As some of you may know, depending on your honeymoon searches or traveling on your own, flights to Mexico have recently increased dramatically, and will probably stay this way.
A flight from Chicago to Cabo San Lucas is currently $710. This hurts my soul, as we spent just over $800 to go to Poland. But we accepted our loss, realized its completely out of our control, and started searching for ways to get the best possible deal we could.
First, we contacted American Airlines (1 of 2 airlines that flies direct to Cabo from Chicago) and got a discount rate of 5%. Not huge, but not bad in the big scheme of things.
Next up, we scouted out our best credit card with the best rewards. Oddly enough, this happened to be tied between our Costco American Express and my personal American Express card. This is another post for another day, but I sort of kind of maybe totally love Costco. So one random Thursday we were walking through, buying too much of things we probably didn't need in the first place, and I came across AA gift cards. You purchase them for $270 and they are worth $300. This, my friends, was awesome. They also never expire, so it wasn't something that had to be purchased with worry I wouldn't travel soon enough.
We ended up purchasing 9 cards for our 4 tickets. Between our discount code and our gift cards, we saved $388. Sure, it seems tiny, but when all the expenses were adding up like crazy, and I was desperate for good news, this was a lifesaver and saved me another night of wine and HIMYM. I've passed on the details to my guests, and I hope they find SOME excitement in this little savings! We also ended up get 2% cash back on our giftcard purchase, which was $48.60. So all in all, $436.60 which we can now spend on something else...like avocados by the bushel at Costco!
I probably wouldn't advocate getting a Costco membership JUST to purchase these, but if you already have one I would check it out. Not all the stores carry these specific gift cards, so it warrants a phone call before you start trekking around the world looking for them. Check out their other gift cards when you're there - we're probably going to pick up some restaurant ones next time we stop by!
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