night. You can also use the points for more expensive, fancy hotels that they offer, but I prefer quantity over quality when redeeming points, especially when the category 1 hotels are already so nice! In addition to the free nights, with this card you’ll get upgraded Hyatt status to “Discoverist” meaning late check outs and occasional other perks. It’s also worth mentioning, the Hyatt card does not have foreign transaction fees, so it’s a credit card to take with you when traveling internationally (it’s the only one Whitney’s been using on our trip when credit cards are accepted).

The only downside of the card is a $95 annual fee that isn’t waived the first year, meaning you’ll have to pay the fee on your first statement after you’re approved. It’s a bit of a bummer but well worth the free nights you’ll get out of the card. That $95 is also factored into the $200 I mentioned in the title. If you decide to keep the card for longer than a year, you get a free one night stay at any category 1-4 Hyatt hotel for paying the $95 again. We see this as more than worth the fee and actually used our free night at the amazing Grand Hyatt Berlin this year which would have cost over $300 out of pocket, but instead we look at it as getting the night in exchange for the $95.

To pay for your 8 nights at the Hyatt Place Los Cabos (the website is where I got the pictures above) you use the 40,000 points you earned from the first $3,000 in spending on this card in the first three months. This awesome property is only 5,000 Hyatt points per night! If you do the additional $3,000 of spending, you could stay there for 13 days, 60,000 points from the plus 6,000 points from the spending requirement and the 13 days would cost 65,000 points! Whether you use the additional points to stay longer on this trip or use them on your next trip, those extra points will undoubtedly be very valuable to you.

Here’s your room for 5,000 points per night with a king size available on the dates of your trip!

• American Express Delta Gold

The American Express Delta Gold card is currently offering 60,000 miles after spending $3,000 in the first four months after you get approved for the card. That 60,000 miles has been very valuable for Whitney and I since we got these cards at the end of last year. We used ours for two, one-way flights from the US to Scotland, and two, one-way flights from Hong Kong back to the US. We are also considering transferring some of our American Express points to Delta in order to book a potential flight to Europe or Australia next year! Delta miles have somehow gotten a bad name over the years for not being very valuable and this caused me to avoid the miles for a long time, but now I regret that. They have been just as good or better than other airline miles, in terms of value, for us. This card does have an annual fee, but the fee is waived for the first year, which means that if you get the bonus and then cancel the card after a year you will never have to pay any fee on the card. This card has no foreign transaction fees either making it a great card to take with you when traveling overseas. You also get a free checked bag with this card when flying with Delta.

For your trip, you’ll be using your miles for the round trip flight to Los Cabos. A early morning flight to Mexico on April 7th and a afternoon flight back home on April 15th. Here’s the itinerary:

As you can see, the roundtrip flight would only put you back 38,000 delta miles and $104.36 in taxes and fees. That means that you would also have an extra 25,000 delta miles (22,000 from the bonus and 3,000 from the spending on the card) leftover after the trip! That enough for another domestic one way flight and possibly even a domestic roundtrip depending on where you’re flying to and from.

Total Costs

Your only costs for the lodging and flights for this trip would be $95 for the annual fee of the Hyatt card for the first year and the $104.36 from the taxes and fees for the Delta reward flight. That’s a total of $199.36! Not bad at all for eight days and nights in paradise!

Other Options

Obviously this is not the only very cheap trip you could book with these points, and you’ll have to do some tweaking on the departure airport to make it work for your situation. I thought it would be helpful to go through the process of planning an entire trip with only two credit card bonuses. You could also easily book a roundtrip flight to Europe from the east coast with the Delta points and find a different Hyatt hotel where ever you’d like to stay. I found this category two Hyatt hotel in Greece that I’m eyeing for the future…

We’ve used Hyatt nights in the past in domestic locations as well where there are a decent number of category one hotels. You could turn the points from these two bonuses into a few different cheap domestic trips to various places in the US as well. We stayed at an insanely nice all-inclusive Hyatt hotel in Jamaica a couple years ago that you could use points for as well if you want to go there. There are a plethora of options with the points from these two bonuses depending on your preferences. You can also get a travel partner to sign up for the Delta card as well so that you have a travel companion who is also getting very cheap flights. Whitney and I always team up on our credit card rewards, and it’s made for some awesome trips!

I hope this post is helpful to you guys and will allow you to see how valuable some of these sign up bonuses can be! If you do decide to sign up for either of these cards, I’d really appreciate if you use the links to the cards above to help fund our future trips as well. Thanks for reading and let me know if you’d be interested in future posts like this one!