It started innocently enough: “Keith invites you to the Facebook group Costa Rica Vacation.” Intrigued I clicked into this group some of my friends had started and saw what they had planned. A huge 8 bedroom house with a chef that sleeps 18 in Quepos, Costa Rica in the rain forest but near the beach. The best part was since there were so many people interested, the cost would only be around $200 a person for the whole week!
But how much would it cost me to fly there? If you read my article TWM, Take Me Away to Costa Rica for Free then you know that from Miami redeeming 15,000 British Airways miles for American Airlines flights is the best option. I checked over the dates I was looking at and found tons of award availability over the 3 non stop flights each day.
I transferred 15,000 points that I earned by Spending Money without Spending Money with my Chase Ink Bold card (which now has a 60,000 point sign on bonus.) You could also use miles you get from the 40,000 point Chase Sapphire Preferred or the 50,000 Avios Chase British Airways card. The transfer processed instantly and then I was able to book my trip for just 15,000 British Airways Avios and $45!
I did a quick comparison for the exact same flights if I paid cash with American Airlines and came up with $545! 
This gives me a savings of exactly $500 and value of over 3.3 cents per point which is great! My total out of pocket cost for this trip including lodging and airfare is about $250 right now. To that I will just have add on groceries and any excursions such as canopy ziplining or ATVing or hiking a volcano! 🙂 I’m pretty sure even when everything is factored in, it will be cheaper than Miami would have been for the week! Having the frequent flyer miles for the flights is definitely what made this trip possible for me.
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