I bet you can guess her answer.
We spent some time looking at the Travel + Leisure best places to visit website and consistently found Charleston, South Carolina on many of the lists.
My wife was eager to head to the east coast around the time the leaves would be changing colors. We had never been to Charleston before, so we booked the trip.
Here are the details:
- We had generated enough Chase UR points (Ultimate Rewards) to be able to transfer them 1:1 to both Southwest and Hyatt. Southwest & Hyatt are both travel partners of Chase, so we could simply go to Chase’s Ultimate Rewards website, click on Transfer to Travel Partners, & transfer 1,000+ Chase points for 1,000+ Southwest or Hyatt points.
- We flew from Lubbock, with a stop in Dallas, on the way to Charleston. The number of Southwest points we needed was about 25,000 points each. At that time we didn't have the Companion Pass, so we transferred 50,000 Chase points to Southwest to book the flights with points. Our only cost was about $11 each in taxes.
- We wanted to stay in the historic area, so we booked the Hyatt Place Charleston/Historic District hotel. The King room was 15,000 points per night and we planned to stay 4 nights. We transferred 60,000 Chase points to Hyatt to book this room with points.
- Once you transfer your points to Hyatt & Southwest, you can simply go to their websites to book the hotel & flight.
Our only costs on this trip were transportation, activities & food (all of which we could've used points for but decided to save them for hotels/airfare, which are a better value).
Some of our activities included:
- Carriage rides through the historic district
- Walking tour of some of the older homes (Rainbow Row - see pic above)
- Walking along the coast near The Battery
- Shopping in the downtown area
- Walking through the Historic Charleston City Market
- Going on a plantation tour & learning about the history of the area
- Lots of great eating at local restaurants (first time trying shrimp & grits)
You can use any number of welcome bonuses from Chase cards to earn the points required to take a trip like this. Some of the best cards are:
- Chase Sapphire Preferred (for Chase UR points that can be transferred to Southwest & Hyatt)
- Chase Ink Business Preferred (for Chase UR points that can be transferred to Southwest & Hyatt)
- Southwest Rapid Rewards card (for Southwest only points)
- World of Hyatt card (for Hyatt only points)
*Note: If you click the links above to apply for the cards, it will give me extra reward points for referring you. Then you can turn around & refer your friends for extra points as well.
Happy Travels!
