Using Miles and Points on Epic Trip to Australia (with a 16-month old!)

This is a guest post, written by Amy who blogs at MorePointsPlease.  Enjoy!

17 days

7 cities

8 hotels

6 ferries

2 rental cars

467,487 miles redeemed

1 visit to urgent care

…and 2 epic shipwreck dives

Some may look at our schedule and think, that sounds like a bit much. But when you travel half way around the world and only have 2.5 weeks before you have to get back to your day job, you fit in what you can.

We hadn’t gone on a real adventure in quite some time. Before we became pregnant with our son, my husband and I rented out our home and traveled the world for 8 months. While pregnant, we didn’t travel much, but we were slowly accruing miles and points through credit card sign-up bonuses, which is how we ended up with almost half a million miles to burn in one vacation.

It was well worth it.

Not only did we save $8,439 off the sticker price, but we also had one of the best vacations in recent memory, complete with shipwreck dives, 4x4ing on the beach at 65mph, relaxing at Sydney’s iconic beaches, hiking, and digging our toes into the world’s best white sand beach (Whitehaven, pictured above).

Itinerary in a nutshell- Sydney and the East Coast of Australia

 Sydney – 3 nights (Good food and lots to see, including a day trip to the Blue Mountains.)

Alva Beach – 2 nights to dive the S.S. Yongala

Arlie Beach – 1 night (Great sunset over the harbor.)

Hamilton Island – 5 nights (Think mini walkable Hawaiian Island.)

Agnes Water – 2 nights (An easy jumping off point to snorkel with Manta Rays on the Southern Great Barrier Reef.)

Fraser Island – 2 nights (Nature hikes, beach, and 4×4 exploring.)

Sydney – 1 night

Why is Australia a perfect destination for families?

 

• The exchange rate! Today, $100 Australian is only $71USD.  Woot! Basically, give yourself almost a 30% discount on prices listed in Australian dollars.

• Such an easy country to travel to and within. English speaking, which is a huge plus for us.

• If you’re still adding to your family, no Zika.

• So many activities to do!

• And as an added bonus, Australia loves kids. Lots of friendly faces.

So, what did we do right while travelling with a little one? 

 

• LAX-SYDNEY:  Virgin Australia was amazing. As a birthday gift, we upgraded to Economy X (basically, their version of Main Cabin Extra). It was totally worth it for the extra legroom. It was only $120 U.S. per ticket. For a 15 hour flight.

• We bought our son a ticket with miles. How was I going to hold him for 15 hours?! Or watch a movie? This seemed crazy to me. Getting him a seat was one of the best decisions we made. Note, some may be deterred by a 15 hour flight, but our son was a sleeping machine in his car seat. If you don’t have the miles for a seat, or can’t swing the cost out of pocket, make sure you book a seat in front of a bassinet.

• While some may depend on an iPad or seatback entertainment for their kids, a 16 month old just isn’t that interested. At least mine wasn’t. So I brought a small bag of new toys for the trip and slowly introduced a new one every few hours. That, and a bag of Ritz, and we had ourselves a model traveler.

• 3 nights at the Park Hyatt Sydney. I loved this place. While three nights may seem excessive, I knew we would be arriving very early in the morning, that we would be jetlagged, and that we would need a nice place to rest. It was amazing! The bed was so comfortable. So spacious. They let us check in at 8 in the morning! Incredible views of the Opera House. Close to everything. Also, even though it’s an expensive hotel, it’s surrounded by lots of food options (unlike a beach resort where you are a bit stranded).

• Shoulder season travel. We always try to travel during shoulder season. Why? Fewer crowds, cheaper flights and hotels, combined with pretty great weather is a win-win. Australia’s shoulder seasons: September through November and March to May. We traveled from about the last week in September through the first week in October. Highly recommend. Amazing weather and reasonable crowds.

• Flu vaccines.  Luckily, our doctor’s office received their flu vaccines before we left. Yes, different areas have different strains of the flu, but it was the one recommendation our doctor made before we flew to Australia with our then 16-month-old.

How to pack light with a toddler

As mentioned above, we traveled around a lot. So, what did we bring?

1 10lb car seat-You can find the Cosco Scenera Next for a very reasonable price. Up to 40lbs and 40inches. Much easier than lugging around a full-size car seat.

• 1 10lb stroller-We used the Zoe stroller. Loved that thing on our trip. So compact. So lightweight. Granted, it’s not heavy duty, so depending on the size of your kid, you may want something more sturdy.

• 1 piece of luggage for three people (weighing less than 50lbs). How did we do that?  REI stuff sacks. Your clothes will get wrinkled, but it saves lots of space. This may seem tough for 2.5 weeks, but on our 8 month backpacking adventure we got used to doing laundry on the road. It was pretty easy in Australia. We were able to do laundry in Alva (where we dove) and on Hamilton Island. Laundry was on-site at both accommodations.

• 2 small backpacks for the plane and day trips

• Everyone got one swimsuit.

Itinerary highlights:

 

• Hamilton Island: Loved it!

We stayed at the Whitsunday Apartments on Hamilton Island. Amazing! It’s usually too pricey for us to stay in a true one-bedroom with an ocean view, a full kitchen, living room, and balcony. In fact, it’s always too pricey. But, taking into account the exchange rate, and the fact that we booked it through Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, 5 nights set us back less than 100,000 points. We went for it.

Aside from the amazing accommodations, why do I recommend it? This place is great for families. Tours, tours and more tours! You can scuba, you can snorkel, you can visit the world’s best beach at Whitehaven. On Hamilton Island you can even golf. That’s right, they have a golf course.

Oh, and if you don’t enjoy the ocean view pool at your place (although we did), there are several ocean view pools open to everyone. Also, for those traveling with little ones, there is a daycare on site. Woot! You can take a boat out to scuba dive while your little ones stay behind.

• Fraser Island was amazing. We stayed for two nights, but I recommend three, so you can fit in whale watching and a 4×4 tour. We arrived on the afternoon ferry, checked into our room and immediately went to the car rental place so we could watch the required safety video. This is key so you don’t have to watch the video the day of your rental. They have automatic, but you have to request it when you make your reservation.

We had an early flight out on our second morning, so we had to take the first ferry out. If not, we might have been able to fit in a whale watching tour. We didn’t think it was a big deal to skip whale watching because we’ve been whale watching many times in Sri Lanka, Iceland, and we’ve even seen blue whales in California.

However, everyone we spoke to that did the whale watching said it was awesome. So try to fit it in if you can. Again, you might be able to do it if you stay two nights, depending on which ferry you have to catch.

• For scuba divers:

You’ve gotta check out the S.S. Yongala shipwreck dive, teeming with fish life, groupers the size of small cars and massive rays.

Keeping it real

I will say this, at about the two-week mark, our son was beginning to tire of all the change and was ready to get back to his routine. As for me, the entire flight back I just kept thinking, how are we going to get back here? This place is amazing! As many of you may have noticed, there have been some crazy cheap fares to Australia lately. If you have any questions about any of our excursions or traveling with a little one, please reach out to me at my blog MorePointsPlease. 

Also, if you want to see which miles we redeemed and how, please check out my other posts on Australia.

Happy Traveling!

Disclosure: This post may contain author’s Amazon affiliate links.