I saved over $1,900 on my family trip to Orlando using credit card points. These are the hacks I used.

Our six-day Orlando family vacation cost around $8,620, encompassing airfare, lodging, theme park tickets, transportation, meals, and miscellaneous expenses. Recognizing the cost, I sought to offset some expenses using credit card rewards. After diligent research, we determined that timing our credit card applications could maximize welcome bonuses.

Each of us secured the welcome bonus for the Capital One Venture Rewards card, earning 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 within the first three months. This amounted to a $750 redemption value. To boost our rewards, my husband and I referred each other for additional cards, securing a further 20,000 miles as a referral bonus, valued at $200.

Through strategic credit card use for everyday expenses, we amassed enough rewards to cover $1,920.75 of our Orlando trip costs before arriving in Florida. We allocated all charges to the credit cards, meeting the $4,000 minimum spend within three months to meet the welcome bonus criteria. The charges included travel expenses, valued as eligible for redemption.

A key insight was the coding of merchant categories, as Disney theme park tickets were coded as entertainment and ineligible for redemption. However, we had ample eligible expenses to cover, using the Venture miles for two significant costs: $1,451 in Frontier airfare and $4,948 for hotel stays and theme park tickets. Beyond the welcome bonuses, the Venture card provided further savings by reimbursing TSA PreCheck application fees, worth $153.50.

This strategy, while involving annual fees, proved highly beneficial, reducing our out-of-pocket costs by $1,920.75 for our family trip to Orlando.