This is our fourth trip to Hawaii, and the one where we brought the most number of people: the Savemycents (mom, dad, BB – our 4 yr old, DD – our 1 yr old), and my husband’s two parents. We spent 8 days and 7 nights in Oahu, Hawaii. See how we paid just around $3,800 of our own cash and subsidized the rest using travel hacking to achieve this incredible trip. The style of this trip was – save on the accommodations, flights, and car, but don’t keep a strict budget for food and activities.
The retail value of this trip if you did not use any points / miles / loyalty statuses to defray the cost, would be close to $10,000
All numbers are for 6 occupancy / 4 adults and 2 kids in USD.
If you want to get per-person numbers, you can divide the flight and food costs by 6, but it would not apply to room or car. At the end of the blog post it is also summarized by top category (✈️flight, 🏠vacation rental, 🚗ground transport, 🍚 for food, 🏖️for activities, and 🛒for grocery/miscellaneous).
Spending that covered all 8 days:
🏠Vacation rental
$1590 paid for 7 nights. Retail value: at least $5,000
A friend of a friend was happy to rent us the downstairs floor of her place which is a vacation rental, just not something marketed publicly as it is for ohana and good friends. We call this connection the 🥥 wireless and this is not a deal I can share publicly. This rental also provided us with fresh eggs, milk, cereal, a pineapple, bananas, and other local snacks. To even get a deal like this with an Airbnb that can house all of us, would likely be $5,000 or more, and hotels would start at $10,000 or more (because we’d use 2 rooms).
🚗Transportation
$245 for rental car (a Chrysler Pacifica) paid + $72 gas. Retail value: $617
Our Capital One Venture X covered $300 of rental car spending, so we ended up only paying $245 for a 7-day rental in Oahu, Hawaii.
Total spent for the two large items: $1,907
Retail value: $5,617+
Day 1: Los Angeles to Honolulu
🚗$150
We took an Uber XL from home to LAX – we tend to take Ubers instead of driving our car because 1) we don’t have a car that fits all 6 of us and 2) we don’t have to pay for parking at airport
✈️$26 paid, $1,200 total value
Turkish Airways, LAX to HNL
Per person: 6.2K Turkish miles + $4.33 taxes
Total: 37.5K Turkish miles + $26 taxes
Turkish Airways is part of the Star Alliance, which is the world’s oldest and largest airline alliance, so it’s very easy and flexible to use points to travel virtually anywhere in the world. These flights were in economy, one way, flown via United, and would have cost $1,200 retail. We transfer points via our credit cards to Turkish Airlines to make these bookings.
🍚$20
We got a little hungry and decided to splurge on some light airplane snacks.
💰Total spent this day: $196
💰Retail value of this day: $920
Day 2: North Shore day
🛒$130
We spent $120 at a local Safeway to pick up some groceries and other miscellaneous essentials. We made breakfast and half of dinners at home with what we bought. Breakfasts included cereal, waffles, fruit. Dinners were usually pasta. The we spent $10 at the Salvation Army because I forgot to pack books for the kids.
🍚$107
$11 at Matsumoto’s Shaved Ice for a sweet treat
$68 at No. 7 Japanese Food Truck
$28 for pies at Ted’s Bakery
🏖️$83 entrance fee to Dole Plantation + $15 for Dole Whips
This was one of the very family-friendly activities that we did in Oahu. The kids loved the Dole Whips.
💰Total spent this day: $335
Day 3: Beach day
🍚$209
$9 at Leonard’s Bakery for the famous malasadas
$86 at the Kahala Resort for the Seaside Grill
We had quite a variety of dinner options as everyone wanted something a little different – all of these are from Ala Moana except for Safeway:
$19 at Singmatei
$17 at Little Cafe Siam
$15 at Chick-fil-A
$63 at Safeway
🏖️$0 paid
Having lunch at the Kahala Hotel got us free parking for 4 hrs and the ability to use the public beach and their pools. Our vacation rental provided beach towels.
