How IHG points can save you nearly $2,000 a night at one of Grand Cayman’s best resorts

The winters in New England can be brutal, and even though I love hitting the slopes, a relaxing vacation in the sunshine is a must over my kid’s winter break. Unfortunately though, that time of year is incredibly popular, requiring families to open their wallets quite wide to afford a vacation. But, with points and miles, my family will be heading to the Caribbean this winter at a minimal cost.

We’ve explored Aruba and Cancun in years past. And while I absolutely love both beach communities, we were looking for something new. When planning this upcoming trip, I was pretty location agnostic, with the main criteria being that I wanted to use hotel points at a beautiful resort right on the ocean.

Ultimately we landed on the Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa in Grand Cayman. During the expensive holiday break, this property is going for more than $2,000 per night — an absolutely ridiculous amount for a standard hotel room!

If we were to pay the lowest cash rate for this trip, the total cost of our six-night hotel with taxes and fees would be a jaw-dropping $17,914. But of course we aren’t paying anything close to that price. With IHG points readily available, I was able to book six nights in this amazing hotel for just $480 in resort fees.

How did we do it? And how can you accrue the necessary travel rewards to recreate a similar vacation? Here’s everything you need to know.

Booking a resort in Grand Cayman with IHG points

Built less than 10 years ago, the Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa is one of the nicest resorts on the island. Overlooking the famous Seven Mile Beach, the resort offers two seaside pools, activities for both adults and kids, water sports, a kids’ club, fitness classes and an 8,500-square-foot spa.

As previously mentioned, this property wouldn’t be a feasible vacation for my family if we actually had to pay the going rate. Fortunately, since Kimpton is a brand under the IHG Hotels & Resorts umbrella, I was able to use my IHG One Rewards points for our six-night stay. And even though IHG no longer follows a fixed an award chart, this particular property maintains a consist points pricing 365 days a year. So regardless of the time of year, the Kimpton Seafire Resort+ Spa costs the same 70,000 points per night — a steal during prime vacation time.

But by being an IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card holder, I was able to even score a better deal.

Free night certificate annually

One of the benefits of the IHG Rewards Premier card is an annual free night certificate, capped at 40,000 points. Even though the Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa costs more than the cap, the IHG One Rewards program allows you to pay the difference in points when using the certificate.

For example, when using the certificate at this particular property, it would cost just an extra 30,000 points per night. Since both my husband and I have had this card for years, we both were able to redeem our free night certificate at this property to cover two of the six nights, plus 60,000 points in total.

With the IHG Rewards Premier card costing just $99 per year, the free night certificate alone outweighs the cost, and then you still receive many other benefits of being a cardmember. In fact, this is one of my favorite credit cards to have in my wallet simply because of its ongoing benefits.

Staying on points, fourth night is free

A second IHG Rewards Premier card benefit is that when redeeming IHG points for a free night stay, you’ll receive your fourth night free. So for the remaining four nights of my six-night stay, I redeemed just 210,000 points. This saved me 70,000 IHG points, which I value at $350. This is a significant savings just for being a cardmember.

To add to the savings, I also have an old IHG credit card (the IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card, which is no longer available to new applicants), which offers a 10% rebate on the points booked. This means I’ll get 21,000 IHG points back after my stay, bringing my total points redeemed down to 189,000 points.

All information about the IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card has been collected independently by CNN. The IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card is not available through CNN.

How you can earn IHG points

Fortunately, IHG offers three different credit cards to rack up points. And while you can’t have have two personal IHG cards open at the same time, you can open both a personal and business card.

With both the IHG Rewards Premier card and the IHG Rewards Premier Business card, you’ll not only earn a slew of points to jump-start your next vacation, you’ll also earn an annual free night certificate starting with your first cardmember anniversary (which means after you’ve had the card for a year). And while the IHG Rewards Traveler card doesn’t offer the same annual free night certificate, all three cards come with the fourth night free benefit.

With everyday spend and various hotel bonuses, you can continue to rack up the number of points needed for your next vacation. If you’re still shy the number of IHG points required, there are many times throughout the year when you can purchase IHG One Rewards points with up to a 100% bonus. During this promotional offer, you’re essentially purchasing points for as low as 0.5 cents apiece.

This has the potential to be a great deal. For example, a hotel night that costs 70,000 points per night would cost $350 if you were to purchase the points required during one of these promotions. Even when you factor in the Kimpton Seafire’s $80 per night resort fee, this is still an excellent deal compared to paying a cash rate.

Booking award flights to and from Grand Cayman

Of course no trip would be complete without flights to and from the destination. And similar to hotel pricing, airfare isn’t too consumer-friendly either during this peak time of year.

For our flight from Boston to Grand Cayman, I currently have an American Airlines flight booked for 35,000 AAdvantage miles per passenger. This is more miles than I’d like to spend, but fortunately with American’s flexible cancellation policy, I can cancel my flight for no fee if a better option pops up. The miles will go back into my account and the taxes/fees paid will go back to my credit card.

For the return flight, I also booked a flight on American Airlines, but for this flight, the cost was just 10,000 AAdvantage miles per passenger — a great redemption during this popular holiday vacation week. However, I made sure to book this flight under a separate itinerary from my departing flight. This is because, if I booked as a roundtrip and ultimately ended up cancelling my departure flight, my return flight would be cancelled as well. By booking two one-way itineraries, I can cancel or change each flight without affecting the other.

In total, my current flight situation is costing my family of four a total of 180,000 AAdvantage miles, plus $385.32 in taxes and fees. Without American Airlines miles in my back pocket, our roundtrip flight would have cost $819 per person (a total of $3,276 for my family).

How to earn American Airlines miles

One of the easiest — and quickest — ways to earn American Airline miles is through their co-branded credit card. And fortunately, there are a handful of options, allowing you to apply for the card that works best for your needs. Here are a few of our favorites:

Or, with the Bilt Mastercard®, you can transfer points earned at a 1:1 ratio to American Airlines. This card doesn’t have a welcome offer, but it’s the only card that earns points on rent (up to 100,000 points per calendar year). If you’re a renter, it’s easy to use the Bilt Mastercard to earn points on one of your largest monthly expenses.

You can then earn American Airlines miles on car rentals, hotel bookings, cruises and vacation packages; one of my favorite ways to earn miles is with the airline’s shopping portal and dining program. These are two easy ways to rack up American miles on purchases you’re making anyway.

Bottom line

For just 210,000 IHG One Rewards points and 180,000 AAdvantage miles total (plus $865.32 in hotel resort fees and airline taxes), I was able to score round-trip flights for four, plus a six-night stay in an ocean view room in the beautiful island of Grand Cayman.

Without points and miles at my disposal, this vacation would cost a whopping $21,190. While this is an extreme number due to the incredibly high price point of the Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa during the holiday time, this still shows the value in points and miles.

Learn more about the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card.
Learn more about the IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card.
Learn more about the IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card.

Check out CNN Underscored’s guide to the best travel credit cards currently available.