To celebrate Annie’s milestone birthday, we’re spending a long weekend in Austin, Texas. This post explains how we got there using points and miles.

Airfare

Annie and I have American AAdvantage miles saved up and the flight times were perfect for what we wanted. We found flights leaving Saturday morning and returning Tuesday afternoon, giving us around 2.5 days to enjoy Austin.

To make this milestone birthday special, we splurged on first class tickets on the way to Austin. Coming home, we’ll be in coach. The first class tickets cost 25,000 miles each and the coach tickets were for 12,500. Because I have the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select card, 10% of my redeemed miles will be returned to my AAdvantage account as a rebate.

In total, our flights cost 71,250 miles (Annie used 37,500 while I only spent 33,750 with the 10% rebate) plus $22 in taxes. That’s a savings of $878!

Austin Airfare — We saved ~$878 using miles!

Hotel

I had a free night from my Hotels.com rewards account that I needed to use before October or I’d lose it. Even though I was collecting Hilton points for a future trip to Maui, I decided to book through Hotels.com to take advantage of the free night. I found a room at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin on Congress and 7th. This is exactly the location we wanted and a perfect home base for our long weekend.

The free night was worth $240 which basically paid for Monday night’s rate. Unfortunately because Saturday night was a home football game for the Longhorns, prices for that night were pretty inflated. All told the hotel will cost us $802, with a total savings of $240!

Austin Redemption Table

	Retail Cost	Our Cost	Miles and Points Used	Points Source
2 round trip tickets from Chicago (ORD) to Austin (AUS)	$450 per person ($900 total)	$11 taxes and fees ($22 total)	71,250 AA miles	- Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card - E-rewards surveys - milesforopinions surveys
3 nights at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin	$348 per night ($1,044 total)	$802	1 free night from Hotels.com Rewards (worth $242)	- Hotels.com Rewards
Total	$1,944	$813	- 71,250 AA miles - 1 Hotels.com Rewards night	- $1,131 in total savings - 58% off retail cost

Bottom Line

Using miles and rewards allowed us to take a fun weekend trip, while costing us $1,131 less than if we paid for everything out of pocket. Plus we get the added experience of flying first class. Stay tuned for the ORD to AUS flight report.