Luxury Family Asia Trip on Points
We spent our 2024/2025 Christmas/New Year holiday in Asia and it was an incredible trip. We flew business class and stayed in fantastic hotels. Here’s a breakdown of exactly what we booked & how:
LUXURY FAMILY ASIA POINTS TRIP OVERVIEW
Flights:
Chicago to Hong Kong, KLM business class 95K points per person + $395
Taipei to Chicago, KLM business class 95K points per person + $482
Total Points/Cost: 570K American Express points transferred to KLM + $2631 in taxes & fees
Actual Cash Cost: $35,199 for 3 people, roundtrip
Quick Thoughts:
There are much more direct flights you can take from the US to Asia.
However, we had 3 non negotiables:
1. Very specific days we wanted to fly (the day after school got out for xmas break and return the day before xmas break was over)
2. We needed 3 seats
3. Long haul flights had to be in business class
Flying to Asia for Christmas/New Years is one of the MOST coveted times to go. With the non negotiables we had, we were thrilled to find this KLM option.
All of our seats were lay flat (in 1/2/1 configuration) and we slept so well!
Hotels:
(*We stayed in ALL Hyatts because we have Hyatt Top Tier status – Globalist. This gave us free breakfast, club lounge access when the hotel had one, and 4pm late check out.)
Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport – 1 night (kind of?)
Total Points: 6500
Actual Cash Cost: $130
Quick Thoughts:
Our flight from Chicago landed around 6:30am. And our flight to Hong Kong didn’t take off until 9:15pm. We were able to book the hotel for the night before we arrived, check in immediately upon arriving at 7am. AND they gave us a 7pm check out!! YES! SEVEN PM!! This hotel also had a free shuttle to/from Amsterdam airport. The staff here were fantastic. Having a room for a small nap & showers before exploring Amsterdam was a HUGE luxury!
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong – 3 nights
Total Points: 83K points – Transferred Chase points to Hyatt, then booked with Hyatt directly
Actual Cash Cost: $1600
Quick Thoughts:
The rooms are large for Asia which we appreciated. The club lounge is one of the best in the world. Ruinart Champagne is available all day in the club lounge. The service at this hotel was 5*. The pool is gorgeous. We Loved this hotel!
Hyatt Regency Phuket – 4 nights
Total Points: 60K points + Hyatt Suite Night award – Transferred Chase points to Hyatt, then booked with Hyatt directly
Actual Cash Cost: $6700
Quick Thoughts:
We absolutely loved our 2 bedroom suite with ocean view – it was HUGE! One of the best features of this resort is the gigantic pool overlooking the ocean. The breakfast for Hyatt Globalist is in the main restaurant and the amount of options is incredible. The Club Lounge was a great spot for a cocktail before dinner & had great views. The downside of this hotel is that they absolutely need more pool chairs!
Grand Hyatt Bangkok Erawan – 3 nights
Total Points: 42K points – Transferred Chase points to Hyatt, then booked with Hyatt directly
Actual Cash Cost: $2400
Quick Thoughts:
We loved the quick access to the sky train, tons of restaurants and the Central World NYE celebration. We LOVED that they opened a huge ballroom to serve as the Club Lounge dinner location since it was a very crowded holiday – and this dinner was extensive! I’m talking carving station, multiple salads, soups, live music, etc! What we didn’t love was the tiny room (would be fine for 2 people – very tight with a rollaway).
Grand Hyatt Taipei – 1 night
Points Cost: 9K points – Transferred Chase points to Hyatt, then booked with Hyatt directly
Actual Cash Cost: $350
Quick Thoughts:
This hotel is right next to Taipei 101 Tower and a quick walk to the metro. The club lounge for breakfast was completely overrun. It is hard to judge this breakfast fairly after staying in the other 3 hotels with MUCH more luxurious breakfasts – this was more like a Hyatt Place/Regency feel. BUT it was also only 9K points/night. So who can complain? 🙂
EARNING ENOUGH CREDIT CARD POINTS FOR ASIA FAMILY VACATION
For this trip, we used….
580,000 American Express points
200,500 Chase points
We earn the bulk of our American Express points a few ways:
– Rakuten shopping portal (seriously, do NOT disregard this option – it’s HUGE!). Here’s everything you need to know.
– American Express referrals – the highest Amex offers are almost always through referrals! Therefore, I never use my affiliate links. I only want you to get the best sign up bonuses so when I see an elevated offer on my Amex cards, I always offer those on my instagram account. But we only have 2 cards with referral links, so this caps out quickly!
**For the last few years, American Express/Chase/Capital One/Citi have done a 20% – 25% transfer bonus to Air France/KLM once or twice a year. If you can time the transfer bonus correctly, you’d need only 76K – 80K points per person each way.
We earn the bulk of our Chase points:
We personally earn Chase points on these cards and then transfer those Chase points to Hyatt for our Hyatt stays:
Sapphire Reserve for Business℠
When you are able to take advantage of large welcome offers for new cards + be strategic with what card you use for what purchase + you are using shopping portals consistently, it’s really not hard to rack up points quickly.
ADDITIONAL OUT OF POCKET AIR FARE COSTS
We flew:
Hong Kong Airways from Hong Kong to Phuket
NOK Airways from Phuket to Bangkok
Thai Airways from Bangkok to Taipei
Total for 3 people for all 3 flights: $1534
TOTAL COSTS:
Airfare out of pocket: $4165
Hotel out of pocket: $0
Cost of hotels & flights without using points: $47,913
SAVING MONEY WITH AIRPORT LOUNGE ACCESS
Just by holding the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card we were able to access fantastic airport lounges because having this card gives you + 2 guests access to Priority Pass lounges.
These are all Priority Pass Access Lounges that we visited:
In Hong Kong we had access to the Chase Sapphire Lounge
In Phuket there were 4 lounges in the domestic terminal, we visited the Thair Airways Lounge
In Bangkok there were 2 lounges near our gate, we visited the Coral Lounge and LOVED it!
IT’S NOT ALL OR NOTHING
For our vacations, we usually use a mixture of points/miles for flights and hotel stays. This trip was almost all points & miles. However, many times we’ll only use points for flights. The most important thing for us is offsetting some of our travel costs and being able to have luxury travel experiences we wouldn’t have if we were paying out of pocket.
How you decide to use your points and miles is completely up to you. We’ve been doing this for years, so accumulating this many points was actually not a huge undertaking, as we are always adding new cards/sign up bonuses/points, etc.
THIS TRIP COULD EASILY BE RECREATED FOR WAY LESS POINTS
We flew business class to AND from Asia and we stayed in very nice hotels. We really wanted to use our points/miles for a luxury trip. But this trip could be done for WAY less points/miles.
