How We Booked a 4-Day All-Inclusive Cancun Vacation Using Points and Miles

We recently spent four sunny, soul-refreshing days in Cancun as a family of four and the best part was we booked almost the entire trip using points and miles!

Here’s how we did it, plus a full cost breakdown so you can start planning your own points-funded escape.

Flights: Southwest for the Win

We booked four roundtrip nonstop flights from Nashville to Cancun using Southwest points and our Companion Passes for the kids.

• 22,196 Rapid Rewards points plus $209.78 in taxes and fees (for 2 adult tickets)
• Companion Passes for the kids: $209.78 in taxes and fees
• Total flight cost: $419.56

We earned these points by opening one Southwest personal card and one Southwest business card. This gave us over 130,000 points and a Companion Pass that’s valid through next year.

Want to learn how to earn the Companion Pass yourself? Here’s a breakdown of how the Companion Pass works and what Chase’s 5/24 rule means for your application timeline.

Resort: Hyatt Ziva Cancun All-Inclusive

We booked three nights at Hyatt Ziva Cancun using 83,000 World of Hyatt points. It’s an all-inclusive beachfront resort that covers lodging, food, drinks, and activities for two people.

Since we were traveling with our kids, we had two options:

• Book a second room, which would double the number of points needed
• Add the kids to our existing room for $110 per child, per night

We chose to pay the cash rate for the kids, which kept our points total low and brought our out-of-pocket cost to $660.

Want to see how we used Hyatt points for another beach trip? Here’s our Playa del Carmen trip breakdown.

How We Booked and Got an Upgrade

We booked the room online for two adults, then called Hyatt to add the kids at the reduced child rate. A few days before the trip, I emailed the hotel to ask about a complimentary upgrade.

They had availability and moved us into an oceanfront room. We were even greeted with a welcome gift at check-in!

If you’re curious about how to request a complimentary hotel upgrade, check out my guide: How To Get A Complimentary Hotel Upgrade. It includes the exact email template I use to make these requests.

How We Earned the Points

Adam and I used a two-player strategy. Here’s what that looked like:

For Flights:

• Southwest Performance Business Card (80,000-point bonus)
• Southwest Personal Card (50,000-point bonus)
• Total: 136,000 Rapid Rewards points plus Companion Pass

For Hotel:

• Two Ultimate Rewards earning cards
• One of us referred the other, which added an extra 10,000-point referral bonus
• Points were transferred to Hyatt after linking our accounts

If you’re not sure what to open first, or how to play in two-player mode without getting overwhelmed, start here: Credit Card Application Rules by Bank

What This Trip Would Have Cost

If we had paid cash, here’s what we would’ve spent:

• Flights: $2,146.28
• Hotel: $2,688.00
• Total: $4,834.28

What we actually paid: 105,196 points and $419.56 in taxes and fees. It was the perfect midwinter getaway, made even better by the fact that we didn’t drain our bank account to take it.