Capital One Venture X helped me save big on my Alaska Cruise

Capital One

Thanks to points and miles and a fantastic casino deal, I am heading to Alaska. I love traveling the world for free and cheap. Here is how I used my strategies to score an amazing deal on a Princess Cruise to Alaska.

My husband recently got the Capital One Venture X card. With tuition and life expenses, we quickly reached the sign-up bonus of 75,000 points. This, plus the 2% back on the 4000+ I spent to get the sign-up bonus, amounted to 83,498 points.

Earlier this week, I booked a casino cruise deal to Alaska for me and my 16-year-old for next summer. I used a casino deal I got from Princess Cruises. I just had to pay taxes and port fees, plus a $200 deposit per person. This ended up being $1160 for an interior cabin on the Royal Princess that goes to Glacier Bay National Park (my dream!!!) I had until the end of the month to book this cruise with payment to receive the deal. I also just paid for our Greek Isles Cruise this month, which was also a casino deal, but this all adds up. So I devised a plan to book the Alaskan cruise on the Capital One Venture X card and then reimburse myself via travel purchases.

My whole goal in my points journey is to do what I want for free or cheap. A lot of people want to get the most bang out of their points, and I do try to maximize how I use my points. For example, I did pay for my son’s plane ticket to Glacier National Park next month instead of using points. I knew I wanted the points towards European flights rather than Montana flights.

As for the Capital One points, I had no plans for them, and if this makes it where I get to go on my dream trip, then I say “Do it!” after the charges for my cruise hit. I went to the Capital One website and looked at my points. There was an option for me to cover travel purchases. When I selected that my travel purchases showed up, including my Princess Cruise. The cruise cost more than the points I had available, but I managed to use all 83,498 points in my account to deduct $834.98 from the cruise cost.

I am currently waiting for Southwest to list their tickets for next summer to get our flights which should be free (I’ll make it happen). If that doesn’t work I do have quite a few Amex Rewards points that I can use as a backup plan for free flights. I have already booked a Hyatt in Seattle for the night before the cruise on points.

Learn more about how I use Points and Miles to travel. I share all my strategies with you and hopefully inspire you to start your journey!

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