While the pins in our map are starting to add up, there are still quite a few places on our “up next” list:
- Scandinavia
- Dominican Republic
- Much of Africa
- Israel/Jordan/Egypt
- Portugal
- Brazil & Columbia
Some of these aren’t currently a reality due to Geo-political reasons. Others would be better to do when the kids are older (hiking Kili & going on a safari, for example). And after a winter in Minnesota, the spring break travel requires a place with warmth.
Our go-to hotels to search for is typically within Hyatt footprint. With the kids, the ability to confirm a Suite Upgrade for a week is fairly important. While Hyatt ended it’s relationship with SLH in the later part of 2024, when booking this trip in 2023, there was no indication of the coming split. After having a couple amazing trips to Calala Island, we focused on other SLH properties. One in particular caught our eye: Nanuku Resort in Fiji. The accommodations looked great. It checked the warm weather box. We hadn’t been there before. And, amazingly, one of the highlights of the resort is a complimentary dedicated “Buddy” (i.e babysitter) for each kid aged 8 and below. As NSPpeanut is 8 and NSPpeanutToo is 4, could this mean that NSPwife and I might have the chance at a truly relaxing vacation?
Rooms were 25,000 Hyatt points per night. A pretty easy feat…NSPwife and I each signed up for Chase Ink cards in 2023, netting 240,000 Chase points (2 x 100K sign-up bonuses + 40K referral bonus). That meant 7 nights at Nanuku totaled only 175,000 points…leaving a good balance for other trips. One question was how to get to Fiji. Interestingly, only one airline flies to Fiji from North America: Fiji Airways. As a quasi-member of Oneworld, you can book that trip via Oneworld partners, or Alaska Airlines. Unfortunately our Alaska balance wasn’t enough to secure 4 round-trips…and we have been working towards a bank of AK miles to get to South America in style. Instead, we transferred Citi ThankYou points to Cathay Pacific, and booked 4 economy (ahhh!!!) tickets for a total of 320,000 points. The hope was that Business Class seats would occasionally pop up, and we could secure them over the 9 months between our booking and our flight departing. Taxes and fees were charged differently for kids than adults, and the total came out to $200.32.
We also had to deal with positioning flights from MSP to LAX and back. Sadly, it cost almost as many Skypesos to fly the 3 hours than it did the 11 hours to Fiji (stupid MSP Delta Cabal)!
- MSP > LAX: 16,100 Delta Miles + $5.60 per person
- LAX > MSP: 26,700 Delta Miles + $5.60 per person
For those keeping score, the total redemption cost:
- 175,000 Ultimate Rewards
- 320,000 Citi Thank You points
- 171,200 Delta Skymiles
- $245.12 Cash
Cash rates for the hotel averaged just under $500/night, and the flight round-trip was about $1,100 for the same fare-class. The positioning flights were well over $600 per flight. For the trip, that equates to $3,500 for the hotel and $6,800 for flights, totaling $10,300.
There were a couple other housekeeping items we had to take care of. The first was the shoulder-nights we booked hotel rooms for, just for convenience. We had a 12-hour layover in Los Angeles on the way to Fiji, so we booked the Hyatt Regency LAX with a free category 1-4 certificate. It not only provided a great hotel shuttle, but was also a $9 Uber fare from National Rental Car, where we rented a car for the day to show the girls some parts of L.A.. We also decided to book a room at a hotel near the airport on our final day in Fiji. That would allow us to check-out from Nanuku, take the 2.5-hour drive, and then swim and relax all day, and take a shower right before the 9:40pm flight departed. We opted for the Crowne Plaza hotel due to having a free night from the IGH credit card expiring two weeks later. That’s effectively a $99 night (the annual fee for the Chase card). We opted to use a 3rd party for airport transportation. The trip from Nadi Airport to Nanuku was roughly a 2.5 hour drive. We used Xplore Fiji, which was great.
The scene was set. And we were ready to embark on the 29.5-hour journey to get to our final destination.
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