We just returned from the best family trip to Maui! Mitch and I have been to Maui twice without the kids so we thought we’d take them this time. This was a first for us, we have never taken the kids (besides taking my oldest when he was 1 year old) and it went better than I could have expected. I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous about taking my family of 6 with 4 boys ranging in age from 9 years-8 months. Thanks to low expectations (the key to happiness, lol), the perfect resort, and having my parents with us, we had an amazing trip! The best part about it was that we did this Maui vacation on points and paid just $55 total for our flights and hotel. Let’s go over how we did that.

 

Flights to Maui

To get started with our family trip to Maui on points, we had to book our flights! We booked our flights to Maui with Southwest Rapid Rewards. We earned these points when my husband signed up for both the Southwest Plus card and the Southwest Business Performance card. 

The Southwest Companion Pass is my favorite! Once you earn 135,000 points in one calendar year, you earn the pass which allows someone to fly with you for free for the rest of the year in which you earned the pass and all of the next! Because my husband had earned the pass, my flight to Hawaii cost zero points and just around $11 in taxes and fees.

We had to purchase 4 flights, one for Mitch (my husband) and three for our older boys. The baby was free since he was under two and mine was free because of the companion pass. The cost per roundtrip flight at the time was 34,000 points (I’ve seen them for more and for less). This was from Salt Lake City. In total, we had to use 136,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards.

 

Hotel in Maui

In the flight section above I said that our flights were $55. Our hotel stay was zero dollars! Well actually, I think we had a $5 tax, but that is it! We did pay a large chunk of points, but that was earned through signup bonuses and everyday purchases that I had to make.

For our Maui vacation on points, we stayed at the Hyatt Residence Club Maui. We stayed in a 2 bedroom unit which cost us 48,000 points a night. We stayed for 6 nights so the grand total was 288,000 Hyatt points. Mitch had 56,000 Hyatt points already. We transferred 232,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt to make up the difference and then booked directly with Hyatt.

 

Hyatt Residence Club Maui

Like I said before, part of our Maui vacation on points was so great because of the resort. The location was amazing! The resort is located right on Kaanapali Beach. We were able to snorkel right there and saw so many turtles and fish! The kids loved playing in the waves too. This was so great for us because we didn’t have to load up and head out in the car very often. We simply took the elevator down, walked a few steps, and we were at the beach! This was so nice with having the baby. Plus, whenever we get into the car, my kids love to fight, so spending less time in there was wonderful! lol.

 

The resort is also a short walk to Whaler’s Village, where we ate out and did a little shopping. Ululani’s Shave Ice is located around the corner from the resort, which is our favorite shave ice place on the island.

 

The condo unit was perfect. It had two bedrooms, so my parents got their own room too. The baby slept with us, my 5-year-old slept with my parents on a little pull-out sofa bed, and my other two slept in the living room on the pull-out sofa. There were also two bathrooms, a full kitchen, and a washer and dryer. My favorite thing about this place, though, was probably the view! It had the most incredible ocean view.

 

There are many pools here to enjoy, and we definitely did enjoy them! There is a splash pad area and shallower pool, a slide for the kids, a couple of other pools, and an adults-only infinity pool. What’s really great is that guests here can also use the pools over at the Hyatt Regency, which is right next door. The kid’s pool area over there was really fun, and it had a bigger and faster slide.

 

I would, without a doubt, stay here again! We’ll be back again someday!

 

How to Get the Points for a Maui Vacation

 

Flights

To get the points for the flights, you may want to get the Southwest Companion Pass and earn a bunch of Southwest Rapid Rewards through their credit cards. If you don’t want to go for the whole companion pass, still click on the link above, and you can learn about all the Southwest credit cards. I feel like Southwest is such a family-friendly airline, and their points can go really far. They also have the Companion Pass….it’s tough to beat that, in my opinion. There are many ways to fly to Hawaii on points, though, so if Southwest isn’t your thing, there are plenty of other options.

 

Hotel

Getting the hotel points for your Maui vacation for the whole family is a little more work. I went big here with the 2-bedroom unit. We could have spent just 30,000 points a night and got a 1 bedroom unit (but we wouldn’t have been able to bring my parents). If it was just Mitch and me without the kids, we would have stayed next door at the Hyatt Regency, which is a gorgeous hotel for 25,000 points a night.

I tell you this so you know that you can do this trip for fewer points if you would like. As you can see, the more people you bring along, the more points you’ll have to spend, which is why we haven’t brought the kids to Hawaii until now lol. Although it’s a lot of points, you can do this! I actually got the idea of doing this trip from one of our readers!

 

If you want to duplicate this trip, the World of Hyatt Card is a good card to get. Both Mitch and I have one. Whenever you get this card, I recommend referring your spouse or partner to this card as well so you can get a referral bonus and the bonus twice. I like Chase Ultimate Rewards cards even more than the World of Hyatt card. 

You can get many points for your hotel stay by opening Chase Ultimate Reward cards. These include Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Ink Business Preferred, Ink Business Cash, Ink Business Unlimited, Freedom Flex, and Freedom Unlimited. You can’t hold the Sapphire Preferred and Reserve at the same time, but you can hold one of those along with all the others. That is a lot of Ultimate Rewards up for grabs! Refer your spouse, friends, and family to these cards, and you can really earn even more!

If you want to learn more about these points, get our Ultimate Guide to Ultimate Rewards… it’s free!

 

Bottom Line

Flights and hotel for this trip would have cost me about $10,000. Thanks to credit card points and miles, I could take a Maui vacation on points for just $55! Do you want to learn to take a trip like this but are still a little overwhelmed with where to start?