How to Escape to Charleston, SC for a Long Weekend for Under $23

In our last post, we shared all the details about how we spent three, kid-free nights in Charleston, SC.  We also mentioned that we did this for under $23! Keep reading to find out how we were able to sneak away for so cheap!

Points & Miles

If you’ve read any travel-related blogs, Facebook posts or listened to any travel podcasts, more than likely you’ve heard the buzz about points and miles.  People have been earning points and miles for years and cashing them in for free flights and hotel stays.  However, the time it takes to rack up these points usually isn’t quick and takes some major brand loyalty.  The good news is, there’s a faster and easier way to earn these points.

Credit Card Welcome Offers

Credit card welcome offers are the best way to earn points fast.  When you sign up for a new credit card, banks incentivize you with a large welcome offer of points.  Once you spend a certain amount of money in a specific timeframe, you’ll be rewarded with a chunk of points.  Some banks offer 50-60k, while others offer 250k points. 

Types of Points

Points are not all created equal though, some are “flexible” and some are not.  Points earned directly from banks like Chase, American Express and Capital One are flexible points.  These points are offered on cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture X and American Express Gold and can be transferred to several partners.

For instance, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card earns Ultimate Rewards, which can be transferred to partners like Southwest, United Airways, Jet Blue, World of Hyatt, IGH Hotels, Mariott, and more.  This means that if you have those points, you can transfer them to any of those partners, almost instantly, and use those points to book flights or hotels.

Points earned from co-branded cards, like Southwest, Delta, Hilton or IHG give you points that are only good for those specific brands.  Both types of points give you great benefits, but flexible points allow you to use those points in more ways.

How to take this trip with ONE credit card welcome offer

Last year, my husband and I earned over half a million points to use for free travel.  With just ONE welcome offer of 60k points, like you’d get from the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you can enjoy a long weekend in Charleston (or another destination).  Here is how it worked for us:

Flights

We found round-trip flights on Southwest from Pittsburgh to Charleston for just over 10k points/person.  Because we have the coveted Southwest Companion Pass, we only paid 10k TOTAL points because my husband is my companion so he flew for FREE.  All we paid for our flights were taxes, which were $5.60 per person each way ($22.40 total). You can read about how we earned the Southwest Companion Pass here!

Hotel

We had an early flight out of Pittsburgh, so we stayed at the Hyatt Place Robinson Mall area for 5k Points/night. 

In Charleston, we stayed at the Hyatt House Charleston Downtown Historic District.  We stayed 3 nights at this hotel, which cost us 42k points.  The hotel was really nice and located in a great area!  We were right on King Street with so many restaurants and shops right outside our door. Plus, even more were within walking distance.

How to book flights and hotels on points

One of the most-recommended beginner travel credit cards is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.  The typical welcome offer for this card is 60k points when you spend $4k in 3 months.  For us, this is so easy to do.  We spend over $1k/month on our regular spending, like groceries, gas, sports fees, car insurance, streaming services, HOA fees, etc.

This card does have a $95 annual fee; however, it also comes with some perks that help offset that cost.  For instance, you get a $50 travel credit to use in the Chase Travel Portal each year, which essentially takes this annual fee down to $45.  And what you get for that $45 is so worth it!

What everyone loves about Chase points is that they are transferrable to several airlines and hotel chains.  We have other credit cards, like the Hilton Surpass card, where we earn points, but they can only be used for Hilton hotel stays.  Chase points are flexible though, making them so valuable.  Plus, transferring to their partners is so easy! And sometimes, these partners even offer transfer bonuses, meaning you can spend even fewer points!

Transfer to Southwest

For this trip, we spent 10k points on our Southwest flight to Charleston.  To use our Chase Points, we just went into our Chase account and transferred the points into our Southwest Rapid Rewards account.  As soon as I transferred these points, I logged out of Southwest and back in and they were in my Rapid Rewards account allowing me to immediately book our flights to Charleston.  Since we also have a Southwest Companion Pass, I just booked my flight with the 10k points I transferred and then added my husband as my companion and his flight was free!  Had we purchased these tickets with cash, they would have cost around $160/person.

Transfer to Hyatt

Chase also allows you to transfer points to Hyatt.  Hyatt is known to be one of the BEST VALUES when transferring Chase Points.  Hyatt hotels cost so much less in points than the other big brand hotels like Hilton, Holiday Inn and Mariott so you get a lot more bang for your buck when you transfer points to Hyatt!

