Montego Bay Jamaica On A Budget

Montego Bay, Jamaica: known for being a tourist paradise located less than an hour and 40 minutes from Miami International. I never thought I would get here, but I did, thanks to points, miles, and taking advantage of various promotions. We try to break down how we managed to go to this wonderful place without spending a ton of money, and we’ll show you exactly how we did it so you can replicate it! Sounds good? Great. Let’s get started.

The Background: Every February is Peter’s birthday month. I work in the financial services industry, wherein the first two weeks of the month are busy and the last two weeks are basically for taking vacations and other whatnots. This trip started as a challenge. Peter and I have never been in an all-inclusive resort as the charges are a bit above our normal budget. When Peter asked if I can do this vacation for cheap, I answered: “Of course I can!”

Here’s our expenses with our activities all lined up in a shiny little table:

[table id=5 /]

Here’s how you can do it too:

Note: we do not have affiliate links, we are just sharing how we did our trip and which cards we used

1. Barclaycard Arrival+: a great cash back card that you can use to reimburse yourself for ‘travel’ expenses
2. Chase Hyatt: gives you 2 free hotel nights anywhere in the world if you spend $2k in 3 mos. Any spend in the card gives you Hyatt points which you can use for future ‘free’ hotel stays as well.
3. Chase British Airways/AMEX Everyday/Chase Sapphire Preferred: these cards give you British Airways Avios, which is perfect for short haul flights that are otherwise expensive to pay for in cash.

So, all it takes is a cash back card, a hotel card with a great bonus, a card that earns British Airways points, and a few promotions to replicate our trip.

With credit card points, we can travel so much more for less. It enables us to stay in these luxurious properties we wouldn’t otherwise spend on!

And thus, we hope you can replicate our $520 Jamaican trip. It was a blast! A budget blast!

Notes: We could have done the trip even cheaper than $520 if Ruby wouldn’t have needed a visa (that would have saved an extra $100+!), but it is what it is! And we know how a blog would sound like if we made the trip under $500, but we only went $20 over!