💰Total spent this day: $209
Day 4: Rainy day, meetup day
🍚 $191
$23 at Costco for guava cheesecake – which you can only find in Hawaii. It was huge! So we had it for dessert every day
$64 at Costco for snacks and coffee to take home
Hubby, BB, and I went to Ala Moana so I could meet up with some Save My Cents Fans. My in laws stayed at the Airbnb to watch DD. We spent…
$27 at Foodland Farms at the Ala Moana for fresh poke to take home
$44 at Tanaka Ramen & Izakaya at the Ala Moana
$17 at Tanaka Ramen & Izakaya at the Ala Moana again to grab takeout for dinner
$10 at Jejubing at the Ala Moana for shaved ice
$6 at Minamoto Kitchoan for a mochi treat
💰Total spent this day: $191
Day 5: Pearl Harbor, Waikiki
🏖️$162 for Pearl Harbor
This includes parking, entry fees for USS Missour for the men, the Aviation Museum for the women, and some gift shop shopping
🍚$65
We grabbed lunch at a food court in Waikiki, as well as a quick lunch at pearl harbor for the kids. My father in law wanted to see the inside of The Royal Hawaiian as decades ago a non-profit housed him there for a day when he was doing volunteer work in Hawaii.
💰Total spent this day: $227
Day 6: East side
On this day we visited the Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden (free) and the Valley of the Temples
🍚$63
$7 at Leonard’s Bakery again (just too good!)
$56 at Kizuna Japanese Restaurant for lunch
🏖️$10 paid for entrance fee at Byodo-In Temple (Valley of the Temples)
They were nice and didn’t charge my in-laws. I think it was because I was offering to pay for a woman in front of me who wasn’t sure if she had the right credit card.
🛒$7 paid
We had to make a miscellaneous purchase for some earplugs for BB (to help his ears feel less pressure) for our flight home.
💰Total spent this day: $80
Day 7: Beach Day for the family, staycation for Shang
I was so tired from being mom, cook, house cleaner, so I got a real vacation day off. I planned a fun day for everyone else to go out.
🏖️$108 for 3 adults, 1 child, Glass Bottom Boat Tour
We did the Glass Bottom Boat Tour which I got for 35% off using Groupon (I bought it the night before)
🍚$207
Everyone else went to Kahala Hotel again, so they spent $94 for lunch.
I paid $46 at Waioli Kitchen and Bake Shop to meet up with a coaching client
$5 for snacks
Hubby and I had a great date night for $152 at Sushi II – we’ve been here in 2020 and it’s still just as good as ever! Definitely get their hamachi collar
🛒$19
$15 at Safeway again to pick up a few more groceries
$4 for some wipes
💰Total spent this day: $334
Day 8: Oahu, Hawaii to Los Angeles
✈️$76 paid, $1,200 in value
On the way back, we used $600 in Bank of America travel credits to cover American Airlines gift cards that we had previously bought over time, which covered flights for myself and my husband, as well as a one way flight for DD (who had such a hard time being a lap infant on the way over, we decided to give ourselves a little more respite with an extra seat for him). For the row including myself, husband, and DD, we also upgraded to premium economy.
This hack works like this: Every year, Bank of America’s Premium Rewards card gives you $200 in travel incidental credits. It is meant to cover things like baggage fees, but we discovered that if you buy airline gift cards, you get the credit too! So we’ve been banking these between the two of us.
We used another 48K British Airways Avios for the one-way flights for my in laws and BB, plus a small amount in taxes. Altogether this one way was flown on American Airlines, and would cost about $1,200 retail.
🚗$106 paid + $20 gas
We booked a one way rental car in LAX to drive us back home (a Chrysler Pacifica as well). The next day as part of my normal driving, hubby and I were able to swing by John Wayne airport to return the car.
💰Total spent this day: $202
Trip totals by category:
✈️$101 cash paid, 37.5K Turkish miles, $600 in Bank of America travel incidental credits (to buy American Airline gift cards), 48K British Airways Avios
Retail value: $2,400
🏠$1590 cash paid, came with complimentary food and local snacks
Retail value: $5,000+
🚗$593 cash paid, $300 credit from Capital One Venture X card
Retail value: $893
🍚$862 cash paid
🛒$156 cash paid
🏖️$363 cash paid
Grand total: $3,665 spent, Retail value: $9,674
