San Antonio: How to Save Big Using Points & Miles

We are actively pursuing our goal of visiting all 50 states by the time our oldest graduates high school in 2026.  Since the kids had a long weekend in the fall, we decided to take a quick trip to one of our unvisited states.  We ended up finding a good deal to Austin, TX so we booked it!

Flights were cheapest to Austin, but we decided to stay in San Antonio.  I flew down years ago when my sister graduated from Boot Camp, but none of my kids were with me (actually I was pregnant with #2). Growing up in Ohio, we had Sea World near us and were able to visit several times.  I always enjoyed it and said I wanted to take our kids there one day.

We’ve been to Florida and San Diego, but we had other plans in those states so Sea World seemed like a great option for our trip to San Antonio.  Not only are there great animal shows, but there are coasters too, which seemed like the best of both worlds for us.

Our kids had Monday off school so we left Thursday mid-day and let them miss Friday.  That gave us three full days to explore.

Where We Stayed

We stayed two nights at the Hampton Inn and two nights at the Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch.

Activities

Day 1

Since we got there later in the day, we grabbed our car (Turo) and headed to San Antonio.  We decided to stop at the Riverwalk.  We don’t typically eat at chain restaurants, but the Yard House has a great happy hour so we decided to have dinner there before heading over to the Riverwalk.

I love to walk and check out little shops, but my kids could care less!  Since I visited in the past, we didn’t spend a ton of time at the Riverwalk.  We decided to head to our hotel and relax for the night.

Day 2 – Sea World

Sea World didn’t open until 10am, but we purchased a coupon book that came with tickets to Six Flags that we had to go pick up.  So we grabbed some local coffee and picked up our coupon book.

We found discounted tickets on Tickets at Work.  When we purchased these, they also came with a meal deal + $10 bonus card to use on food or merchandise.  This saved us a ton on money on food for the day.

We were able to eat both lunch and dinner + get snacks and not pay anything extra than what we paid for our tickets!  We purchased one ticket with the all day meal pass and then 4 other tickets with the single meal pass.  This allowed us to all eat lunch as soon as we got there, but since the amount of food you get is a lot, we split these and saved two of our single coupons for later.

We live in Ohio and have season passes to Cedar Point amusement park so we’re very familiar with the All Day Dining.  These passes allow you to eat every 90 minutes and we find that just purchasing two of these, feeds our entire family of 5 lunch and dinner during our time in the park. 

We got there right when the park opened so we rode all the roller coasters with pretty much no wait.  Then we ate lunch and watched some shows.  We were able to use our $10 bonus vouchers on snacks like ice cream and churros.

Mid-day, we left and went back to the hotel to relax.  Then we went back to the park around dinner.  Since it was September, the park was decked out for their Halloweekends so we were able to enjoy some of the Halloween festivities, like haunted houses.  We also used our meal vouchers to eat dinner and used our extra bonus cards to grab some late night ice cream and pretzels.

Day 3: Japanese Tea Garden & Wild Oak Ranch

We kept this day open as we were switching hotels and staying at the Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch.  We knew that we just wanted to be able to relax and enjoy the pool and lazy river once we checked in.

We started our morning off at the Japanese Tea garden.  If you are in this area, I highly recommend stopping at this place.  It’s free and the landscape is stunning!  Afterwards, we stopped in the restaurant and grabbed some boboa.

We decided to head to our hotel and check in.  We knew it was early, but figured if we could at least check in, then maybe our room would be ready early.  After checking in, we decided to go grab something quick for lunch.  The kids wanted to try Dave’s Hot Chicken since we don’t have one around us.

Afterwards, we came back to the hotel, changed into our swimsuits and headed to the pool.  The kids had a blast relaxing in the lazy river and making several trips up and down the waterslides.

When our room was ready, we went back and relaxed for a bit before grabbing some barbeque for dinner.  Afterwards, we came back and enjoyed some late night swimming.

Day 4: Six Flags Fiesta Texas

We spent the day at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.  I found this deal on groupon that gave you 4 tickets free when you purchased a local coupon book.  Unfortunately when I found this, I couldn’t get it shipped to me in time.  However, I went directly to the Book of Free website and was able to order it for pick up. Plus, the offer on their direct website gave 8 tickets for free.  Since we needed 5, this was a better deal for us.  The cost of the book was only $90 and came with 8 free tickets to the park, which was fantastic considering tickets on Six Flags website were over $50/person for one day!

We originally planned to do their All Day Dining pass, but none of us were really hungry.  Our older boys ended up going off on their own and just grabbed a quick meal while they were together.  The rest of us just snacked on a few things so we decided not to get the all day dining.

We got to the park early and immediately got in line for rides.  We were able to get all of our riding in by around 2pm so we decided to leave for the day.

Then, we stopped at La Panaderia to get some pastries and boy were they good.

Then we headed back to the hotel to relax and swim.  We ordered dinner by the pool, which was good and reasonably priced.

When we stayed at the resort, it was more of the off season, but they did have activities throughout the day for the kids. In addition, they had a large fire pit, ping pong, soccer pool, an oversized chess and checkers set as well as an oversized Connect Four to play with.

Day 5: Heading Home

On the way back to Austin to catch our fight we stopped at a pancake house for breakfast.  I heard it was so good, but in all honesty, we weren’t impressed.

How We Saved

Flights

For this trip, we booked our flights through Southwest and used points to pay.  Plus, we only had to use points for 4 flights since we used our Companion Pass for one free flight.  We only paid the taxes and fees for our flights ($56 total).  Had we paid with cash, it would have been ove $1700.

Lodging

We also used points to cover two nights at the Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch, saving us another $500.

What We Spent

I like to be able to budget so if you’re like me, here is how much we spent on everything else:

Activities: $376

We spent $342 on tickets and parking to Sea World San Antonio and another $90 on the Book of Free, which gave us tickets to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Then we spent another $25 at Fun City.

Food: $488

Breakfast: $72: Friday and Saturday were free at our hotel, Sunday we just ate packed items in our room and Monday Magnolia Pancake Haus 72

Lunch: $100: Thursday was free at the airport lounge and Friday was included with our ticket cost for Sea World.  Saturday we spent around $50 at Dave’s Hot Chicken and Sunday, we spent another $50 at Six Flags.

Dinner: $196: Thursday, we only spent $67 at the Yard House for our family.  This is a sit-down restaurant, but their Happy Hour prices are great so we got a bunch of those menu items to share! Friday was included in our ticket cost for Sea World.  Saturday, we ate at B & B Smokehouse and spent $58 for our family.  On Sunday, we had Mexican for dinner, spending another $71 at Sazon Mexican.

Snacks/Other: $120: We had a variety of snacks and other coffee, spending around $120

Lodging: $287

For two of the nights, we stayed at the Hampton Inn Sea World and then the other two nights we stayed on points at the Hyatt Vacation Club Wild Oak Ranch.

Transportation: $329

We rented our car from Turo and parked at our local Fast Park when we flew out.

How We Saved

For just a short trip, we were able to save quite a bit more than we spent, which just shows how much credit card points really does allow us to travel so much!  And just doing some research and savvy planning allowed us to save even more!

Share Your Tips

Do you have a travel saving money trip to share?  Or what about favorite spots in San Antonio? We’d love to hear it!