Transferring Chase points to Hyatt is just as simple as Southwest. I logged into my Chase account and transferred 47k points to my Hyatt account to cover both the airport hotel in Pittsburgh and three nights in Charleston.  I logged out of Hyatt and back in and my points were there, allowing me to book these hotels! Our room in Charleston would have cost us over $900 for the 3 nights and the Pittsburgh Airport hotel would have cost another $150.

How much we saved

With ONE credit card welcome offer, we had enough points to book round-trip flights PLUS four nights in a hotel.  The total cash cost for hotels and flights would have been over $1300!  It sure makes traveling much more do-able when your flights and hotels are free! 

Total Trip Cost

I love to learn how to use my points and miles, but I am always curious how much these other bloggers really spent on their trip.  I know that this varies significantly from person to person, but it helps me have a better idea of what to budget.  We stopped at certain places just to have a drink so if you’re not a drinker, then you may save even more! 

When your biggest pieces of travel are covered with points and miles, you can either splurge a little on things like activities, experiences, food or drinks or avoid that extra splurge and just make travel affordable for your family.  You do you because either way you save, is a win!  

Besides the taxes on our flight ($22.40), we only had to pay for our food, activities and transportation. Here is a breakdown of what we spent on the two of us:

Transportation:

• Uber Total (to and from airport): $45
• One Day Car Rental from Budget: $108

Activities:

• Old South Carriage Company tour: $107
• Magnolia Plantation: $64
• Food for 3 days: $500

Food:

• Breakfast: Free each day at our hotel
• Lunch (3 days): $156
• Dinner (3 days): $230
• Dessert/Drinks: $114

Other trips we’ve taken with Points and Miles

Our trip to Charleston was an adult getaway, but it’s been years since we’ve done a trip without the kids! Our blog focuses more on family travel than anything and even with a large family, we’ve been able to take some pretty amazing trips using points and miles!

In 2024, we flew our family of five to Hawaii and only spent $125 TOTAL on our fights – and that included visiting Oahu and Maui!  Plus, we had 7 nights in hotels for FREE.

In the summer, we headed to the Dakotas for a week and took a long weekend in the fall to visit San Antonio, Texas.  For these trips, our flights cost us around $50 for our entire family of 5 (taxes and fees) and we used points to cover six nights of hotels between these two trips.

Ready to start earning points and miles?

Here are some of our absolute FAVORITE travel cards:

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Chase Sapphire Preferred: This is a great beginner card that allows you to transfer your points to several travel partners like Southwest, World of Hyatt, Jet Blue, and more.  The annual fee is only $95 and comes with a $50 credit to use in their travel portal each year.  Plus, this year they are even offering a $10 Door Dash credit each month for grocery orders.  Using the $50 travel credit + $120 Door Dash credit over 12 months, makes this card a MONEY MAKER!

Capital One Venture X

Capital One Venture X: This one has a much heftier annual fee of $395, but the benefits totally outweigh that cost.  You get a $300 travel credit each year in the Capital One travel portal and every 4 years, you get a credit for either TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry (up to $120 every 4 years). 

And if that’s not enough to convince you, our FAVORITE perk of this card is airport lounge access!  This card comes with a Priority Pass membership as well as access to Capital One lounges.  This one perk saves us so much money because we can eat and drink prior to our flight for FREE.  Priority lounges are available in a variety of airports.  And don’t even get me started on Capital One Lounges – those are pretty amazing!

Hilton Honors Surpass

Hilton Honors Surpass Card: We are huge fans of Hilton for several reasons.  Typically even your budget hotels like Tru or Hampton Inn are clean and offer a free breakfast, but Hilton also has a huge footprint meaning their hotels are pretty much everywhere!

With the Surpass, you’re automatically given gold status with the chain, which means you get food and beverage credits at select hotels, complimentary upgrades, when available and if you’re booking on points, your 5^th night is free.  In addition, the card gives you a $50 Hilton credit each quarter, which offsets the $150 annual fee.

Credit Card Disclaimer

To truly reap the benefits of points and miles, you have to use your credit cards responsibly.  Travel credit cards have high interest rates so if you’re not able to pay off your balance in full each month, then hold off on getting those cards until you’re able to do so.  Otherwise, the amount you spend on interest and fees will outweigh the benefits.

What vacation would you plan with points and miles?

If you could earn points and miles to pay for a trip, where would you go?